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Influences on sociologists' research : an empirical study in the sociology of social research

University of British Columbia

Sociologists affiliated with three universities in Western Canada were interviewed in a study designed to explore important influences on current research interests. Categories of influence were constructed and subjects were grouped according to similarities in mentioned influences. It was found that subjects who mentioned similar influences on their research interests displayed other similarities in the way in which they related to their research topics and to the discipline. A typology based on subjects' research orientations to their research topics was constructed. Evidence presented in the thesis suggests that the particular research orientation of any sociologist may represent an important factor in determining the kind of research that he or she produces. The small sampling in this study prevented systematic analysis of the influence of factors such as citizenship and graduate school training as determinants of research interests. However, data presented suggests that the research orientation of sociologists should be included, as a variable, in any large-scale study of the effects of citizenship and graduate training on the research carried out by sociologists in Canada.

Text

2011-03-28

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/33018

Sociology

University of British Columbia

Graduate