Sociology of Gender

What is social science?
Mills: Sociological Imagination
To perceive personal troubles of milieu as “public issues of social structure”
“Quality of mind that will help them to use information and develop reason in order to achieve lucid summations of what is going on in the world and what may be happening within themselves”
Science as a way of knowing
Social science is the scientific study of society and social relations
Science is a method of inquiry, which appeared during the Enlightenment, and is based on a set of shared assumptions in community about appropriate principles
Ways of Knowing
Authority – someone in power says so
Tradition – how things always have been
Common Sense – it just makes sense
Media Myths – because the media said something
Personal Experience – biased view of life
Common Errors of Non-Scientific Ways of Knowing
Overgeneralization – extend findings beyond original data
Selective overgeneralization – seek out data that confirms beliefs
Premature Closure – Ignore data that discredits beliefs
Halo Effect – Status of author affects reception of research
Scientific Method: empiricism, statement, replicable, communicability, institutionalized skepticism (willingness for institution to say this is crap), potential to falsify claim
Sociology as a science
Sociology studies people
Since humans are qualitatively different (they think and learn, have awareness) – reason for debate about what sociology should look like

The Research Process in order to be able to gather truthful data, you need to limit the area of exploration to something specific.
1. topic – sociological nature; identify area of interest about the social world
2. research question – specific type of question you want to know about the social world = select type and focus through review of theory – within existing theory (state of knowledge about the topic to date) and how can we frame research question in such a way to think about that topic
3. design study – make choices of how to study and what to study
4. collect data – gather data from cases
5. analyze data – look for patters or meanings in data
6. interpret data – connect analysis to theory and specific question to find answers inform others – publish or present findings to other sociologists

Do a survey or study for research project - something of your own choosing
1. Select a Topic gender, race ethnicity, crime, mental health, sexuality, etc.

Selecting a topic to choosing a research question to whom are you speaking who are you working with? other academics? or medical professionals? audience and use of research basic - for others’ knowledge, only for benefit of state of knowledge - for other social sciences, usually published through conference and other scholarly journals applied - research that is gathered for the purpose of changing the world to make it a better place; generated for specific purposes and commissioned and paid for by someone with resources - intervene in the social world to change it, corporation, govt, non-profit evaluation - whether or not specific intervention (program) for some kind of intentional effort to change the world for a purpose; does program work as intended; widely used in large bureaucratic program - finding causality/correlation
YMCA of Boston to implement a new literacy program, found that it was effective - intended change actually happened action - the action of participants doing something & correlation/effects that it could have social impact - Social impact research intended to estimate the likelihood of a potential program’s success - purpose to estimate the likely process of change
Purpose of Research
Do you want to explore the social world? describe it? or explain it? exploratory research - something thats never been studied before become familiar with facts, get a preliminary sense of topic what happens when you are among the first to get data for this ex. senior citizens and twitter what kind of information might you want to gather frequency, number, population descriptive research detailed highly accurate picture using numbers, in the US, how many citizens are using twitter, think statistics, percentage of all twitter users, by location etc. patters of social behavior ex. minimize binge drinking among college students - student associations what they thought was going on
Explanatory research interested in clarifying cause and effect, test hypothesis, elaborate theory trying to explain variation in companies’ rates of worker safety, how much they pay people, worker turn over, etc gather large number of data, predict etc.
Overview
Audience (basic, applied)
Purpose (exploratory, descriptive, explanatory)

QUIZ (What is akin to what will be on the midterm)
Students in a number of secondary schools are interviewed about their drug use. Results of these surveys are matched against their school results to determine the effects of drug use on school performance. (Applied = Action, Explanatory) probably not basic because it has real world implications than just other sociologists
A sociologist conducts a survey of teenagers to provide a comprehensive picture of what they know about current events (Basic, Exploratory) gather some understanding of what kind of information teenagers know applied usually has a purpose
The federal govt is considering a new program to assist young unmarried women. A team of social scientists is hired to determine the potential consequences of the program (Applied = Social Impact, Explanatory) whats going on with unmarried women
Newspaper headline: “Sad, lonely world discovered in cyberspace.” exploratory because it is only observational

Correll, Shelley J. “Getting a Job: Is There a Motherhood penalty?” - What is the effect of motherhood on women’s employment outcomes

For Discussion:
What is the research question? What is the audience and the purpose of this question?
Is the a difference between the wages (salary) of a mother and those of other populations (female w/o children, males)
Purpose - Exploratory /Audience- Action
How did they gather data to answer the research question? past data, statistics, past studies, laboratory experiment (simulated study), audit studies (looked at call back rates)
What is the answer to the research question? all these indicators about how employers in laboratory setting, married women evaluated by students as less competent and committed than non-mothers, resulting in lower hiring and salary recommendations in audit study, actual employers did discriminate against mothers in terms of “call backs” existence of fatherhood premium
What questions/problems do you see was the recruiting manager a female or male

