Qualitative Research and Race

¶ … measurements that can be ascertained objectively. They employ statistical and mathematical data analysis; gathered through such techniques as polls, questionnaires, surveys or through manipulation of already existing data via computational techniques. Quantitative research specializes on collecting numerical data and applying it across groups in general terms, or explaining a specific phenomenon (University of South California, 2016).

Qualitative Research

It can be inferred from the use of the term qualitative that this is a research method that centrally focuses on the quality of entities, including meanings and processes that are not examined or measured through experiments. Researchers employing qualitative methods emphasize the social structure and nature of reality. They examine the close relationship between the researcher and what they are studying. The situational differentials that affect research and inquiry are also examined. They place a lot of significance on value-filled inquiry aspect (University of South California, 2016).

Examples of Quantitative and Qualitative Research Studies

Qualitative research, as has been pointed out earlier in this paper, focuses on answering questions that highlight how social experience comes about and assigned meaning. On the other hand, quantitative research emphasizes on measuring and analyzing the causal relationships between variables as opposed to processes (University of South California, 2016).

The articles below are examples of the two research methods with a focus on racism and rave within the sociology context.

The first one is an article Titled Race Ends Where? Race, Racism and Contemporary Sociology, by Nasar Meer and Anoop Nayak. It is a qualitative research example. The argument that the authors front for race sociologies transcends reconstructions at surface level. The paper demonstrates both race resilience as an element around which social relationships are organized and the tricky manner in which race issues have changed, transmuted and been pluralized. The article demonstrates qualitative research through various ways including attempting to describe and interpret the behavior of humans via the exploration and analysis of their occupied space or material culture. Qualitative research employs a reflexive process every step of the process in order to minimize biases by researchers, interpretations and presuppositions by making them clear so as to enable the reader to better interpret the general research validity in each case (University of South California, 2016).

Quantitative Evidence of the Continuing Significance of Race: Tableside Racism in Full-Service Restaurants, is the title of the article by Zachary W. Brewster and Sarah Nell Rusche. It explores quantitative research. The piece examines the context in restaurants, categorized as full- service, in a public setting where African-Americans face racial prejudice and treatment that is discriminatory. In order to understand the extent of Anti-Black attitudes in the context of restaurants, the article features basic survey data drawn from community server samples. Participants were required to respond to a series of questions to ascertain the facts about the racial climate at their work places. The findings highlight significant negative server attitude towards people of African-American dissent in as far as their tipping and dining behaviors are concerned. The aim of the quantitative research is to establish the relationship between one element (which is an independent variable) and another one (dependent variable) in a given population. Further, it is clearly a quantitative research approach because it delves in numbers, an objective stance and logic. The research is preoccupied with numeric data and detailed convergent rationale rather than divergent reasoning, i.e. generating various ideas about the research problem at hand in a free and spontaneous fashion (University of South California, 2016).