KSOD 2540 - Sources écrites - written sources

This course introduces students to the research design, data collection, method of analysis, and ethical considerations of qualitative research. A variety of methods will be introduced and practiced in the course, including ethnography, participant observation, in-depth interviews, comparative-historical, and content analysis. After honing the students’ research questions, this introductory course will provide students with ample opportunity to gain experience in the field, take ethnographic fieldnotes, and code their data. Students will engage in a variety of research sites, including online ethnography, as well as different approaches to analyzing qualitative data, including grounded theory and the extended case method. Regardless, the tight connection between theory and data will be emphasized. Digital tools of data collection and analysis will be a key part of the class.

This is an interactive course that respects that students have unique strengths in how they best participate in learning. Each class session will incorporate a diverse format of pedagogical methods, including group-work, in-class videos, skyped-in guest speakers, social media Q&A and analysis, as well as student or professor presentations and discussions.

This interactive course will consist of three broad measures of learning: class participation; reading responses and comments; conducting, analyzing and presenting fieldwork.

Heavy workload. Students will draw empirical and theoretical insight from readings, videos, discussions, and their data they will collect themselves. By design, this course is very hands-on and participatory, both online and offline, and each class will situate students' own experiences in and out of the field as critical for learning about sociological methods.