Sociology Investigation Essays

Sociology Investigation Essays Sociology Investigation Paper Sociology Investigation Paper The Sociological Investigation ~ These notes are taken and adapted from Macionis, John J. (2012). Sociology (14th Edition). Boston: Pearson Education Inc. There are two basic requirements for sociological investigation: 1. Know how to apply the sociological perspective or paradigms or what C. Wright Mills termed as the â€Å"sociological imagination. † 2. Be curious and ready to ask questions about the world around you. There are three ways to do Sociology. These three ways are considered as research orientations: A. Positivist Sociology Positivist sociology studies society by systematically observing social behaviour. Also known as scientific sociology. It includes introducing terms like independent variable, dependent variables, correlation, spurious correlation, control, replication, measurement, cause and effect, as well as operationalizing a variable1. Positivist sociology requires that researcher carefully operationalize variables and ensuring that measurement is both reliable and valid. It observes how variables are related and tries to establish cause-and-effect relationships. It sees an objective reality â€Å"out there. † Favours quantitative data (e. g. data in numbers; data from surveys). Positivist sociology is well-suited to research in a laboratory. It demands that researchers be objective2 and suspend their personal values and biases as they conduct research. There are at least FOUR limitations to scientific / positivist sociology. Positivist sociology is loosely linked to the structural-functional approach / paradigm / perspective. B. Critical Sociology Critical sociology uses research to bring about social change. It asks moral and political questions. It focuses on inequality. 1 Specifying exactly what is to be measured before assigning a value to a variable (Macionis: 2012, p. 50). 2 Personal neutrality in conducting research (Macionis: 2012, p. 50) Page 1 It rejects the principle of objecti vity, claiming that ALL researches are political. Critical sociology corresponds to the social-conflict approach / paradigm / perspective. C. Interpretive Sociology Interpretive sociology focuses on the meanings that people attach to their behaviour. It sees reality as constructed by people in the course of their everyday lives. It favours qualitative data (e. g. data acquired through interviews). It is well-suited to research in a natural setting. Interpretive sociology is related to the symbolic-interaction approach / paradigm / perspective. Gender and Research Gender3, involving both researcher and subjects, can affect research in five ways: 1. Androcentricity (literally, â€Å"focus on the male†) 2. Overgeneralising 3. Gender blindness 4. Double standards 5. Interference Research Ethics Researchers must consider and do the following things when conducting research: Protect the privacy of subjects / respondents. Obtain the informed consent of subjects / respondents. Indicate all sources of funding. Submit research to an institutional review board to ensure it does NOT violate ethical standards. There are global dimensions to research ethics. Before beginning research in another country, an investigator must become familiar enough with that society to understand what people there are likely to regard as a violation of privacy or a source of personal danger. Research and the Hawthorne Effect Researchers need to be aware that subjects’ or respondents’ behaviour may change simply because they are getting special attention, as one classic experiment revealed. Refer to Elton Mayo’s investigation into worker productivity in a factory in Hawthorne, near Chicago. 3 The personal traits and social positions that members of a society attach to being female or male (Macionis: 2012, p. 50). Page 2 The term Hawthorne Effect is defined as a change in a subject’s behaviour caused simply by the awareness that s/he is being studied. Methods: Strategies for Doing Sociological Research There are the basic FOUR methods: A. Experiment This research method allows researchers to study cause of an experiment: Philip Zimbardo’s â€Å"Stanford County Prison. † o Advantages Provides the greatest opportunity to specify cause of a survey: Lois Benjamin’s research on the effects of racism on African American men and women. She chose to interview subjects / respondents rather than distribute a questionnaire. o Advantages Sampling, using questionnaires, allows researchers to conduct surveys of large populations or a large number of people. Interviews provide in of participant observation: William Foote Whyte’s â€Å"Street Corner Society. o Advantages It allows for the study of â€Å"natural† behaviour. Usually inexpensive. o Limitations Time of using existing sources: E. Digby Baltzell’s award-winning study â€Å"Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia. † How could it be, Baltzell wondered, during a chance visit to Bowdein College in Maine, USA, that this small college had graduated more famous people in a single year than his own, much bigger University of Pennsylvania had graduated in its entire history? o Advantages Saves time, money and effort of data collection. Makes historical research possible. o Limitations Researcher has no control over possible biases in data. Data may only partially fit current research needs. Page 4

