Collaborative Research in Sociology, Essay Example

Many people are aware of the Black Lives Matter movement, but very few people are aware of the extent of the support that the movement has. Overall, it is apparent that this information would be used to gain a greater understanding of the types of individuals that tend to be in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. It would be reasonable for activists to target people in these areas to recruit them to the movement’s cause and to contribute to education about police conduct and human rights. It would, therefore, be valuable to determine the support that the movement has among people of various demographics. Doing so would help politicians gain a better understanding of the percentage of the population that supports this movement. Furthermore, it is beneficial for human’s rights activists to determine whether it would be valuable to expand their movement to different niches. On the broader scale, it is beneficial to gain more comprehensive understandings of modern social movements to gain more knowledge about the Black Lives Matter movement during its relevant part of history.

Research Question

The research question being asked in this mock study is “Does income level influence the opinion that an individual will have concerning their support of the Black Lives Matter Movement?” A plausible null hypothesis for this research question is that there is no relationship between income level and support for the Black Lives Matter movement. An alternative hypothesis for this research question is that support for the Black Lives Matter movement will vary according to the income level. The alternative hypothesis is expected to indicate directionality, with the lower income respondents having a higher degree of support for the movement overall. This is a directional hypothesis because it is not certain whether low income or high income individuals will be in more support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

An additional question that could be asked is “Does the individual’s opinion regarding the Black Lives Matter Movement impact their income?” A plausible null hypothesis for this research question is that there is not a relationship between support for the Black Lives Matter movement and income level. An alternative hypothesis for this research question is that income level will vary according to support for the Black Lives Matter movement. While the first research question posed will be the one examined because there is a higher degree of evidence to support the directionality of this questions, it is also important to consider that the reverse effect could be seen as well. It is plausible for someone to benefit monetarily from the Black Lives Matter movement. However, since this is unlikely, it is more reasonable to examine the popular opinion regarding the movement from the lens of wealthy, middle class, and low-income individuals.

It would also be plausible to ask the question “Which demographic factors will describe individuals who do or do not support the Black Lives Matter movement?” However, this study would involve the need to research a variety of variables and would best be answered by performing a quantitative analysis. Thus, this question will not be considered for the completion of the project and creating a null and alternative hypothesis is not necessary due to the statistical testing required for this question type.

Rationale

It is reasonable to focus on the relationship between income level and support for the Black Lives Matter movement because doing so will help people determine whether individuals that have a large income are unlikely to be aware of the need for the equal rights movement (Hunter et al., 2008). Furthermore, it will potentially demonstrate that lower income individuals are more likely to connect with individuals that rally for the Black Lives Matter movement. Wealthy individuals tend to not need to participate in social movements and have historically shown a lack of involvement. For example, the Occupy Wall Street movement was primary a movement against the wealthy, and it is, therefore reasonable that the wealthy are likely to reject its utility (Schneider, 2013). Likewise, the Black Lives Matter movement tends to impact low- income individuals and minorities, so these individuals are more likely to be involved in the movement.

Purpose of Study     

The purpose of this study is to determine whether income reflects opinion related to the Black Lives Matter movement. As such, this study will operate as a cross-sectional study. It attempts to determine the opinions of study participants at a single point in time, and the direction of the relationship cannot be ascertained on this basis; in this situation, it is indistinguishable as to whether income impacts opinion regarding the Black Lives Matter movement or whether the state of the Black Lives Matter movement has the potential to impact income.

Methodology

While the literature could be used to support the notion that income impacts opinion regarding the Black Lives Matter movement, the statistical test could not be used to confirm this directionality. Thus, surveys will be issued to members of the population to determine their income demographics in addition to their support of the Black Lives Matter movement. Attempts will be made to ensure that participants are subject to a process of random selection. The independent variables will be the income level of the participants and the dependent variable be the degree to which surveyed individuals support the Black Lives Matter movement.

Operational Definition

Income level will involve the use of income brackets. Broadly, individuals will be considered low income, lower middle class, upper middle class, and wealthy. The status of their income will depend upon the definition of median income in their state. If the individual is below two standard deviations from the mean of his or her state’s income, this individual will be considered low income. If the wage is above two standard deviations from the mean to the mean, the individual will be considered lower middle class. If the individual is above the mean to two standard deviations above the mean, the individual can be considered upper middle class (Briffa et al., 2001).

The dependent variable will be measured by the non-demographic answers that are provided on the survey issued to participants. The first question will ask participants whether or not they support the Black Lives Matter movement, which will be answered providing a simple dichotomous “yes” or “no” response (Diriwächter et al., 2006). Survey respondents will also be given the opportunity to use one to two sentences to briefly elaborate on their response. Quantitative analysis will be utilized to determine the degree of support or degree of disagreement that participants have with regards to the Black Lives Matter movement. These responses will then be ranked on a scale of one to five, with five indicating the highest level of support for the Black Lives Matter movement and one indicating the lowest level of support for the Black Lives Matter movement.

Scoring the Survey

An answer that receives a mark of “two” will indicate no support for the movement, a three will indicate a neutral point of view towards the movement, and a rank of four will indicate some support for the movement. Words that will indicate a score of five will show that the participant places major emphasis on the actions that movement leaders are taken, and the participant has been involved in the movement him or herself. A rank of four will be defined by support for the movement in an ethical manner that lacks action. A neutral opinion or score of three would offer a response that either supports and denies the movement or does not offer an opinion in either direction. A score of two will mean that the response shows a lack of ethical support with no physical action being taken while a score of one will indicate that the person does not support the movement and has taken physical action to oppose it. It is expected that responses will closely parallel a normal curve, with a majority of responses receiving a score of three, more receiving a score of two or four, and the least responses will receive a score of one or five. While people tend to be opinionated about social movements in either direction, they do not frequently take action independently of their support for or against the movement’s goal.

Analysis

To analyze these variables, it would be necessary to determine how many individuals in each financial category reflects on the Black Lives Matter movement, while gaining an understanding of those who are strongly against it. A summary of the data can be drawn by creating histograms that compare support for the Black Lives Matter movement using the response data. For example, the number of low-income individuals in support of the movement versus low-income individuals who are not in support of the movement can be represented easily in graphical form (Briffa et al., 2001). Valuable connections can be drawn by not just comparing the individuals within each earning demographic that are in support of the movement or are against it, but by comparing which groups have a majority of members that are in support of the movement or are against it. This data could also be represented by determining the mean response, the median, and the mode. This will generate a better understanding of the general spread of the data received for this study. It would be possible to increase the sample size used in this study in additional to randomizing the nature of the study participants to increase the chance that the results will be externally valid.

References

Briffa, K., Osborn, T., Schweingruber, F., Harris, I., Jones, P., Shiyatov, S., and Vaganov, E. (2001). Low-frequency temperature variations from a northern tree ring density network. Journal of Geophysical Research, 106: 2929

Diriwächter, R. & Valsiner, J. (2006) Qualitative Developmental Research Methods in Their Historical and Epistemological Contexts. FQS, 7(1): 8.

Given, L. (2008). The Sage encyclopedia of qualitative research methods. Los Angeles, Calif.: Sage Publications.

Hunter, L. & Leahey, E. (2008). Collaborative Research in Sociology: Trends and Contributing Factors. The American Sociologist, 39(4): 290.

Nathan Schneider (2013). Thank You, Anarchy: Notes from the Occupy Apocalypse. University of California Press.