week 1 Flashcards
(6 cards)
How do agency and structure interact to shape an individual’s choices, actions, and opportunities within society?
Agency and structure work together to shape what people can do in society. Agency means a person’s ability to make their own choices and take action. Structure refers to the outside forces, like rules, traditions, and resources, that limit or guide those choices.
For example, someone may want to become a doctor (agency), but their ability to do so depends on things like access to education and money (structure). While people can make their own choices, they are always influenced by the structures around them. However, over time, people can also change these structures.
sociological imagination
people to see themselves as part of a bigger history because history often repeats itself. Understanding past events helps us see patterns and learn why things happen on a larger scale. This can help people make better choices and even change society.
EX: studying history, people can learn from past successes and mistakes to create change in the present.
Types of research: cross-sectional design
a study where data is collected from a group of people at one specific point in time. It is often used to find patterns or relationships between variables but does not show cause and effect.
Example: A researcher surveys 1,000 people in a city to find out how many exercise regularly and compares this with their reported stress levels. Since the data is collected only once, the study can show if there is a link between exercise and stress but not whether exercise actually reduces stress.
Types of research: Repeated cross-sectional design
a study where different groups of people are surveyed at different points in time. This helps track changes in trends or behaviors over time but does not follow the same individuals.
Example: A researcher surveys 1,000 people in a city about their exercise habits in 2020 and then surveys a different group of 1,000 people in 2025. By comparing the results, they can see if exercise habits in the city have changed over time.
Type of Research: panel design
a study where the same group of people is surveyed or studied multiple times over a period of time. This helps track individual changes but can be costly and difficult to maintain because people may drop out (attrition).
Example: A researcher surveys the same 500 students about their study habits in 9th grade, then again in 11th grade, and finally in college. This allows the researcher to see how individual students’ study habits change over time, but some students may stop participating, making the study harder to complete.
Attrition
when participants drop out of a study before it is completed. This can create problems, such as missing data and biased results, if those who leave are different from those who stay.
Example: In a study on mental health, some participants with severe symptoms drop out because their condition worsens. This could make the final results inaccurate because the study would mostly include people with milder symptoms, giving a misleading picture of mental health trends.
