Guidelines for Question 5

Question 5

For students engaged in voluntary service work through the Fall semester, describe patterns of inequality observed at your research site and analyze these patterns using theories of inequality discussed in the course.

Guidelines
The organization at which you are working is putting into practice a theory of inequality. By trying to alleviate the disadvantage of its clients, the organization is diagnosing a problem and proposing a solution. Your term paper should try and identify this theory of inequality and discuss it, in light of the readings in class. What are the main obstacles facing the clients you work with? Are the patterns of inequality that you observe at your site, also significant social problems at the national level? Does the organization successfully reduce disadvantage? How is the organization able to provide assistance, for example, through community action, or federal funding? These are the types of issues that can structure your paper.
Field research, such as this, depends importantly on systematic observation. All students should take field notes while working at their organization. In a participant-observation setting you will frequently be too busy to take detailed notes. Often you will only have a chance to jot down a few observations or make mental notes. It is therefore important to write up a detailed set of field notes each evening after work is finished. These field notes will forms the core of the empirical material you will use for the paper.
Finally, research in the field requires measures that protects both yourself and your research subjects from harm. It is essential to obtain informed consent from the administrators of your organization. They must know that you are writing about your experiences there for a term paper in Sociology. If you interview children, parental consent must also be obtained.
To help fulfill the requirements of human subjects review you will need to hand in a short proposal (about 1 page) describing the question your asking, the organization at which work, and the type of work you will do in conjunction with your term paper. Your will also have to fill out a modified version of Questionnaire A, the questionnaire used by Princeton's Institutional Review Panel. For the purposes of this paper, you can all questions about funding and other inquiries which are not relevant to your project. Copies of Questionnaire A can be obtained from Professor Western. Completed questionnaires must be returned to him.

Because some students were assigned to research sites relatively late, the DUE DATE for question 5 of the term paper is the final day of class, December 12, 1997. All other term papers must be handed in at lecture on November 26, 1997.

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