Sociological Research Methods Summer 2008

The American Library Association (ALA) awards the Newbery medal for adolescent fiction. For this exercise, you will use the ALA website (www.ala.org) to answer questions about the gender of characters in Newbery winners and honor books over the last decade.
You are asked to do a content analysis:
First, Find a list of Newbery award winners and honor books for the last 10 years.
Begin your content analysis of the titles of these books by listing the titles that suggest to you that there is a female character in the book.
Now list the titles that suggests to you there is a male character in the book.
Titles may fall into more than one category.
What are you able to tell about gender in adolescent fiction? What conclusions can you draw from your analysis? Are there any other variable that could be useful for analysis

Posted by Maureen Clark at 8:01 PM | Permalink

Instead of exercise 5.1 you will need to conduct an ethnographic study. If you were not in class on July 31st you will need to go to a public setting (such as a coffee shop, restaurant, bookstore etc.); one that you have not been to before. You will need to take fieldnotes for a half hour or longer.
List of Important things to inclulde in Notes- Chiseri-Strater and Sunstein (1997)
Date, time, and place of observation
Specific facts, numbers, details of what happens at the site
Sensory impressions: sights, sounds, textures, smells, tastes
Personal responses to the fact of recording fieldnotes
Specific words, phrases, summaries of conversations, and insider language
Questions about people or behaviors at the site for future investigation
Page numbers to help keep observations in order

You will be turning in your fieldnotes so keep that in mind.
You need to type a two page paper about your fieldwork. That does not include your field notes which need to be included.
Tell a story about your fieldwork. Your experience with fieldwork. What issues or problems did you have? What would you do differently next time? What did you miss?

Posted by Maureen Clark at 11:42 PM | Permalink

For those interested the MN historical society is collecting stories from Minnesotans. Here is a link to get more information
http://people.mnhs.org/mgg/sharestory.cfm

You may do an interview and a story for the interview/survey homework.

Posted by Maureen Clark at 11:40 PM | Permalink

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Posted by Maureen Clark at 8:40 PM | Permalink

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Posted by Maureen Clark at 8:33 PM | Permalink

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Posted by Maureen Clark at 8:28 PM | Permalink