Lecture 9/18/12

Selecting a topic of study
Asking a question that employs the sociological imagination, not question about ethics or morals, accurate depiction of what is going on in the real world
Question must not be answerable with data but must address a gap in the knowledge via connection to theory
Research is motivated by our desire to contribute to sociological knowledge about the social world to social theory we have to decide how our research will relate to theory how we’ll locate what is sociological theory how do you relate theory and research

Sociological imagination makes him realize that he is not the only one that is not employed - explain as social phenomena - across places - higher in detroit and not san francisco a systematic and general attempt to explain somethingTheories provide frameworks for: asking research questions interpreting our data/information
Making claims about a complicated world - which things are you going to pull out the theory
Social Theory
Sociological belief that the social world is not random, we don’t have complete free will, there are theories of laws in place that as sociologists we want to hunt down with data
High Level Theory - focus on trying to explain how and why society is ordered
Mid-Range Theories - focus on trying to explain some general aspect of social behavior - gender, race, religion, class
Low-Level Theories - Focus on trying to explain a specific aspect of social behavior - rules and laws of everyday behavior
Parts of a Theory
Assumptions
statements about the nature of things that are not testable or observable
One’s class affects one’s level of education
e.g. gender is a social construct - impossible to disprove that belief
Concepts
a symbol and definition attribute or characteristic along with a definition of what we mean example of poverty - tremendous implication for life outcomes
Parts of the Theory specification of how and why change in one concept will affect other concepts in theory how do differences in gender affect level of income for individuals?
i.e. poverty and educational achievement
Level of Analysis
Micro-level theory: level of individuals, one aspect of individual behavior affects another aspect of individual behavior
Meso-level theory - group behavior, community Macro-level theory -
Macro-level theory - national level
Sociological Theories despite consensus that social world is governed by laws and that a theory describes those laws, there are many different theories there is no consensus as to which theory best describes the world
Functionalism - Durkheim
Explains social patterns in terms of their positive consequences for society as a whole
Emphasizes cohesion and consensus of individuals and social institutions
Assumes common institutional interest in maintenance of social order
Conflict Theory - Marx identifies conflict/struggle between social groups (i.e. economic classes) as primary force behind all social action
Symbolic Interactionism
Views society as consisting of organized and patterned interactions among individuals
Explains social world by reference to how people give meaning to their experiences and interactions with others
Humans are pragmatic actors who continually must adjust their behavior to the actions of other actors Analogies
Functionalism - society is like a human body each part of the body works in harmony with all other parts
Society: each part of society works in harmony with all other parts
Conflict Theory - society is like a football game football: all the teams compete to win the title/crown
Society: each team competes to win (status, power)
Symbolic interactionism - society is like a play
Play: a set of roles (played by actors) with a script
Society: a set of roles (played by individuals) with a script
Consequences of Theory
Each theory entails different set of assumptions about determinants of social behavior each theory results in different approaches to or explanations for the same social phenomena/outcome
Each theory results in different research questions for the same
Case: Religion in America
Functionalism: Examine how religion serves to integrate individuals into society
Conflict theory: Examine how religion works as a means by which one group maintains power over other groups
Employment Rate of US
How would you approach the topic of employment due to US workers
What topics and/or research questions would result from using each theory to analyze the topic

Fuctionalism
Effect of employment on beneficial outcomes - poverty rates
Employment and level of involvement
Unemployment leads to retraining and higher education
Unemployment leads to political awareness
Employment and incarceration
Umemployment, social solidarity and cooperation

Conflict Theory
Use of unemployment to maintain class hierarchy
Unemployment affects crime rates
Employment and attitudes about who is unemployed
Unemployment and marriage rates

Symbolic Interactionism
How do people learn to be chronically unemployed?
Relationship/effect of when you start work and later effects on life outcomes
Employment effects on patterns of consumption

Research Philosophies
Sociologists are interested in making accurate truthful statements about the social world community standards

Theory is past research

What is a research philosophy? not based on data, not based on facts about the way data can be gathered and analyzed each person prior to formulating the research question, be explicit about what the research topic is matters because research philosophy has implications on research process - methods of taking data etc

Research philosophy is comprised of: ontology - what the nature of social reality, what exists beyond knowledge/awareness epistemology - how can we know the social world - how we can know the social world, how we can gather information about the social world there two beliefs have implications for methodology, which is the methods we use to gather information and data about our question about the social world.

