How does divorce impact specific aspects of children’s lives such as education? (in-class/academic performance, decision to pursue higher education)
Paper will consist of the usual elements of articles you read in class: an introduction, brief literature review, data and methods, findings, and a discussion section.
Introduction: Provide a brief summary of the case and state your motivation for choosing this case—what about it interests you, and why is it important? What is the relevant background to the case? What is your research question? What is the significance of the research question for sociologists, practitioners, stakeholders, or the public?
Literature Review: What have other sociologists and social scientists have to say about the problem that you are studying? While there is no minimum number of articles you need to cite here, it would be helpful to go over 2-3 studies that are relevant to you. We will go over how to conduct a literature review in class. Additionally, what theories or concepts may relate to your study? How will you extend or apply these concepts? What do all these things tell you about what to expect in your research?
Data and Methods: What method are you using to study this research question? Why is this method appropriate, and what are its limitations? What types of data will you be gathering? How will this data be analyzed? Are there ethical considerations to your research and what steps have you taken to protect your participants? Also take this opportunity, if relevant, to talk about your positionality as a researcher vis-à-vis the field or topic at hand.
Findings: What are the major themes that emerge from your data? What are some variations in the themes that you identify? Give us some of the evidence that back up these
findings—be it quotes, excerpts from field notes, statistics, etc. It is also helpful here to organize your findings in graphical or tabular representations. If you think subsections are helpful in highlighting different findings, please feel free to organize your writing in this way too.
Discussion: What are the implications of your findings? What are some of the limitations to your study? Did what you find meet your expectations? Were there any surprising or unexpected findings? What should future researchers pay attention to? What were some challenges that you faced in conducting this study? And if you were offered a do-over or had access to more time and resources, what might you have done differently?
Conclusion: Summarize your study briefly, and reiterate the major finding that you have uncovered through this research project and its significance.
Your paper will be graded with these four criteria in mind:
Completeness: Your research paper should follow the format described above. While this may seem somewhat restrictive, academic sociological writing is particular and operates within this framework. The writing should also be sufficiently proofread and devoid of obvious errors. You should also appropriately cite the 2-3 studies that inform your approach to your research.
Coherence: Your chosen research method should be appropriate and match the research question under investigation. You should also draw on relevant ideas—be it sampling, case selection, bias, operationalization, measurement, gaining trust from respondents—from the class to discuss your research process. Think about how a third party would want to replicate or retrace your work, and whether they would be able to do that from reading your paper. You should also be able to articulate coherently the significance of your research question and your findings for your intended audience.
Competence: You should sufficiently master the research method you choose. For instance, if you were conducting a semi-structured interview study, you would have designed an interview guide with appropriately worded open-ended questions and demonstrated your ability to establish rapport. If you were working on a content analysis, you should be able to describing your coding process and the process by which you came up with your codes. If you were conducting a survey, you should be able to produce summary and descriptive statistics. If you find yourself needing help with a specific technique or method, please reach out to me.
Criticality: You should also demonstrate some degree of self-awareness or reflexivity in your approach and a recognition of your own position as a researcher vis-à-vis the phenomenon or community. You need to show an understanding of the limitations of your chosen method and how your execution of this method may leave room for improvement. If you were given more time, more resources, and more access you would obviously be able to do more; all knowledge is provisional, so we shouldn’t expect our work to answer every research question we had completely.
