III. Чтение

В данном разделе представлены: аутентичные тексты по основным разделам социологии; упражнения на закрепление специальной лексики, пополнение активного словаря и на повторение правил английской грамматики.

Тема 2. Social Barometer

1. Read and translate the text.

Sociological research generally falls into one of four types: exploratory, descriptive, explanatory, or evaluative. These types of research can be conducted through either quantitative or qualitative research design. Qualitative designs focus on social interaction and the meanings people impute to their behaviour, and include ethnographic interviews, participant observations, and case studies. Quantitative research designs emphasize the use of numbers and statistics for analysing and explaining social events and human behaviour.

An important step in the sociological research process is choosing a research design to meet the goals and objectives of the studies.

A great part of sociological research consists of quantitative experimenting.

Quantitative research, which is patterned after the natural sciences, assumes that the most objective and systematic way to study and analyse a phenomenon is through quantification of observations and the use of statistical techniques. Quantitative designs include secondary analysis, experiments and surveys. The system of techniques used for that purpose is that of statistical methods. These methods are necessary to examine the data, analyse them and draw certain conclusions. The results of the socio­logical survey are published then.

Sociological research is usually conducted by a working group under the supervision of the leading sociologists of the All-Russian Centre for the Study of Public Opinion. The public opinion poll is a criterion of the current social life within the society. It is the so-called social barometer of the country. In fact our fast-moving life makes it necessary to analyse things. So it is useful to examine the results of sociological surveys.

The public opinion poll is carried out nationwide or in some definite regions, cities, establishments. It may be verbal in the form of an interview. But more often the opinion poll is conducted by means of tests or ques­tionnaires. The questionnaires contain some items to be chosen by the subjects. In other cases the questionnaires present a set of questions to be answered by the res­pondents in their individual way. Questions may be closed-ended or open-ended. The polled may express their own opinions verbally or in writing. The assessments may be optimistic, pessimistic, dramatic, positive, negative. They expose and reassess our ideals and values.

The polls are very popular nowadays throughout the country. In general, they are directed to assess current social and political situation, political figures, the most important events, economic perspectives, our losses and gains and so on. All data are given in percentages.

In the ongoing quest for knowledge, sociologists must renew their scientific commitment to develop new and creative research designs and methods aimed at increased understanding of our social world.

Taking a Closer Look