Ivaylo D. Petev - Qualitative & Mixed

Topics in Quantitative Sociology

Fall 2020 ENSAE

Qualitative & Mixed approaches

Ethnographic research has the unrivaled advantage to offer contextually-rich evidence on social relations. We examine the benefits and limitations of this approach along with its integration to the analysis of an American urban ghetto.

Excerpts from Chronicle of a Summer:

Background readings

Desmond, 2014, TS, “Relational ethnography”
Jerolmack & Khan, 2014, SMR, "Talk is cheap ethnography and the attitudinal fallacy"
Gramain & Weber, 2001, Geneses, "Ethnographie et économétrie: pour une coopération empirique"
Pearce, 2012, ABS, "Mixed methods inquiry in sociology"
Weber, 2001, Ethno, "Settings, interactions and things. A plea for multi-integrative ethnography"

Optional readings

Badger & Bui, 2018, NYT, "In 83 Million Eviction Records, a Sweeping and Intimate New Look at Housing in America"
Creswell, 2007, Ch4, "Five Qualitative Approaches to Inquiry"
Creswell, 2007, Ch11, "Turning the Story and Conclusion"
Creswell & Plano, 2006, Ch4, "Choosing a Mixed Methods Design"
Creswell & Plano, 2006, Ch1, "The Nature of Mixed Methods Research"
Emirbayer, 1997, AJS, "Manifesto for a relational sociology"
Kelle, 2001, FQSR, "Sociological explanations between micro and macro and the integration of qualitative and quantitative methods"
Schwartz, 2011, Ch, "L'empirisme irréductible"

Case-study for reading and commentary

Goffman, 2009, ASR, “On the run: Wanted men in a Philadelphia Ghetto”

Abstract: Although recent increases in imprisonment are concentrated in poor Black communities, we know little about how daily life within these neighborhoods is affected. Almost all ethnographic work in poor minority neighborhoods was written before the expansion of the criminal justice system, and the bulk of research on “mass imprisonment” relies on survey data, field experiments, or interviews, conceptualizing its impact in terms of current or former felons and their families. Drawing on six years of fieldwork in Philadelphia, this article shifts the focus from imprisonment and criminal records to the increase in policing and supervision in poor Black neighborhoods, and what this has meant for a growing status group of wanted people. For many young men, avoiding jail has become a daily preoccupation: they have warrants out for minor infractions, like failing to pay court fees or breaking curfew, and will be detained if they are identified. Such threat of imprisonment transforms social relations by undermining already tenuous attachments to family, work, and community. But young men also rely on their precarious legal standing to explain failures that would have occurred anyway, while girlfriends and neighbors exploit their wanted status as an instrument of social control. I discuss the implications of my ethnographic observations relative to prior treatments of the poor and policing, and with regard to broader sociological questions about punishment and surveillance in the modern era.

