Santa Monica College Sociology Paper

Instructions: You are writing a 12-page essay, typed, double-spaced including a bibliography (works cited page) and title page.  You are required to cite readings, lectures, and film clips/films from each week (I will attach a pdf of all of this).  You should have a minimum of 10 sources –from a variety of class sources (e-lectures, readings, links, videos, optional class meetings, discussions, etc.).  

Please write TWO separate essays (6 pages each) based on Question #1 and Question #2.  please submit two separate documents. Please be very clear that these are two separate essays! 

Question #1:

What is the significance of doing sociological research?  What are the ways of knowing?  Discuss at least four “ways of knowing.”  How does sociology fit into these “ways of knowing?”   Incorporate in your analysis how “objective knowledge” and “subjective knowledge” play a role.  How would you incorporate the sociological imagination into your sociological research topic? Give some examples.   What makes sociology a science?  How is a sociological understanding of the world different from opinions?  How do sociologists makes sense of dialectics when conducting research?

Question #2:

Select and research two of the following sociological and/or social scientific studies that have already been conducted:

a).  The 1932 Tuskegee Experiment

b).   The 1970 Tearoom Trade

c).  The 1971 Stanford Experiment

d)  The 1974 David Takeuchi Marijuana Study 

e)  The 1962 Milgram Study

f). The 2014 (Swedish) Domestic Abuse in the Lift Experiment

g).  The 2009 Ethnicity and Job Application Experiment. 

h) 1924-1932 The Hawthorne Factory Experiments

Compare and contrast these studies.   What are the purposes of these studies?  What were the hypotheses of these studies? How did the researchers define the problem.  What variables were being examined?  How did he/she/they conceptualize and operationalize his/her/their variables?  What research method/methods were used to collect data?  Did he/she/they use qualitative or quantitative methods?  What were they?  Were they effective?  Were the research projects valid?  reliable? What ethical questions were they grappling with, if any? What types of measures did they use?  Did they utilize inductive and deductive reasoning? How did they analyze their data? Did they use primary or secondary sources (or both)? Were these studies empirically-based?  Did they include human subjects? What were the main findings?   How important were these findings? What societal implications did these studies have?  If these studies were conducted today, how would they be conducted differently?  How would you do your study differently if you were to select a similar topic?  Or how would you build on the studies already conducted?