Key Takeaways

• Social sciences focus on aggregates and on patterns in society.
• Sometimes social science research is conducted for its own sake; other times it is focused on matters of public interest or on client-determined questions.
• Social scientists use both qualitative and quantitative methods. While different, these methods are often complementary.
• Whether we know it or not, our everyday lives are shaped by social scientific research.
• Understanding social scientific research methods can help us become more astute and more responsible consumers of information.
• Knowledge about social scientific research methods is useful for a variety of jobs or careers.
• Researchers are obliged to conduct their research ethically; in Canada, in conformity to the TCPS2 as well as any further institutional requirements.
• At the micro level, researchers should consider their own conduct and the rights of individual research participants.
• At the meso level, researchers should consider the expectations of their profession and of any organizations that may have funded their research.
• At the macro level, researchers should consider their duty to and the expectations of society with respect to social scientific research.
• Conducting research ethically requires that researchers be ethical not only in their data collection procedures but also in reporting their methods and findings.
• The ethical use of research requires an effort to understand research, an awareness of one’s own limitations in terms of knowledge and understanding, and the honest application of research findings.
• What qualifies as ethical research is determined collectively by a number of individuals, organizations, and institutions and may change over time.

Exercises

• Think about a time in the past when you made a bad decision (e.g., wore the wrong shoes for hiking, dated the wrong person, chose not to study for an exam, got caught unprepared in a rainstorm). What caused you to make this decision? How did any of the ways of knowing described previously contribute to your error-prone decision-making process? How might formal research methods help you overcome the possibility of committing such errors in the future?

• What should the purpose of social science be? Posit an argument in favor and against both applied and basic research.
• Scroll through a few popular websites or news sources. Pull out any examples you see of results from social science research being discussed. How much information about the research is provided? What questions do you have about the research? To what extent will the research shape your actions or beliefs? How, if at all, is your answer to that question based on your confidence in the research described?
• Scroll through the opinion pages of some news outlets. What kind of research would you like to see to accept or rebut the opinion provided? What questions might you have about any research that has been cited? In your opinion, has the opinion been adequately supported through evidence?
• Think of an instance when doing science ethically might conflict with using science ethically. Describe your example and how you, as a researcher, might proceed were you to find yourself in such a quandary.
• Using library and Internet resources, find three examples of funded research. Who were the funders in each case? How do the researchers inform readers about their funders? In what ways, if any, do you think each funder might influence the research? What questions, if any, do you have about the research after taking these potential influences into consideration?

Extras:

• The ASA website offers a case study of Rik Scarce’s experience with protecting his data. You can read the case, and some thought- provoking questions about it, here: https://www.asanet.org/ethics/detail.cfm?id=Case99. What questions and concerns about conducting sociological research does Scarce’s experience raise for you?
• The PBS series NOVA has an informative website and exercise on public opinion of the use of the Nazi experiment data. Go through the exercise at https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/holocaust/experiments.html.

References

Adler, E. S., & Clark, R. (2011). An invitation to social research: How it’s done. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

American Sociological Association. (1993). Case 99: A real case involving the protection of confidential data. Retrieved from https://www.asanet.org/ethics/detail.cfm?id=Case99

Berger, P. L. (1990). Nazi science: The Dachau hypothermia experiments. New England Journal of Medicine, 322, 1435–1440.

Bobbitt-Zeher, D., & Downey, D. B. (2010). Good for nothing? Number of siblings and friendship nominations among adolescents. Presented at the 2010 Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, Atlanta, GA.

Burawoy, M. (2005). 2004 presidential address: For public sociology. American Sociological Review, 70, 4–28.

Calhoun, C. (Ed.). (2007). Sociology in America: A history. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Council of the Animals and Society Section of the American Sociological Association: Support for Scott DeMuth. (2009). Retrieved from https://davenportgrandjury.wordpress.com/solidarity-statements/council-animals- society-as

Elliott, W., Jung, H., Kim, K., & Chowa, G. (2010). A multi-group structural equation model (SEM) examining asset holding effects on educational attainment by race and gender. Journal of Children & Poverty, 16, 91–121.

Ellwood, D., & Kane, T. (2000). Who gets a university education? Family background and growing gaps in enrollment. In S. Danziger & J. Waldfogel (Eds.), Securing the future (pp. 283–324). New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.

Greene, V. W. (1992). Can scientists use information derived from the concentration camps? Ancient anwers to new questions. In A. L. Caplan (Ed.), When medicine went mad: Bioethics and the Holocaust (pp. 169–170). Totowa, NJ: Humana Press.

Henslin, J. M. (2006). Essentials of sociology: A down-to-earth approach (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

Jeffries, V. (Ed.). (2009). Handbook of sociology. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Jenkins, P. J., & Kroll-Smith, S. (Eds.). (1996). Witnessing for sociology: Social scientists in court. Westport, CT: Praeger.

Mikkelson, B. (2005). Grandma’s cooking secret. Retrieved from https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/grandmas-cooking-secret/

Moe, K. (1984). Should the Nazi research data be cited? The Hastings Center Report, 14, 5–7.

Pozos, R. S. (1992). Scientific inquiry and ethics: The Dachau data. In A. L. Caplan (Ed.), When medicine went mad: Bioethics and the Holocaust (p. 104). Totowa, NJ: Humana Press.

Sadker, M., & Sadker, D. (1994). Failing at fairness: How America’s schools cheat girls. New York, NY: Maxwell Macmillan International.

Scarce v. United States, 5 F.3d 397, 399–400 (9th Cir. 1993).