ASOC 22A11 - Inquiries in sociology

This course builds upon the first-year introduction to sociology class, by focusing on research design and practice as well as on social theory. The aim of the class is to introduce students to additional sociological works, discussing both their theoretical and empirical approaches in depth. Special attention will be given to research design, deconstructing sociological empirical investigations conducted in different countries using qualitative methods, quantitative methods, or mixed methods. This will allow us to address four main types of issues raised by the field investigation:

• Theoretical issues: How does one transform a social question into a sociological one? How does one formulate hypotheses based on theoretical questions? How does one (re)interpret the results on a theoretical level? How does one generalize observations and formulate a theory?
• Methodological issues: How does one turn theoretical questions into operational measures? How does one approach the beginning of field research? How does one build a database? How does one reprocess the data in order to test hypotheses and reproduce results?
• Epistemological issues: How does one administer the evidence from a sociological field investigation? How does one articulate an inductive approach (going from field exploration to the formulation of a theory?) and a hypothetical-deductive approach (using field results as a means of testing hypotheses)? In what manner do theory and method have elective affinities/participate in the same system of scientificity?
• Ethical and legal issues: What are the ethical limits to a sociological investigation? Can sociologists investigate all subjects? Can sociologists step outside of legality and morality for the needs of the investigation? Do sociologists have to protect their “sources”?

All of these questions will be addressed in thematic sessions built around several emblematic sociological investigations.

The lecture course will be complemented by a discussion section in which students will conduct a sociological investigation under the supervision of the tutorial instructor. Students will first develop a problem and a series of hypotheses. Then, students will carry out an empirical study to collect data. Finally, they will use the data to write a research report. They will thus be able to put the principles presented in the lecture course to the test in practice.

Lecture with seminars

Students are expected to attend the lectures and to participate in class. Grading will be based on continuous work in the discussion sections (2/3 of the final grade) and a final exam (1/3 of the final grade). Continuous evaluation in the discussion section will include several tasks necessary to complete the research project, to be determined in the discussion section syllabus.

The final exam will be a two-hour written exam composed of short questions about the lecture contents, as well as longer questions about the logics of sociological research applied to specific research questions.

Students can earn up 1.5 bonus points for the final exam if they write a short comment on the readings before class. Comments will be submitted though moodle.

This class builds on the Introduction to sociology class that is offered in the first year of the bachelor. Some familiarity with sociology and its main concepts is required to follow the class (one previous class in general sociology).