Week 5 sociology assignment

Sociology

Student’s Name

University Affiliation

Sociology

I liked conducting the research. This is because it gave me insight into the traditions of the other cultures. I got to know more of the social norms that individuals they were raised in and how they affected the personality and social values of the individual. The research also helped me raise my cultural awareness. I was able to understand the practices of other societies and recognize the differences in the world views between my society and their own (Livesey, 2014). I also got to understand the different perspectives of ageism from the subjects. The subjects gave their view on what they interpret by groin old and this helped me understand the root of ageism in the society. This helped me understand this social injustice in a much better light. The research was also quite challenging to perform. It was slightly difficult to get responses from the respondents however the challenge made the process even more worthwhile as it made me appreciate all the research ever done in sociology.

The subjects were mostly willing to answer general questions about themselves. They were willing to tell me about their heritage and how they were brought up. They were eager to share their experiences growing up and the ways they thought this deferred from other individuals in the society. They were also very eager to share information about their heritage and their role models and they showed genuine confidence in their heritage. However, they seemed hesitant to talk about social issues such as ageism and sexuality. Many of the respondents were not sure how to answer some of the questions such as their perception of getting old or their perception of sexuality. One of the respondents was an Indian and their culture is very conservative on such matters. They declined to answer my questions on the topic. This showed the level of freedom that every society has. Different societies have different levels of openness. Conservative societies are less likely to talk about sensitive issues in the open because they term this as a taboo (Livesey, 2014). I got to experience the differences in the complacency and openness of the cultures during this research which I really enjoyed.

It was difficult to write the questions for the questionnaire. This is because I was trying to avoid some of the basic research errors that people make. One error, in particular, is the researcher bias where the researcher knowingly or unknowingly affects the results of the study. This can be by asking questions that tend to imply their stance on an issue (Tischler, 2014). This may compel the subjects to side with him, skewing the results of the study. I was, therefore, making sure that my questions were as neutral as possible to allow the subjects to confidently offer their views on a topic. Another cause of an error is the omission bias where the respondent omits vital information. I was, therefore, ensuring that the questions were detailed to ensure I got as much information as I could. Another issue was finding willing respondents. Many people were not willing to participate in the study which made it hard to choose a sample that was reflective of the entire population.

References

Livesey, C. (2014). Cambridge international AS and A level sociology course book. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Tischler, H. (2014). Introduction to sociology. Belmont, CA, USA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.