TechSociety Research Dr. Leora Lawton President TechSociety Research Berkeley, CA Opportunities for Sociologists and other Social Scientists with a B.A

TechSociety Research

Dr. Leora Lawton

President


Berkeley, CA

Opportunities for Sociologists and other Social Scientists with a

B.A.


What is a sociologist?


Here’s some answers…“Someone working in the field of sociology is known as a sociologist” Yahoo Answers

“In general, then, a sociologist is a man who is studying the facts of society in a certain way.” Albion Small (U. of Chicago), AJS, 1903. Sociology is a social science. It seeks to accurately describe and adequately explain the social world on the basis of systematically gathered knowledge. … Sociological knowledge cannot challenge the world, nor should it. We have philosophy and morality for such tasks. Mathieu Deflem, U. South Carolina, 2006.

Sociologists study and solve problems related to the structures and systems that allow groups of people to live together, get things done, share meanings, adapt to change, or that determine which groups of people are able to get some resources and which are not. (Sociological Practice Section Newsletter, Spring 2007)

“Sociologists use techniques of inquiry, data collection and analysis to explain why people do what they do given the fact they are members of social groups. Some sociologists use that understanding to design and implement programs and policies, make recommendations to organizations, and assist in others’ research endeavors. ” (the author)


Why

• Make the world a better place to live in or at least, keep it from getting worse.

• Make a living.


What

•Program evaluation•Policy development•Journalism•Organizational behavior consultants•Consumer behavior•Grant-writing•Jury consulting


Examples of Where and What•Government

•Research Institutes

•Non-governmental organizations

•Universities and colleges

•Private Sector–Market research

–Research and consulting

–Product and program development

–Legal research


Examples of Research Topics•Energy efficiency: how to get customers to use less electricity or gas

•Does a program to reduce drug use really work?

•What kind of ways do people use DVD technology and what does that mean for product development?

•What kinds of stress are people feeling when taking care of their aging parents and what does that mean for government support programs?

•What kind of architectural design and floor plan will facilitate the objectives of the activities to take place in a building?


Look out, here comes some free advice...•Know your world - always be a ‘student’

•Be flexible

•Read read read

•Don’t be afraid of the ‘s’ word (psst: sales)

•Learn all about contracts and proposals

•Learn every research method you can while you’re in school.

•Learn job interviewing skills.

•Women - learn how to present yourself in the workplace.


Skills to Have•Writing is thinking.

•Quantitative methods: SPSS at least, SAS is specialized.

•HTML - it’s about time.

•Stats: bivariate, multivariate

•Interviewing skills (gathering data)

•Qualitative research

•Take public policy courses,

•Learn excel and powerpoint, consider Access, SQL, and others

•Project management

•Business management and marketing


•Every ‘industry’ (even government) has a structure, a set of literature, key players, dynamics. Learn what they are. •Or become a methodological expert. •But most are a bit of both.

Become an Expert


Why the state of our profession? Sociologists developed a deep dislike of business.

Grads have barely defined, if any, marketable skills.

Sociologists became more focused on finding problems rather than solutions.

The academic departments in better schools tend not recognize a career path for its students other than graduate school.

Our advanced degree graduates rarely give $$$ to our alma mater.

Outside of academia we refer to ourselves as ‘social scientists’, ‘methodologists’ and other titles rather than sociologists. Even the new Association of Applied and Clinical Sociology, whose mission is to promote sociology and sociological knowledge, named its journal “ASS” (Applied Social Science).

The loss of our intellectual ‘children’ through separation of career-focused degrees from primary research degrees. CriminologySocial work/social welfarePublic Health/Epidemiology/DemographyOrganizational Behavior


What we do better than anyone else…

• Being able to look at the big picture – the context of the little picture. Most people simply do not see the world this way, and they miss a lot.

1. Our sociological mind

• Often very good statistical training, including how to handle data, create analytic models that address hypotheses.

• Often very good qualitative research methods

2. Our research methods


• Project management (it takes a lot to get a complex research project done!)

• Public presentation skills – written and spoken

• Proposal writing

• Program and product design

3. Our job skills

What we do better than anyone else…


TRAINING STUDENTS• Curriculum

– Requiring computer skills, policy, and writing and presentation for lay audiences.

• Soft skills– Dress– Entrepreneurial spirit– Solution providing, not just problem identification. Proactive versus

reactive. • Business management

– Even a non-profit isn’t for loss. The bottom line matters when you can’t pay the bills or do anything due to lack of funds.

– That means, knowing how a business is run: process, documentation, bookkeeping, customer service.


•www.asanet.org – American Sociological Association•www.aacsnet.org – Association of Applied and Clinical Sociology•www.popassoc.org - Population Association of America •www.eval.org - American Evaluation Association•www.techsociety.com/asa - Sociological Practice section of the American Sociological Association.

Resources

Documents

TechSociety Research Dr. Leora Lawton President TechSociety Research Berkeley, CA Opportunities for Sociologists and other Social Scientists with a B.A