Professional Resources

• ASA’s Code of Ethics
  The American Sociological Association’s (ASA’s) Code of Ethics sets forth the principles and ethical standards that underlie sociologists’ professional responsibilities and conduct. These principles and standards should be used as guidelines when examining everyday professional activities. They constitute normative statements for sociologists and provide guidance on issues that sociologists may encounter in their professional work [self-characterization].
   
• Comparative and Historical Sociology
• Mathematical Sociology
• Methodology Section
  One of the distinguishing characteristics of sociology as a discipline is the rigorous and self-conscious application and development of empirical methods of data collection and analysis. Several ASA Sections are dedicated to advancing the discipline’s methods.
   
• ASA Science, Knowledge, and Technology
  Sociologists also apply sociological theories and methods to the study of science and knowledge themselves as a social process. These sociologists are organized in the ASA Section on Science, Knowledge, and Technology.
   
• American Evaluation Association
  One way to use a degree in sociology and do research is to become a program evaluator. Program evaluation is a form of applied social science research. The American Evaluation Association is the professional home for evaluators in the United States.. The web site has career information, professional guiding principles and other resources.

Data Resources

• ICPSR
  The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) is a repository for many of the most important data sets used by sociologists in their research. The ICPSR Web site has a search utility that can help you locate a data set that meets your needs.
   
• NORC
  Perhaps the single most used source of data for sociological analysis is the General Social Survey (GSS), an annual survey of a representative sample of Americans conducted by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago.
   
• American Religion Data Archive
  An example of a data archive on a particular topic is the American Religion Data Archive, a repository for data collections on American religion. The site allows users to search for topics of interest, download data files for analysis, and conduct basic statistical analyses on the site itself.
   
• Social Explorer
  Social Explorer provides easy access to demographic information about the United States, from 1790 to present [self-characterization].
• Other Resources
   
• SocioSite
  SocioSite, previously introduced in Chapter 2, provides a brief yet compelling claim of the validity and social importance of the theory of Social Construction of Reality written by Peter Berger and Thomas Luckman.
   
• AIM
  Accuracy In Media is a nonprofit, grassroots citizens watchdog of the news media that critiques botched and bungled news stories and sets the record straight on important issues that have received slanted coverage [self-characterization]. It is typically characterized as politically “conservative.”
   
• FAIR
  Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), the national media watch group, has been offering well-documented criticism of media bias and censorship since 1986. The group works to invigorate the First Amendment by advocating for greater diversity in the press and by scrutinizing media practices that marginalize public interest, minority and dissenting viewpoints [self-characterization].
   
• Project Censored
  The Primary Objective of Project Censored is to explore and publicize the extent of censorship in our society by locating stories about significant issues of which the public should be aware but is not, for one reason or another [self-characterization].
   
• The Knowledge Base
  The Knowledge Base was designed to be different from the many typical commercially-available research methods texts.  It uses an informal, conversational style to engage both the newcomer and the more experienced student of research.  It is a fully hyperlinked text that can be integrated easily into an existing course structure or used as a sourcebook for the experienced researcher who simply wants to browse [self-characterization]. This site is particularly useful for helping students learn the language of social research.