SOC4013 Social Science Skills

Assessment Details

This second assessment asks you to review and discuss two research papers, focusing on their methodological approach.

You’re expected to produce a report that summarises the research topic, identifies and discusses the questions addressed by each paper and appraises the methodologies used in completing each piece of research.

Appraising methodology involves discussing the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches. In the process:  you will need to consider several questions in relation to your chosen papers:

1. Why did the author use their selected methods?
2. Would it be possible to apply different methods to this topic? What might this produce and how would it differ from the adopted approach?
3. What are the ethical implications of this research?

How to Approach the Task

You have a choice of two-topics, and you should choose a pair of articles from one of the below ‘Research Fields’ as the basis for your appraisal.

Whilst these are listed below, you will also need to read around the topic both in terms of a substantive and methodological literature drawn, for the most part, from books and journal articles.

What this means is that you’ll need to take the time to familiarise yourself with wider research on, for example, drugs and addiction as well as the methodological assumptions behind the chosen work. 

Research Field 1: Addiction and Drug Use

1. Gooch, K & Treadwell, J (2020) ‘Prisoner Society in an Era of Psychoactive Substances, Organized Crime, New Drug Markets and Austerity’ British Journal of Criminology 60 (5) pp. 1260-81
2. Yule, C., Pare, P & Gartner, R (2015) ‘An Examination of the Local Life Circumstances of Female Offenders: Mothering, Illegal Earnings and Drug Use’ British Journal of Criminology 55 (2) pp. 248-69
3. Duxbury, S and Hanie, D (2018) ‘The Network Structure of Opioid Distribution on a Darknet Cryptomarket’ Journal of Quantitative Criminology 34 (4) pp. 921-41 
4. Wakeman, S (2015) ‘The Moral Economy of Heroin in ‘Austerity Britain’’ Critical Criminology 24 pp. 363-77

OR,

Research Field 2: Homelessness and Social Class

1. Ellison, G (2018) ‘Drifters, Party Boys and Incumbents: The Life Patterns of Male Street-based Sex Workers’ Sociology 52 (2) pp. 367-383
2. Gerrard, J (2018) ‘The Economy of Smiles: Affect, Labour and the Contemporary Deserving Poor’ British Journal of Sociology 70 (2)
3. Moschion, J & Johnson, G (2019) ‘Homelessness and Incarceration: A Reciprocal Relationship?’ Journal of Quantitative Criminology 35 (3) pp. 855-87
4. Savage, M., Devine, F., Cunningham, N., Taylor, M., Li, Y., Hjellbrekke, J., Miles, A. (2013). ‘A new model of social class? Findings from the BBC’s Great British Class Survey experiment’. Sociology, 47(2), 219-250.

Task Requirements: When it comes to writing your appraisal, what we’re looking for is just ordinary, long-form written English using paragraphs and sentences in a well-spaced readable font, there’s no need for subheadings or bullet points or graphs/pictures copied over from the Internet. However, to give you a rough idea of how to structure your submission, you’re expected to include 6 broad sections (with rough guidance on length so please bear in mind that you might need fewer words in some sections and more in others to meet the overall word count):

1. Introduction (approx. 5%)
2. Research Topic – Identify and discuss the focus on the research on both of your chosen papers, connecting them into a wider field of study (approx.. 10%)
3. Research Questions – Identify the specific questions that each of your two publications sought to answer (approx.. 10%)
4. Methodology - Identify the methods used within each piece of research. What are their strengths and weaknesses? How else might this research have been accomplished and/or how might future research add to it? (approx. 35%)
5. Ethics – What ethical considerations might the authors have dealt with in completing this research? (approx. 35%)
6. Conclusion (approx. 5%)