For our second online forum assignment, we focus on the question of doing sociological research. As a sociologist you are asked to conduct a qualitative research on the Ferguson case. Your assignment should be composed of the following parts:
1- What kind of research question would you want to answer about the case and/or the protests that the case caused?
2- What research methods would you use to answer your research question? And why?
3- What are the advantages and disadvantages of the research methods you selected? What does it enable you to understand? And what are the limits of your research method?
4- If you conduct interviews, what kind of questions would you ask the participants? How would these questions help you to answer your main research question?
5- If you do a survey, what is your population? What is the target group that you want to learn about? How is your survey method related to your main research question?
6- If you collect documents, what kind of documents would you focus on? And why? How would these documents help you to answer your research question?
7- If you conduct participant observation, what and whom would you like to observe? And why? What do you expect to find out by conducting participant observation?
8- How do you anticipate you being an outsider will influence your research? How do you think race, class and gender differences (or other social differences) between you and the participants will shape your research?
For the assignment, you can choose to combine two or three research methods (e.g. participant observation and collecting documents).
The most important task is to justify every single step of your research design. Whatever method you are using, always connect it/them to your main research question.
Do not frame your research question as if you are a police and/or judge. You are NOT expected to investigate what really happened in Ferguson. You are asked to use sociological concepts to make sense of the outrage and riots that the incident and the verdict caused. Focus on the race, gender and class aspects of the situation and put the case in its broader context (sociological imagination).
Read the readings carefully.
The word limit is 350.
Article : HOW Sociologists DO Research (JAMES M. HENSLIN)
Attachment:- reading3-module3_lecture_notes.rar