Knowledge <<How do we know what we know >>

- Personal observation/ experience

- Authority

General Method of Knowing

Rationalism > truth through REASONING

- All humans are mortal > Bob is human > Bob is mortal

Empiricism > truth through OBSERVATION

- No one lives forever, everyone dies
- Have not met anyone that is immortal, everyone you know just dies

- Durkheim argues that it is nice to think about the ideas, but instead use scientific method to
analyze, record and test those ideas

Empiricism + Observations
- Observation cannot be recorded at random
- In order for observations to be useful, they need to be collected and recorded systematically (in
order) > particular skill set /standardized
- After the observation is collected systematically - THEN it can be used as EVIDENCE for research

>>> Quality of evidence of research must go through peer review / fact checked
- Peer (deemed expert in the field and has experience from the past)
- People that have no biased towards publishing / money

Research = Skill
- Transferable skills (resume relevant) you will gained as a result of learning how to conduct social
scientific research include:

1. CHOOSE right investigative method

a. Research is a way to solve a problem > research becomes important skill in any job
b. Solution they need to give you is based on data > SO you need to choose the RIGHT way
to collect the data
2. COLLECT appropriate data
3. ANALYZE and interpret data
4. COMPILE and organize research results
5. COMMUNICATE results to different audience - VERY important
a. Lawyers are trained to basically communicate why / why not their client should be
sentenced > their communicative performance is what decides

Types of RESEARCH
 1. Private sector – MARKET RESEARCH
; research that is conducted for the purpose of guiding businesses and other organizations as they
make decisions about how best to sell & promote a product / service
- Nielsen > gives data surrounding tv show ratings which show which are gna flop/ succeed
- Pay can be little better / work for creative people and creative with the methods you use and
be innovative
- Research can be tainted just to get the data across
- Almost no time to do research
- Pays the most

2. Public sector - policy and other government research

; research that is conducted for the purpose of helping to create social
improvement or betterment of programs and policies
- Almost no time to do research

3. Non profit sector – action research

; research that is conducted
for the purpose of creating some form of social change
- Tries to meet the unmet demand (that the gov. And priv. Sector cannot serve)
- Things happen very quickly, need to be creative - when these unmet needs change up all of a
sudden
- Always new
- Not stable > not permanent staff, not a lot of expertees - constantly justify your existence throug
Research
- 1 year you get a lot of money, sometimes you dont
-

4. Academic sector – theoretical research

; research aim to improve a body of knowledge; often free from influence of other sectors
- Have the most autonomy - do whatever you want as long as it’s ethical and aim to
improve a body of knowledge
- Takes the most time > you get more time to do it > more accurate

Hard Skills > technical & measurable = Yes or no

Soft Skills > personal attributes =High - low - spectrum
Gated
- MD
- LLB, JD
 - CPA
- PEng
- RN
DDS
BSOWK
Hard skills : many
Training : long
Entry : few
Supply : Low
Demand : High

Semi-Gated
- Trades
- Real estate
- CPHR
- PMP
Network+
- ECE
MOA certificate
- It admin
Hard Skills :moderate
Entry : many
Supply :fluctuates
Demand : fluctuates

Not Gated
- Sales
- Service
- Labour

Hard skills : few

Entry : many
Supply ; High
Demand : Fluctuates

Week 3 (Sep 21)

WHY RESEARCH
 - to gather data on something that has little information
i.e. assault among trans- population

- To explain a relationship between two phenomenon (explanatory research)

i.e. number of fraternities and prevalence of SA

- to provide to a possible solution social problem

i.e. how to increase SA reporting

- To a evaluate a policy on a particular issue;outcome assessment

i.e. Are awareness campaigns effective?
Are the campaigns effective - does it increase type of reporting we want to see
Evaluate policy based on outcome

- To refine or test an existing theory

i.e. gender inequality and SA

Scientific method
- A more of a way to present research (more of a layout) vs how the research is actually conducte
- More likely to happen with quantitative - good for some types of research but not for others
- Becomes a standardized way of communication

What is theory? - How are we different -

1. Discipline and self conscious

a. Stay within our parameters - what are the studies done in this topic
2. Theorize from and for tradition
a. Give credit from theory in which you used - always building on a theory
3. Theorize based on data
a. Is your claim valid?
How many times did you repeat the study?
b. How do you know it works -
4. Intend to publish and communicate
a. anything you put out there - is going to be judged / reviewed
b. Is there a different interpretation?
 c. Criticism is for improvement > talk to more people and see feedback
d. When you do this > you need to be careful
5. Try and be UNBIASED - away from personal experience
a. Some biases can be explicit/ conscious/ unconscious
b. Are we analyzing this based on our personal situation ?
c. We can infer - but try not to build and be biased off our personal aspects

CLASSIFICATION ON THEORY (tendencies)

1. SUBJECT (Area are you trying to explain?)

GDP – economics
cognitive process – psychology
gender role expectation – sociology
- Any comparison of groups / marginalization - sociological
2. SCALE (level / UNIT are you trying to explain?)
micro – social interactions
meso – social networks, communities > soci
macro – wars, civilizations > soci
- Comparing countries/ time period > soci
- More towards meso + macro
3. UNIT OF ANALYSIS (things trying to explain?
individual, groups
organizations, nations

DEFINITION
sociological theory – standardized / old school
- is a set of interrelated ideas that allow for the systematization of knowledge of the social world, the
explanation of the world, and the predictions about the future of the world

● If a theory is about using “X” (cause) to explain Y (effect) , then for sociological theories, the X Is usually
something that is structural and focuses on the attributes of a group or collective
- What is it using the explain a phenomene - something about a particular group > sociological theory
Nomadic society
- Strong social solidarity
- Small size / tight-knot you acquire
- The way you acquire ressources is a lot different than post-industrial society

Theories are ...

1. Always in dialogue with each other - and often contradict
a. How you resolve that conflict
2. Never perfect and therefore can be improved
a. Ongoing until it becomes a law
b. Theory needs to fit particular dynamic
3. Rarely discipline specific, will always cross with others
4. Meant to be applied, to be of some use
a. Applied to real life settings
5. Rarely value-free, especially when it comes to the arts

Causality
● relationship between two variables in which a change or variation in one variables produces
change or variation in a second variable
- Theory has to explain a mechanism > x causes y
- If ur theory can’t explain cause and effect - it's just a descriptive statement
- We need a causal mechanism within a theory

• Four criteria are essential to establishing a causal relation between two variables:
- X causing Y
1. Rationale
a. Rural vs. urban
2. Association

3. Time sequencing
a. Time element is very important
b. Understanding the event of a time
 c. Sometimes we don't have it - we can follow the individual overtime to see if its a
causal mechanism
4. Nonspuriousness

Spurious relationship
- Opposite of an authentic relationship
- Two variables are correlated and significant but the relationship is merely an illusion
- Multivariate analysis; the original relationship (X>Y) disappears when you introduce a 3 vari
- You can prove causality with math

X (size of big toe) >> Y (Child reading fluency)

Z > child’s age (the correlation) -
z>x, z>y