WS/SOC/ES 418/ F08/ Das Gupta

GUIDELINES FOR RESEARCH PROJECT: Getting Started

All students must work in consultation with me in choosing their topics and drawing up a research plan. Remember the project will have to shed light on the issue of gender and work.

Family Projects: Your first tasks are to identify the family members you will interview, figure out how you will record the interviews, especially if they are done by phone, and then work on a list of questions that define “work” in the broadest possible way You will be collecting information about: what kinds of work your family members did/do; how each of them understood their paid and unpaid work; what they experienced at their various sites of work; what was pleasurable and what was not. Feel free to modify/ expand this list. The interviews should be semi-structured with a fair number of open-ended questions. Ideally, the interview guide should have 7-8 questions. Please remember that you will be expected to draw on direct quotes from your interviews to support your claims. This means you will be transcribing your interviews. Also, in interviewing your family members you have to render the familiar somewhat unfamiliar. So, do not assume you know certain things about your family members. Cross check your perspective with that of your interviewee.

Those doing family-based projects need at least 5-6 sources that we have read for the class (articles in reader and required books). Some of you are working on topics that were inadequately covered in class or not covered at all. Your sources may have to come from journal articles and books not used in the class. See guidelines below.

Library Research Projects: Those doing library-based research need at least 10 -12 sources.

Your list of references should have:

1. Journal articles (available at Voyager Online Resources; search for full text)
2. Newspaper articles (if relevant)
3. Academic books (monographs) and/or chapters Edited volumes
4. Max of 4 references from non-academic sources (popular magazines or non academic books) and websites. These cannot form the bulk of your references. The web can be great source but you have to look at reliable sites. For eg., if you want to research issues of gender equity, the Labor Dept or Feminist Majority or the Economic Policy Institute websites would be great sources. You should avoid websites that put up half-baked "information." While you may use them to demonstrate prevalent attitudes, you should not use their data or opinions to make your point.

Hybrid Projects: Those doing a combination of interviews (no more than two) and library research need at least 5-6 outside sources. These outside sources must be a combination of journal articles, academic books (monographs and edited volumes), newspaper articles, and no more than two non-academic sources. Please read the guidelines above for research-based projects. In addition, you may draw on readings we have done in class.

You will need to draw up interview questions and transcribe your interview/s so that you can illustrate your arguments with your interview data

Local 5 Project: Students will work with me and Local 5 to determine the final project.