Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Notes on Blending Social Science and Activism

Activism is demanding enough, so a big social science project is probably the last thing on your mind. This blog won't make anyone into a social science researcher anyway. The point here is to teach activists, whether working in a nonprofit or not, read and use social science effectively and correctly. I'll focus on sociology, because that's my background.

Social Science and Activism

If you know anything about evaluation, performance management or doing survey research this blog might be useful. It will be of most use to consumers of social science data like Gallup and Pew Research polls and the results of peer-reviewed social science research.

The way you frame an issue or challenge is important. This often goes to the question of why a problem exists. Why is there bullying in schools? It could be a lack of empathy or a small subset of kids with serious emotional problems or one of those things and one or two others. Try to find research from a reputable source.

Too often, people jump on a diagnosis of the problem and a solution, but the solution was invented by other people who don't know what they are doing. Their diagnosis could be based in ideology - on what there philosophy or worldview requires them to believe - rather than on data.

This is a huge drain on resources in some issue areas. Economic development work driven either by Marxism or by free-market libertarian types can frame the problem in different ways, but wrong ways. Libertarians are automatically biased toward looking at how market forces can be used to promote economic development in the city. Activists rooted in Marxism will say the problem exists because the economic elites have basically taken resources from the workers.

Staying on Top with Data

Tracking results is important. How effective are your programs? If nothing else, you need to know because grant making organizations and major donors are going to ask. Before you even get a grant you will almost certainly need to have some idea of how you will measure your impact.

This may seem basic to sum, but no where to get information on trends that are relevant to your cause. Pay attention to polls from Gallup and Pew, or at least check what the publish online to see if it can be of use. If you are a gun control organization, even a small one, you really need to know where to get reliable data on gun violence and gun ownership and public attitudes toward guns.

Using secondary data in planning, social marketing and cause marketing, social media posting, advocacy, fundraising materials. Look for survey data, government statistics, and so on. You probably do that. Just be sure to use reliable sources that are widely trusted, versus sources that are feminist, socialist, libertarian or whatever. We all know you are committed to feminism, socialism, libertarianism and whatever else. To the extent that we care about data at all, we want know that your appeal is rooted in trustworthy data.

Concept R&D

This is an old idea from creativity guru Edward De Bono. His version of the idea involved looking for a concept employed in one domain of business and looking at how that concept could be used in another. For example, there is layaway for consumer goods. Could you buy education on a layaway plan? Perhaps? I don't know how you would actually make installments on training before actually getting the training, but never mind.

The point here is to pay attention to concepts that come in social science research. You can even pick them out from journal articles and Wikipedia articles on social theories. Write down challenges you want to tackle, or problems you might like to solve.

Become an Armchair Sociologist

The key to being a really good activist is...impossible to identify. There isn't one thing. If you have resources but lack passion, you might not get very far. If you have passion but lack knowledge, you will waste a huge amount of time and money, and perhaps create a worse problem than you tried to solve. The Law of Unintended Consequences cannot be suspended by having good intentions. I hope this cursory overview of how and why to blend social science and activism has been thought provoking.

Feel free to leave a comment below.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Featured Post

Notes on Blending Social Science and Activism

Activism is demanding enough, so a big social science project is probably the last thing on your mind. This blog won't make anyone into ...