2. Using Sociology in Everyday Life

At this point, you may be wondering about whether research methods actually have any relevance to your own life. Whether or not you choose to work as a sociologist, we believe you should care about research methods for two reasons. First, research methods are regularly applied to solve social problems and issues that shape how societies are organized—which means you have to live with the results of research methods every day of your life. Second, understanding research methods might help you find a meaningful career and make a difference in the society you live in.

We’ll return to these two main uses of sociology throughout this chapter. Before we dive in, however, we should make a distinction between types of science. Generally speaking, we can classify research across the many fields of natural and social sciences (including sociology) based on the end purpose. Basic research, also called pure science, is research for its own sake. In this case, scientists are motivated to conduct research simply because they happen to be interested in a topic and want to contribute to a broader understanding of it. Applied research brings scientific knowledge to bear on a practical problem. It is often client-focused, meaning that researchers are investigating questions posed by someone other than themselves—often, a group that is paying them. Although many scientific disciplines do a mix of basic and applied research, some are more geared toward one side of this continuum. Engineering, for example, uses knowledge from physics and chemistry to build stronger bridges or design more efficient engines. Medicine uses biological knowledge to treat human ailments. Businesses tend to focus more on applied research, given its practical value, while universities conduct both basic and applied research.

For their part, sociologists tend to focus more on basic research than other social scientists do, though plenty of researchers trained in sociology wind up doing applied work, as we will see. They may not necessarily identify themselves as “sociologists,” but they were taught sociological research skills and approach their work from a sociological perspective. These researchers are frequently hired to conduct evaluation research, helping assess whether social programs—anything from local domestic violence shelters to federal government assistance programs—are effective in pursuing their missions. Many sociologists also work for think tanks, which are private or government-run organizations that conduct research to help governments, corporations, activists, or other groups make decisions about the best policies to pursue or reforms to push forward. Even when people trained as sociologists decide to pursue teaching and researching careers within academia, they may be interested in applying their sociological knowledge more broadly—that is, making their research findings accessible to the larger world through practices of public sociology.

In recent years, the demand for skilled social scientific researchers has grown. As advances in digital technologies make it easier and easier to collect information about users of websites, apps, and networked devices, they generate a complex and unstructured mass of data—what is known as big data—that is waiting to be analyzed by someone. Sociologists often get jobs in data science, an interdisciplinary field that uses computer coding and social scientific analysis methods to address the data-related problems facing corporations, governments, and other organizations.

Here’s a list of the types of jobs that people trained as sociologists typically work:

• teaching at the high school or university level
• studying social networks for social media companies
• doing research for advocacy organizations and think tanks
• working for the U.S. Census Bureau and other government agencies
• conducting market research in the advertising industry
• writing or reviewing grant applications
• tracking social well-being and other patient outcomes for hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, and other healthcare organizations
• providing therapy or counseling to individuals or groups
• facilitating groups and mediating conflicts, sometimes on behalf of courts
• working in human resources or otherwise using sociological knowledge of organizations and social networks in a corporate management role
• helping with the collection of data for large-scale social science studies such as the General Social Survey

Understanding research methods is important in all these jobs, and learning these skills can lead you to a satisfying and socially meaningful career.

In this chapter, we start off by talking about the sorts of basic research that academic sociologists—sociologists based at universities and colleges—typically conduct. Then we’ll discuss the numerous ways that sociological research matters in the world outside the academy—not only in terms of applied sociology, but also in broader terms. As you will see, the skills that good researchers possess are highly valued both within the public sector (government bodies, such as federal agencies and state legislatures) and within the private sector (companies, nonprofit organizations, and the like). Sociological research offers a number of career routes you can take, both academic and professional, and sociologists can make use of research to support efforts to initiate and sustain social change—as policymakers and activists, or simply as citizens and consumers.

Opening chapter image credit: Sachith Ravishka Kodikara, via Pexels. Adapted by Bizhan Khodabandeh.