Philosophies in social science
3 basic basic philosophies: positivism & post-positivism interpretivism constructionism

Positivism how sociology first thought about thinking about science ontology - nature of social reality objective reality to society society acts on individuals universal laws of human behavior
“there are laws out there that are acting upon us and our awareness or unawareness doesn’t influence the people’s responses” machine - something happens, something else will follow is this how you view society? no matter who is occupying the social world, the laws exist no matter what
Epistemology - how can we know the social world? world is known through methods of natural science (empiricism)
Methodology ( how can we produce reliable and valid knowledge?) we are equivalent in gathering information in a neutral and unbiased way
Example of positivism
Durkheim’s 1897 - Suicide instead of trying to explain one person, why do people commit suicide, look at patterns, those who do commit suicide and those who don’t - something else going on in society, can explain attributes/traits nature of protestantism - more independence of thought, more likely to be less connected to society

Interpretivism members of society has created the laws that govern themselves belief that women make 23cents less than men - but certain historical views that are enacted in the social world if history were different, we would have different outcomes what are the shared meanings that generate the pattern behaviors - how do you follow along that interpretivism

Epistemology - pin down culture
Methodology - accurately capture people’s shared understandings - get people to talk honestly

Example of interpretivism:
Becker, 1953 “Becoming an Marijuana User” moral failings, biological affinity to drug addiction becoming a marijuana user - social learning, symbolic interactionism show what you have learned from others

Post-Positivism
Ontology - Belief in existence of a reality
Epistemology
absolute truth can never be found researchers must examine their methods and conclusions and limit their bias
Methodology - intersubjective agreement , cumulatively if you look at what is going on, then you can eventually see the patterns of what you study

Constructivism extension of interpretivism to include role of social scientists ontology - social reality is constructed by subjects, collective understanding of social rules that guide behavior shaped fundamentally as presence as a researcher fact that the researcher is there is going to affect the subjects all of that goes into the findings can’t subtract the researchers from the data obtained epistemology - emphasizes different views of different groups/stakeholders

SO201 Lecture 9/25/12

The topic is to identify the area of interest about the social world
Question is to focus through review of theory
Design Study is to figure out a way to best answer that question

Research
-how do you connect theory and data?
-very empirical, how do you connect your findings to theory?

Link of Theory and Data contribute to that ongoing research about accurate depiction about how the social world works how precisely our research is linked to theory
"direction of theorizing"

Theory shared views of how sociologists constructs the broad and explanatory models about the social world look for patterns of employment and unemployment and seek to see those patterns between them three grand theories functionalism - society has needs symbolic interactionism - world is a play conflict theory - everything can be explained by amount of certain things in one class product of the community as a discipline, speaking to theory and revising it; saying this theory and that theory can be improved every single researcher can come up with their findings

Two main approaches theory entails particular assumptions about the social world and can lead to particular research questions and approaches have theories and expectations about how social world works certain types of data, social relationships restricts how to ask about the data, what kind of questions we can ask how do patterns of drug use can affect struggle over resources (conflict) start with data and findings - you are investigating a topic about something we don't know very much open mind going into the social world think about what we found and see how it fits current theory and see how we can make current theory better research cycle is a circle that embodies all the possible steps of conducting research theory > hypothesis > Data > empirical generalizations

Directions of Thinking deductive reasoning - coming out of positivism and post-positivism inductive reasoning - interpretivism and constructivism

positivism - society works like a machine, what we think does not really matter post-positivism - as researchers, our search for those laws come few and far between interpretivism - anthropology - what constitutes appropriate roles and behavior society exists in our head, dependent on group membership

Deductive Reasoning - comes out of natural science is that you already have a big body of theory already, which accurately depict the natural world, and test the theories in new setting and whether or not they hold/are true. you gather data for past predictions and you find conformation or rejection of the theory, and as result you make suggestions about how you can improve or not improve. start and finish with theory, generate testable hypothesis, gather data that measures and tests hypothesis and go back to theory and how your findings revised the theory

what theories are relevant and how do they speak to your research question you have to convert theories which are quite abstract - membership in a social group defines how much resources there are for you, and you compete to get those resources hypothesis is a concrete testable version of your theory testable expectation about how the social world works, based on the research question which attribute is leading to the attribute of interest

Direction of Association - positive, slope is positive negative, slope is negative

Qualitative vs. Quantitative Reasoning
Quantitative Approach generated out the positivist research philosophy - attempt to identify laws that govern society
Qualitative Approach
Generated out of interpretivist research philosophy - identify patterns of meaningful social action

Theory > hypothesis > data > findings > theory

Sampling

Measurement
Achieving Measurement Validity
Conceptualization - a decision about how to define each concept present in research question how concept is defined affects what data is gathered
Operationalization
A decision about how to gather data to measure the value of a concept in the research question

Levels of Measurement
Nominal Level categorical variable - nominal means “in name” attributes of variable vary in kind/quality but not in amount
Ordinal Level a variable whose categories have names but in addition, they can be put in rank e.g. income implications: one case has more or less of the variable than the other
Interval Level a variable whose attributes are numbers with a standard distance between them implications: you can’t create a ratio
Ratio Level
A variable whose attributes are numbers with a standard distance between them

Operation: a procedure for identifying the value of a variable for each case
Asking Questions - asking individuals for data through person-to person or surveys issue of veracity, don’t know if its true
Using available Data - use of existing data/benefits of time and resources
Making observations - gathering data through observation in natural/experiments
Unobtrusive measures observation without subjects knowledge’
Indicators
specific act by which value of a variable is measured across cases
Single vs Index decision of how many indicators are needed to validly measure the value of a variable for cases