Mark Abrahamson - Studying Cities and City Life

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Studying Cities and City Life

Studying Cities and City Life is a textbook designed to provide an introduction to the major methods of obtaining data to use when analyzing cities and social life in cities. Major chapters focus upon best practices in:

• field studies (participant observation)
• natural experiments and quasi-experiments
• surveys employing probability and non-probability samples
• secondary analyses of previously published documents.

A separate chapter examines a full range of questionnaires and interviews. Each chapter includes discussion of several case studies, and recently published research employing the method being discussed. This discussion highlights the issues and choices made by investigators in actual studies conducted in cities throughout the world.

This unique book is designed for use in research methods courses that primarily enroll students majoring in Urban Sociology, Urban Studies, Urban Geography, Urban Planning, and related areas.

Mark Abrahamson, is Professor of Sociology (Emeritus) at the University of Connecticut.

This book provides an accessible and engaging introduction to the wide range of methods used in urban research. Students will benefit from the authors ability to convey complex ideas succinctly and with clarity, and understanding is aided by numerous relevant examples drawn from classical and contemporary literature.

Graham Crow, Professor of Sociology and Methodology, University of Edinburgh

Studying Cities and City Life

An Introduction to Methods of Research

Mark Abrahamson

First published 2017
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2017 Mark Abrahamson

The right of Mark Abrahamson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Names: Abrahamson, Mark, author.
Title: Studying cities and city life: an introduction to methods of research/by Mark Abrahamson.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2016. |
Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016022794| ISBN 9780415738002 (hardback) |
ISBN 9780415738019 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781315817637 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Sociology, UrbanMethodology. | City and town lifeResearchMethodology.
Classification: LCC HT110.A27 2016 | DDC 307.7601dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016022794

ISBN: 978-0-415-73800-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-415-73801-9 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-81763-7 (ebk)

Typeset in Amasis
by Sunrise Setting Ltd, Brixham, UK

Contents*

List of illustrations

Preface

Introduction

PART ONE: INITIAL CONSIDERATIONS

The limitations of personal experience

Scientific research methods

Theory and research

Research designs: An overview and preview

PART TWO: RESEARCH ETHICS

Ethical constraints

Subject protections

Neutrality

Giving back to the community

Notes

Glossary

Ethnographic field studies

PART ONE: HISTORICAL AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

Historical field studies

The place of theory

PART TWO: CONDUCTING FIELD STUDIES

Reflexivity

The participant-observer continuum

Gaining access

Sampling

Writing field notes

Terminating a field study

Assessing data quality

Analyzing ethnographic data

Notes

Glossary

Experimental design

Experiments introduced

Contrasting experiments and ethnographic studies

Experimentation in social science

Causal inference

Experimental designs

Assigning subjects to experimental conditions

Internal and external validity

Notes

Glossary

Sample surveys

History of urban sampling studies

Sampling: Basic terms

Sample accuracy

Determining sample size

Types of samples

Reaching respondents

Nonresponse bias

Notes

Glossary

Obtaining data, Part One: Interviews, questionnaires and observation

Interviews

Questionnaires

Observation

Notes

Glossary

Obtaining data, Part Two: Multi-/mixed-methods and secondary sources

Multi-methods

Mixed-methods

Secondary sources

Special analyses

Notes

Glossary

Appendix

Measurement, reliability and validity

Concepts and indicators

Reliability

Validity

Notes

Glossary

The research report

Section headings

Writing style

Notes

Index

Note

_____________

* Note: the front page of each chapter contains a more detailed outline of the chapters contents.

Figures

3.1 Illustration of spuriousness

3.2 The one group design

Tables

1.1 Hypothetical neighborhood scores

2.1 Field note categories

3.1 The Solomon design

3.2 Experimental conditions in the Kingston study

4.1 Confidence Level, Confidence Interval and sample size

4.2 Section of a table of random numbers

4.3 Adjustment weighting

5.1 A grid illustrated

Over the years I have known, and taught, hundreds of students majoring in Urban Studies, Urban Planning, and related programs. They were almost always required to take a research methods course, and that course typically received very mixed reviews from the students. The most discontent resulted from the students feeling that the content of the course was too far removed from what they saw as their future profession. That was surprising to me, given that many of them knew they would later be involved somehow in conducting research, and virtually all of them knew that their future roles would likely require them to be sophisticated consumers of research conducted by others.

After some probing, it appeared that one major problem with the research methods courses the students were taking was that the students could not readily translate the texts topics and examples into the kind of research questions that seemed relevant to them. Principles of probability involved red and black balls coming out of a box. Experimental design was illustrated with studies of small groups of students communicating with each other by passing written messages through slots in the partitions that separated them. What did any of this have to do with studying cities and city life?

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