Opposing Problems: unreported
vs unsubstantiated cases
60-65% unsubstantiated reports nationally
56% unreported cases to authorities
3 factors on child abuse statistical increases
Social definition of abuse
Media campaigns
Mandatory reporting laws due to expansion of
prevention/treatment programs, education programs,
and public awareness campaigns
Field Research
Live w/members of deviant groups
Compiles richly descriptive and analytical
information, generally longitudinal
Expensive, time consuming, lacks
generalizability and objectivity
Researching Dealers & Smugglers subculture over 4 yr span
Issues: effect of drugs on the data-gathering process, assuming risks while
doing research, cultural clash between us and subjects, & ethical problems
(initimacies/confidences,guilty feelings)
Researcher became friends w/drug smuggler
neighbor; was granted "membership" into
group of smugglers after 1 yr
Conclusion: Researchers had to become trusted, then reveal true self for
real data, & use a combo of overt/covert roles. Study criminals in natural
habitat showed complexity of their subculture; their dimensions of
lifestyle, social stratification, social organization, and motivation.
Survey Research
3 major surveys: National Youth Survey,
Monitoring the Future, & Kinsey surveys
Used to compile information about
behavior that isn't routinely collected
by the gov/official agencies
Validity problems: inaccurate deviant sample
group, deviants define questions different than
author, & correlations considered casual.
Survey of Sexual Behavior of Americans
Nation Health & Social Survey sample design
Probablity sampling method of 20,000 people; 80% completion rate
Face-to-face, telephone and self-administered
Issues: where to draw boundaries in defining
sex, appropriate language when asking about
sex, slang deteriorating meaning.