Case-studies for written review

Adams, Jimi, and Jenny Trinitapoli. 2009. “The Malawi Religion Project: Data Collection and Selected Analyses.” Demographic Research 21:255–88. doi: 10.4054/DemRes.2009.21.10.
Andrews, Kenneth T. 2001. “Social Movements and Policy Implementation: The Mississippi Civil Rights Movement and the War on Poverty, 1965 to 1971.” American Sociological Review 66(1):71. doi: 10.2307/2657394.
Blee, Kathleen. 2013. “How Options Disappear: Causality and Emergence in Grassroots Activist Groups.” American Journal of Sociology 119(3):655–81. doi: 10.1086/675347.
Braunstein, Ruth, Brad R. Fulton, and Richard L. Wood. 2014. “The Role of Bridging Cultural Practices in Racially and Socioeconomically Diverse Civic Organizations.” American Sociological Review 79(4):705–25. doi: 10.1177/0003122414538966.
Cerda-Jara, Michael, and David Harding. 2024. “Criminal Record Stigma in the Labor Market for College Graduates: A Mixed Methods Study.” Sociological Science 11:42–66. doi: 10.15195/v11.a2.
Cerulo, Karen A., and Janet M. Ruane. 2014. “Apologies of the Rich and Famous: Cultural, Cognitive, and Social Explanations of Why We Care and Why We Forgive.” Social Psychology Quarterly 77(2):123–49. doi: 10.1177/0190272514530412.
Chan Tack, Anjanette, and Mario Small. 2017. “Making Friends in Violent Neighborhoods: Strategies among Elementary School Children.” Sociological Science 4:224–48. doi: 10.15195/v4.a10.
Cherlin, Andrew J., Tera R. Hurt, Linda M. Burton, and Diane M. Purvin. 2004. “The Influence of Physical and Sexual Abuse on Marriage and Cohabitation.” American Sociological Review 69(6):768–89. doi: 10.1177/000312240406900602.
Cherlin, Andrew, Caitlin Cross‐Barnet, Linda M. Burton, and Raymond Garrett‐Peters. 2008. “Promises They Can Keep: Low‐Income Women’s Attitudes Toward Motherhood, Marriage, and Divorce.” Journal of Marriage and Family 70(4):919–33. doi: 10.1111/j.1741-3737.2008.00536.x.
Desmond, Matthew. 2012 “Eviction and the Reproduction of Urban Poverty.” American Journal of Sociology.
Desmond, Matthew. 2012. “Disposable Ties and the Urban Poor.” American Journal of Sociology 117(5):1295–1335. doi: 10.1086/663574.
DeSoucey, Michaela. 2010. “Gastronationalism: Food Traditions and Authenticity Politics in the European Union.” American Sociological Review 75(3):432–55. doi: 10.1177/0003122410372226.
Duneier, Mitchell, and Harvey Molotch. 1999. “Talking City Trouble: Interactional Vandalism, Social Inequality, and the ‘Urban Interaction Problem.’” American Journal of Sociology 104(5):1263–95. doi: 10.1086/210175.
England, Paula, Mónica L. Caudillo, Krystale Littlejohn, Brooke Conroy Bass, and Joanna Reed. 2016. “Why Do Young, Unmarried Women Who Do Not Want to Get Pregnant Contracept Inconsistently? Mixed-Method Evidence for the Role of Efficacy.” Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World 2:237802311662946. doi: 10.1177/2378023116629464.
Garip, Filiz, and Asad L. Asad. 2016. “Network Effects in Mexico–U.S. Migration: Disentangling the Underlying Social Mechanisms.” American Behavioral Scientist 60(10):1168–93. doi: 10.1177/0002764216643131.
Giordano, Peggy C. 1995. “The Wider Circle of Friends in Adolescence.” American Journal of Sociology 101(3):661–97.
Hart-Brinson, Peter. 2016. “The Social Imagination of Homosexuality and the Rise of Same-Sex Marriage in the United States.” Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World 2:237802311663055. doi: 10.1177/2378023116630555.
Jæger, Mads Meier. 2019. “Hello Beautiful? The Effect of Interviewer Physical Attractiveness on Cooperation Rates and Survey Responses.” Sociological Methods & Research 48(1):156–84. doi: 10.1177/0049124116672677.
Laubach, M. 2005. “Consent, Informal Organization and Job Rewards: A Mixed Methods Analysis.” Social Forces 83(4):1535–65. doi: 10.1353/sof.2005.0070.
Mueller, Anna S., and Seth Abrutyn. 2016. “Adolescents under Pressure: A New Durkheimian Framework for Understanding Adolescent Suicide in a Cohesive Community.” American Sociological Review 81(5):877–99. doi: 10.1177/0003122416663464.
Pagis, Michal. 2010. “Producing Intersubjectivity in Silence: An Ethnographic Study of Meditation Practice.” Ethnography 11(2):309–28. doi: 10.1177/1466138109339041.
Parcel, Toby L., Joshua A. Hendrix, and Andrew J. Taylor. 2016. “‘How Far Is Too Far?’: Gender, Emotional Capital, and Children’s Public School Assignments.” Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World 2:237802311666995. doi: 10.1177/2378023116669955.
Quinlan, Elizabeth, and Andrea Quinlan. 2010. “Representations of Rape: Transcending Methodological Divides.” Journal of Mixed Methods Research 4(2):127–43. doi: 10.1177/1558689809359000.
Rivera, Lauren A. 2012. “Hiring as Cultural Matching: The Case of Elite Professional Service Firms.” American Sociological Review 77(6):999–1022. doi: 10.1177/0003122412463213.
Safi, Mirna. 2017. “Promoting Diversity in French Workplaces: Targeting and Signaling Ethnoracial Origin in a Colorblind Context.” Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World 3:237802311772883. doi: 10.1177/2378023117728834.
Schwarz, Ori. 2015. “The Sound of Stigmatization: Sonic Habitus, Sonic Styles, and Boundary Work in an Urban Slum.” American Journal of Sociology 121(1):205–42. doi: 10.1086/682023.
Sølvberg, Lisa Mb, and Vegard Jarness. 2019. “Assessing Contradictions: Methodological Challenges When Mapping Symbolic Boundaries.” Cultural Sociology 13(2):178–97. doi: 10.1177/1749975518819907.
Trinitapoli, Jenny. 2007. “‘I Know This Isn’t PC, But …’: Religious Exclusivism among U.S. Adolescents.” The Sociological Quarterly 48(3):451–83. doi: 10.1111/j.1533-8525.2007.00085.x.
Venkatesh, Sudhir Alladi. 1997. “The Social Organization of Street Gang Activity in an Urban Ghetto.” American Journal of Sociology 103(1):82–111. doi: 10.1086/231172.

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