Eurasian Badger Facts

Eurasian Badger Facts The Eurasian badger or European badger (Meles meles) is a social, omnivorous mammal that resides in woodlands, pastures, suburbs, and urban parks throughout most of Europe and Asia. In Europe, the badgers are also known by several common names including brock, pate, grey, and bawson. Fast Facts: Eurasian Badger Scientific Name: Meles melesCommon Name(s): Eurasian badger, European badger, Asian badger. In Europe: brock, pate, grey, and bawsonBasic Animal Group: Mammal  Ã‚  Size: 22–35 inches longWeight: Females weigh between 14.5–30 pounds, males are 20–36 poundsLifespan: 6 yearsDiet:  OmnivoreHabitat: Europe and AsiaPopulation: Worldwide unknown; range size variesConservation Status: Least Concern; considered Endangered in Albania Description Eurasian badgers are powerfully built mammals that have a short, fat body and short, sturdy legs well suited for digging. The bottoms of their feet are naked and they have strong claws that are elongated with a sharp end honed for excavation. They have small eyes, small ears, and a long head. Their skulls are heavy and elongated and they have oval braincases. Their fur is grayish and they have black faces with white stripes on the top and sides of their face and neck. Badgers range in body length from about 22–35 inches, with a tail extending another 4.5 to 20 inches. Females weigh between 14.5–30 pounds, while males weigh from 20–36 pounds. DamianKuzdak/Getty Images Species Once thought to be a single species, some researchers split them into subspecies which are similar in appearance and behavior but have different ranges. Common badger (Meles meles meles)Cretan badger (Meles meles arcalus)Trans Caucasian badger (Meles meles canascens)Kizlyar badger (Meles meles heptneri)Iberian badger (Meles meles marianensis)Norwegian badger (Meles meles milleri)Rhodes badger (Meles meles rhodius)Fergana badger (Meles meles severzovi) Habitat European badgers are found throughout the British Isles, Europe, and Scandinavia. Their range extends westward to the Volga River. West of the Volga River, Asian badgers are common. They are most often studied as a group and referred to in the scholarly press simply as Eurasian badgers. Eurasian badgers prefer deciduous woods with clearings or open pastureland with small patches of wood. They are also found in a wide variety of temperate ecosystems, mixed and coniferous woodlands, scrub, suburban areas, and urban parks. Subspecies are found in mountains, plains, and even semi-deserts. Territory ranges vary depending on food availability and so reliable population estimates are not currently available. Diet Eurasian badgers are omnivores. They are opportunistic foragers that consume fruit, nuts, bulbs, tubers, acorns and cereal crops, as well as invertebrates such as earthworms, insects, snails, and slugs. They also eat small mammals such as rats, voles, shrews, moles, mice, and rabbits. When available, they will also feed on small reptiles and amphibians such as frogs, snakes, newts, and lizards. The badgers forage alone even when involved in a social group: Eurasian badgers live in territorial, mixed-sex social colonies each sharing a communal burrow. The animals are nocturnal and spend much of the daylight hours hidden away in their setts. Behavior Eurasian badgers are social animals that live in colonies of six to 20 individuals made up of multiple males, breeding and non-breeding females, and cubs. The groups create and reside in a network of underground tunnels known as a sett or den. Some setts are large enough to house more than a dozen badgers and can have tunnels that are as much as 1,000 feet long with numerous openings to the surface. Badgers excavate their setts in well-drained soils that are easy to dig in. The tunnels are 2–6 feet beneath the surface of the ground and the badgers often construct large chambers where they sleep or care for their young. When digging tunnels, badgers create large mounds outside the entryway. By placing entrances on slopes, the badgers can push the debris down the hill and away from the opening. They do the same when cleaning out their sett, pushing bedding material and other waste out and away from the opening. Groups of badgers are known as colonies and each colony may construct and use several different setts throughout their territory. The setts they use depend on the distribution of food resources within their territory as well as whether or not it is breeding season and young are to be raised in the sett. Setts or sections of setts not used by badgers are sometimes occupied by other animals such as foxes or rabbits. Like bears, badgers experience winter sleep during which time they become less active but their body temperature does not drop as it does in full hibernation. In late summer, badgers begin to gain the weight they will need to power themselves through their winter sleep period. Reproduction Eurasian badgers are polygynous, meaning males mate with multiple females but females only mate with one male. Within social groups, however, only the dominant male and female mate. Dominant females are known to kill cubs from non-dominant females in the social group. Badgers can mate year round, but most commonly in late winter through early spring and late summer through early fall. At times, males expand their territories to cross-breed with extra-group females. Gestation lasts between 9 and 21 months and litters produce 1–6 cubs at a time; females are fertile during pregnancy so multiple paternity births are common. Cubs first emerge from their dens after eight to 10 weeks and are weaned by the age of 2.5 months. They are sexually mature at about a year old, and their lifespans are typically six years, although the oldest known wild badger lived to 14. TonyBaggett/Getty Images Threats European badgers do not have many predators or natural enemies. In some parts of their range, wolves, dogs, and lynxes pose a threat. In some areas, Eurasian badgers live side-by-side other predators such as foxes without conflict. The IUCN Red List comments that since Eurasian badgers occur in many protected areas and there are high densities found in anthropogenic habitats in large parts of its range, the Eurasian badger is highly unlikely to be declining at nearly the rate required to qualify for listing even as Near Threatened. They are targeted for hunting for food or persecuted as a pest, and in some urban and suburban areas, the population has decreased. Although estimates are unreliable, researchers believe the overall population has been increasing throughout their range since the 1980s. During the mid-1990s, the Badgers were classed Lower Risk/least concern (LR/LC) because of elevated occurrence of rabies and tuberculosis, although those diseases have since decreased substantially. Sources Carpenter, Petra J., et al. Mating System of the Eurasian Badger. Molecular Ecology 14.1 (2005): 273-84. Print.,Meles Meles, in a High Density Populationda Silva, Jack, David W. MacDonald, and Peter G. H. Evans. Net Costs of Group Living in a Solitary Forager, the Eurasian Badger (Meles meles). Behavioral Ecology 5.2 (1994): 151-58. Print.Frantz, A. C., et al. Reliable Microsatellite Genotyping of the Eurasian Badger (Meles Meles) Using Faecal DNA. Molecular Ecology 12.6 (2003): 1649-61. Print.Frantz, Alain C., et al. Estimating Population Size by Genotyping Remotely Plucked Hair: The Eurasian Badger. Journal of Applied Ecology 41.5 (2004): 985-95. Print.Kranz, A., A.V. Abramov, J. Herrero, and T. Maran. Meles meles. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.T29673A45203002, 2016.  Wang, A. Eurasian badgers (Meles meles). Animal Diversity, 2011.