It is interesting to consider what sorts of things cause shifts in public opinion about specific issues. This week's national election is one important example. But what about more focused issues -- for example, the many ballot initiatives that were considered in many states? To what extent can we discover whether there is a measurable …
Policy, treatment, and mechanism
Policies are selected in order to bring about some desired social outcome or to prevent an undesired one. Medical treatments are applied in order to cure a disease or to ameliorate its effects. In each case an intervention is performed in the belief that this intervention will causally interact with a larger system in such …
What causes college success?
This sounds like a simple question. It sounds as if it is asking for us to discover a set of factors that influence the level of performance of individuals within a population when they get to colleges and universities. And we might speculate that there is a small group of potentially relevant factors: antecedent cognitive …
Quasi-experimental data?
Stan Lieberson is one of a group of sociologists for whom I have great respect when it comes to intelligent thinking about social science methodology. His 1985 book, Making It Count: The Improvement of Social Research and Theory, is a good example of some of this thinking about the foundations of social science knowledge, and …
Is sociology analogous to epidemiology?
Quantitative sociology attempts, among other things, to establish causal connections between large social factors (race, socio-economic status, residential status) and social outcomes of interest (rates of delinquency). Is this type of inquiry analogous in any way to the use of large disease databases to attempt to identify risk factors? In other words, is there a …
Paired comparisons
Sidney Tarrow is a gifted and prolific student of comparative politics. (Listen to my interview with Professor Tarrow.) He has spent much of his career trying to understand social movements, contentious politics, and the causes of differences in political behavior across national settings. And one of his special contributions is his ability to think clearly …
Understanding Society 