Sociology 377A                                         Jim Thomas
M - W - F: 12 to 12:50 (DuSable 212)                   812 Zulauf
Dusable Hall - 212                                     (815) 756-3839
email: jthomas@math.niu.edu

Qualitative methods draw from ways of collecting, analyzing, and 
collecting data that use observations, interactions (including 
interviewing), documents, images, or any other "thing" that has social 
meaning. In this class, we will focus most heavily on ethnography, 
which is the study of a culture from the participants' point of view. 
We will examine the research logic, the ethics of doing research, and 
the techniques by which data are gathered, analyzed, and presented. 
We will practice several methods by which scientists can obtain 
data for understanding culture, including:

  1) Systematic/participant observation   
  2) Interviewing
  3) documentary/content analysis (movies, images, text, historical 
     documents)

Because we are studying people, issues such as privacy, revealing 
"secrets," or covert data collection require attention to the ethics 
of our research. We will begin the class be defining ethnography, 
describing some of the methods used, and then spend consiberable time 
on ethics of research.

Normally, fieldwork requires tape recorders and transcribers for 
collecting interview data and then listening to what we've taped and 
typing it up as field notes. However, because we are now in the 
digital age, we will attempt to use smart phones, video devices, 
language recognition software, and other tools that many of us have.

Course requirements and grading.

The course is organized around five general issues:
  A. Ways of gathering qualitative data    
  B. Ethical issues
  C. Epistemological/methodological issues
  D. Doing ethnography: Identifying the proper method(s)
  E. Coding and Analyzing data
  F. Writing it up: The language of ethnography

Course Requirements and Grading

Grading will be done on the basis of 500 points:
   a) Many Pop quizzes (10 points each - Total: 50 points - only 
      top 5 scores count)
   b) four short papers (30 points each)
   c) Class participation (in-class and WedBoard) (50 points)   
   d) One  final paper (250 points)           
   e) Some extra credit MIGHT be available
      TOTAL POINTS: 470

Required readings (others assigned as term progresses):

  REQUIERED BOOKS:
      Kirk &: Miller         RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY
      James Spradley         THE ETHNOGRAPHIC INTERVIEW

  REQUIRED SHORT READINGS:
    Short articles will be assigned as appropriate during the
    course. They will be placed on-line with at least 10 days notice

There will also be suggested reading to illustrates course themes or 
suggest what a qualitative paper looks like.

Assignments will be given each week. Much of what we do will be 
shaped by what people choose for research projects.  Hence,  we 
cannot give specific assignments at  this time.  THE COURSE  WILL BE 
RELATIVELY EASY, BUT WILL BE LOTS OF WORK!!!!   Attendance, class 
participation, and keeping up on assignments are crucial.

BECAUSE OF UNFORSEEN GLITCHES,  IT  MAY OCCASIONALLY BE NECESSARY 
TO CHANGE ASSIGNMENTS AND DATES.  **YOU** ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR BEING 
AWARE OF THESE CHANGES.

NOTE:  FINAL PAPERS ARE DUE NO LATER THAN WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 12 at 
       class time (NO PAPERS WILL BE ACCEPTED AFTER Wednesday, 
       December 12, at noon)

The following are the tentative ASSIGNMENTS.

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