Sociology 498 is a capstone course for the Sociology major. The goal of this course is to guide you through the method of ethnography and qualitative analysis to answer research questions related to Identity, Biography & Society. To do this, you will undertake several research exercises, staged so that you understand how sociologists use intensive interviewing and grounded theory to address a research question. Each stage of the research process will require two types of written components: (1) a demonstration of the specific stage of the process through a “deliverable” draft of that stage of the research project, and (2) reflection on the dilemmas, ethics, and politics related to research design and execution.
Instructions
This is the fifth research exercise that you will complete. This assignment requires you to present a preliminary analysis of the data that you have collected to address your research question. Putting time and effort into this exercise and the feedback you receive will benefit you when you submit the final project for grading.
Purpose
The purpose of this exercise is to allow you the opportunity to present in writing your preliminary answer to your research question. Your answer will be supported with at least three empirical generalizations (themes) and a minimum of three empirical observations (data excerpts from field notes and interview transcripts) to support your generalizations. Through this assignment, you will understand how researchers inductively develop responses to research questions, expand sociological concepts, and generate theory.
Content
You will develop the results section of your senior thesis. Typically, discussion of research results includes the answer to a specific research question and the way in which the researcher went about getting to that answer from their data (note: sociologists who do qualitative analysis arrive at the answer to their research question through inductive logic, which moves from specific empirical observations to a general theory of social life). Your analysis of your data should produce an answer to the research question you pose about identity, biography & society. The results section of your thesis will indicate, through discussion and support from empirical examples, the ways in which specific forms of identity are grounded in and emerge from a specific type lived experience. Importantly, your results section must demonstrate an understanding of inductive theory construction and must highlight specific examples from the range of data available to you in your interview transcripts AND field observations. Outline your approach so that someone reading it will understand (1) your research question, the way in which you approached data analysis, and the response at which your arrived that constitutes your “theory” on identity and biography in the area of interest to you; (2) at least three empirical generalizations (themes) that follow from specific observations and data from interviews; (3) a minimum of three specific examples from your data to support each generalization; (4) a discussion that contextualizes each example and relates it back to the generalization you argue the empirical example supports; and (5) a discussion that wraps up your results by connecting each empirical generalization to the answer to your research question (the “theory” of identity, biography & society).
Structure and Organization
Your preliminary analysis and results should appropriately reference seminar materials and your literature and should be ~5-6 double-spaced pages, with standard 11- or 12-point font, and one-inch margins. You will be expected to demonstrate your understanding of qualitative analysis and ability to make use of inductive logic for empirical generalization and theory construction.
Be sure to provide ASA-style in-text citation and bibliographic referencing when using course materials or other publications. Please see Edwards (2015) Writing in Sociology for explicit guidelines.
Description of research question and approach to data analysis
Situate this presentation of results in a 1½ -2 page description of how you went about coding your data. Use course lecture and required reading materials to help describe your approach to data analysis.
Description of preliminary answer to your research question
Organize your discussion of research results so that the response to your research question (your theory) and supporting generalizations (themes) are clearly articulated and so that specific examples are well marked (single spaced and indented 5 spaces from left and right margins).
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