Measuring Diversity in a Social Environment

By successfully completing this assignment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and assignment criteria:

• Competency 1: Describe theoretical ideas of power in relation to policy.
  • Summarize the research project using sociological language and concepts.
  • Provide appropriate background discussion and highlight key sociological concepts that pertain to discrimination experienced by a group.
• Competency 2: Identify historical and contemporary influences of discrimination in American culture.
  • Recognize historical experiences of discrimination.
  • Differentiate the varied experience of different social groups.
  • Identify social trends that influence power.
• Competency 3: Analyze the effects of social policy using aggregated data.
  • Determine the best data collection method based on the research questions.
  • Collect data and prepare charts and tables for analysis.
  • Correlate data to a social policy position.
  • Properly document the use of data.
• Competency 4: Analyze how laws are applied based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age, and social class.
  • Demonstrate the relationship among sociological theories, policies, and concepts.
  • Examine alternative solutions to diversity issues.
• Competency 5: Apply diversity strategies in professional, educational, and personal contexts.
  • Recognize opportunities where diversity is needed to address social problems.
• Competency 6: Communicate effectively in a variety of formats.
  • State and support a clear central idea in a coherently organized document.
  • Use the accepted form and style of the field.
  • Follow conventional rules for style, format, grammar, usage, and mechanics.
  • Respect the dignity, cultural and ethnic backgrounds, and individuality of other people.

Overall, this course focuses on issues of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, social class, age, or religion in our society from a theoretical perspective. But can we find examples of this in our daily society as we interact with various others? That is the question you will answer in this Measuring Diversity in a Social Environment project as you decide on a data collection process, collect this data, and analyze it in a sociological context. This will give you an opportunity to practice sociological analysis and observation and to examine the society you occupy daily in more detail. After collecting your data, you will write a sociological research report on your findings.

For more information on your final project, see the Resources.

Requirements

Written communication: Written communication is free of errors that detract from the overall message.

• APA formatting: Resources and citations are formatted according to APA (sixth edition) style and format.
• Number of resources: Minimum of five scholarly (peer-reviewed) resources, one of which must be statistical. One popular source, such as a newspaper article or news media program, can be included. No more than two sources may come from the course textbooks.
• Length of paper: 6–8 typed, double-spaced pages.
• Font and font size: Times or Times New Roman, 12 point.

The course project has two components: (1) the project proposal due in Unit 2, and (2) the final project due in Unit 10. For the proposal due in Unit 2, you will identify what topic you’ve chosen, along with the data collection tool you will use and at least 3 sources you plan to use for your literature review and data analysis. Please take the time to carefully read the directions for both the Unit 2 Topic Selection and Data Collection Proposal and the Final Project since this segment focuses on describing your data collection options in greater detail rather than covering all of the required project elements.

You have your choice of 3 data collection options in order to complete this project. Each will be covered briefly here, but please note there are descriptions and examples provided in the Course Project Data Collection Guide in Units 2 and 10. Your three options include a Questionnaire (either a Survey or Interview), Observation or Field Research, and Content Analysis.

The most commonly used data collection option in sociology is the questionnaire or survey. This typically consists of several questions for the participant to respond to. You may find that you are best served with an anonymous survey as participants may not want to disclose personal feelings about prejudice or discrimination—remember this can be a very sensitive subject for some, especially in the workplace. It is common practice to collect data on the self-identified race, age, and gender of the respondent as this may help in your interpretation of their overall answers. Including 10-12 core questions in your questionnaire is ideal. Certainly you can ask more, but you should consider your own time constraints as well as the time constraints of the individuals responding. It can take a great deal of time to answer and analyze 30-40 questions. I would also suggest that you use scales when appropriate, such as “On a scale of 1-5, 5 being the most impactful, how much does discrimination affect your daily life?” Using scales will help simplify your data analysis as well.

An alternative to the survey is the interview, where you sit down with the respondent and ask questions. Start with a basic list of questions you want to ask. With this method you can then ask follow-up questions that may come up as you are conducting the interview. The drawback to this approach is that you will have to decide as a researcher how to code or interpret the respondent’s answers, as each individual may express their answers quite differently.

Option 2 is the Observation, also known as Field Research or Participant Observation. For this option, you will want to decide beforehand what you want to observe. Perhaps you want to observe how different races of children interact on a playground. Or you may observe how people react to an interracial couple at the grocery store, restaurant, or in a busy shopping center. The opportunities for observation are nearly endless. The important thing to keep in mind is to decide ahead of time what you are specifically going to observe and how you are going to “code” or categorize it so that you can be consistent across observations. So if I am observing children playing together with different races, I would note the race of both children (same or different); what behavior will indicate a positive reaction, such as laughing, hugging, or welcoming a new child; what will indicate a neutral reaction, such as just continuing the game or play; and what will constitute a negative reaction, such as ignoring, showing physical or verbal aggression, or leaving the game or play area. Deciding this ahead of time will make the data collection and analysis go more smoothly for you.

Your final option is Content Analysis. This is based on the idea that a society produces material or physical documents and that by analyzing these we can determine may of the unspoken cultural and social beliefs of a culture. Note that this refers to any produced artifact from a society, but you should focus on print or audiovisual materials for the purposes of this project. This can include advertisements (both print or on television), music videos, television shows, movies, newspapers, magazine content, and novels, just to name a few. You will want to choose a medium that best fits your topic as well as the time constraints you may face overall.

As an example of content analysis, let’s say I am interested in learning how often different races and genders are portrayed in marketing literature produced by the company I work for. I have to determine what I will be looking for and what it will indicate to me so that I am consistent across osbervations. So I have decided to simply count the number of times I see a female face and a male face, and then how often I see minority females, minority males, white females, and white males. Also, I think that the position of the person portrayed in the literature is also important. For example, does the individual appear to be in a position of power (is he seated at a desk, directing others, leading a discussion or classroom) or in a position of supporting staff (bringing documents to the individual, standing or sitting behind the other individuals, standing and listening to the seated individual). After I count these observations, I can simply collate my data into an organized table and analyze my findings. Again, this method does require some preliminary work, but the more specific you are in the planning stage, the easier your data will be to collect and analyze.

I hope that you find this brief expansion on these research methodologies helpful to you as you begin to formulate your own data collection plan. With all methods, do keep in mind that you want to be as objective as possible. You should be open to an unbiased observation rather than looking to find a specific outcome, or this will ultimately defeat the purpose of a sociological observation. As always, let your instructor know what questions you may have

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Diversity is present in many societies in the whole world today. In America, this has become something that one must deal with in an effort to make sure that all the people in the society are happy about their lives…………………………………..

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