Who would like to help me with my homework? (Don't worry it's easy and no I'm not cheating)

[Tyler]

In my intro to sociology class I was asked to form a survey geared towards a sociological perspective. So I chose conflict theory. I'm supposed to send the survey to friends and family but I thought I would get more interesting and varied results from here.

It's only eight questions and should take less then 5 minutes. The questions do get a bit political, as is the nature of the subject. However, The answers are gathered anonymously so I'll have no clue who answered what, and nor do I care. Also the first two questions are purely voluntary, you can say you live on Earth and are non-political.

The survey

Thanks to anyone who participates

 

[Zebestian]

So I chose conflict theory.

I hope you know what you're getting yourself into... I freaking hated International Relations and Affairs and the whole conflict theory stuff back in the day. But as a sociologist myself, I will gladly help you with the survey. 'Cause I know how freaking hard it is to get a reasonable sample. :D

Edit: I see you Weber... don't try to hide. I'm not going towards that whole power stuff. XD
Edit 2: And done. :)

 

[Black Shadow]

For the second last question I put pain and suffering you should put that as a answer!

 

[Amysaurus]

Oh boy, I remember having to go around and survey people, lol. I filled it out, so hopefully that helps ^^

Good luck with the class!

 

[LTN Games]

Interesting, very interesting.........

 

[Tyler]

Wow, that was fast. Thanks a lot guys.

I hope you know what you're getting yourself into... I freaking hated International Relations and Affairs and the whole conflict theory stuff back in the day. But as a sociologist myself, I will gladly help you with the survey. 'Cause I know how freaking hard it is to get a reasonable sample. :D

Edit: I see you Weber... don't try to hide. I'm not going towards that whole power stuff. XD
Edit 2: And done. :)

I'm not really a fan of conflict theory, which was one of the reasons I chose it to see how the community felt towards it. I believe there are merits but it has gone to far, but others may disagree.

 

[Rise Evil]

Hope this will help you ^^

 

[Zebestian]

I'm not really a fan of conflict theory, which was one of the reasons I chose it to see how the community felt towards it. I believe there are merits but it has gone to far, but others may disagree.

I usually prefer to work without much of a leading theory. Narrows the view, if you know what I mean. My profs refer to theories as different pairs of glasses through which you basically can't see some things. And as a scientist, I want to see the field in its whole. I want to keep my options open. Besides, I'm more of a methods guy anyway. Empiricism is kinda my shtick. :D

 

[Tyler]

I usually prefer to work without much of a leading theory. Narrows the view, if you know what I mean. My profs refer to theories as different pairs of glasses through which you basically can't see some things. And as a scientist, I want to see the field in its whole. I want to keep my options open. Besides, I'm more of a methods guy anyway. Empiricism is kinda my shtick. :D

That was kind of where my thoughts were leading me. It seemed to be set up to be functionalism vs conflict, but when I look at society, there are jerks who are exploitative to get ahead, but society and law tends to be formed to promote the whole of the society by being fair to each individual. So there are aspects of each.

However, I understand this is an intro class and it is not my major, so I don't expect it to really get super deep but rather providing a simplified overview of sociology.

I saw somewhere else (I lurk a lot, I do try to post but I get busy and lose motivation) that you mentioned you were a sociologist. I'm glad to see you made it through with a very balanced and open view, it helps me respect sociology a bit more.
[doublepost=1445473171,1445472970][/doublepost]

For the second last question I put pain and suffering you should put that as a answer!

Thanks for taking the survey. I don't think I can modify it now that it is live, but that's why I added fill in options, as well as the ability to select multiple options.

(and this double post merge feature is awesome)

 

[Zebestian]

I saw somewhere else (I lurk a lot, I do try to post but I get busy and lose motivation) that you mentioned you were a sociologist. I'm glad to see you made it through with a very balanced and open view, it helps me respect sociology a bit more.

Yes, I indeed am. Not quite finished yet but I'm supposed to hand in my Bachelor's thesis in about half a year from now. :D
I think I managed to stay unbiased because of the focus of my faculty. We do have a scientific dogma here (sociology of knowledge and discourse analysis) because it's the work field of our professors. But we had the opportunity to visit a very broad variety of courses that showed us the ins and outs of many different theoretical perspectives and even worked with meta theories. That, and I take the whole stuff about freedom from value judgment very seriously. :P

 

[Wingedwolf]

took survey for ya .. hope it helps out

 

[eivl]

Done and done, hope it helps in any way or form. What kind of education is this related to?

 

[Storytailor]

Took the survey. I'm a sucker for surveys. Man, I do them for money, I do them for prizes, I do them for sweepstakes. I just can't help myself. And, as a sociology minor (previously geography major), I know what it's like to try and herd together a body of participants for something. Good job setting up the questions and everything! Nicely done.

 

[Tyler]

Thank you everyone for you participation! Made my life easier.

Done and done, hope it helps in any way or form. What kind of education is this related to?

I am currently getting my Associates of Applied Science in Allied Health. I went through a Medical Assistant course and have my certifications as a medical assistant and phlebotomist and decided to continue to get my AAS. This appears to be my one humanities class for my degree. I am wanting to become a lab tech and see where I go from there.

I'll provide the short (1-2 page) summary my class required if anyone is interested:

Spoiler

Week 2 Assignment: Sociological Perspectives Social Survey

This week’s assignment was to create a survey to poll people’s opinions regarding a sociological perspective. I chose conflict theory as I believe there is some truth to it but in large has been taken to a far extreme. I wanted to see how other people viewed the issues brought up by conflict theory. I chose to survey an online community that I am a part of to get a broad sample as I believe that my friends and family would give me a perspective similar to my own. Nine individuals were kind enough to lend me their time and thoughts.

First I wanted to get an idea of my samples political leaning, about half of them were non-political and the rest were center or left of center, with one outspoken hater of politics. Since this was an online sample from around the world I wanted to know where they were from to get an understanding of the type of society and government their perspective was from. Everyone who volunteered their location was from the western world, with the majority from North America (The United States and Canada) and a couple from Europe (Norway and Germany). I then asked if they believed their society has a level field for success for everyone regardless of class, race, gender, etc. Their answers averaged a 2.78 out of 10, so very low. Only a couple people believed that they lived in a fair society, not perfect but fair; a third believed that their society tries but does not succeed, and about half believed that society was unfair to some degree.

I then wanted to see how they view success and others who are materially successful. I asked them to rank what they believed success is. They ranked them highest to lowest: happiness, family, accomplishments, friends, money, and power/influence. I then asked them to rank the reasons/sources of the wealthy and powerful’s success. They ranked them highest to lowest: exploitation of the less wealthy and powerful, hard work, being smart, being born into it, and being lucky. I asked them why there are rich and poor people and most seemed to believe that it was due to the scarcity of resources or the societal systems failure to distribute resources and opportunity. When asked what they believe happens to the poor when the rich get richer they were evenly split between “get poorer” and “maintain status” with one individual saying “get richer as well”. I also asked about the legal system to get a slightly different view on society. Most believed that the legal system is set up to protect society from harmful individuals with punishment and keeping certain groups from succeeding following after that.

From my small sample, I can see that this group of people value immaterial signs of success over money or power. This group is evenly split in how they view the materially successful individuals in society with some seeing them as exploitative and others as hard working innovators. They see the disparity between rich and poor largely a societal problem caused by society not being set up to be a level field that enables people an equal chance at material success. From the information I gathered I would say that there is a belief in conflict theory; however, this sample overall seems well balanced in thought between society having problems and the individuals responsibility for personal success.

Feel free to discuss any part of this, or even disagree with me.