What can universities do to improve the IRB? Zachary Schrag, Professor of History at George Mason University and the author of, Ethical Imperialism: Institutional Review Boards and the Social Sciences, 1965-2009, summarizes what your school can do (in ten easy steps).
In the New York Timestoday, there’s an article extolling the benefits of introversion. I love reading pieces like this, which make it clear that introversion is a personality trait and not a medical problem that needs to be “cured” or treated with drugs. My understanding of introversion began after I realized that being introverted is…
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I read this book by Jennifer Hunt. I loved this book. I’ll tell you more about this book… but only when I’m done writing mybook. On July 31, 1997, a six-man Emergency Service team from the NYPD raided a terrorist cell in Brooklyn and narrowly prevented a suicide bombing of the New York subway that…
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I don’t mind a mixed review of my book (Contemporary Sociology), but it does bother me when a reviewer calls my participant-observation research a “major flaw.” It’s like a man who doesn’t like olive oil, fish, and lamb bashing a Greek restaurant for being too “Mediterranean.” If you don’t like the concept, don’t review it.…
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There’s a great new academic book out by A. Rafik Mohamed and Erik D. Fritsvold: Dorm Room Dealers: Drugs and the privileges of race and class. Too many books (my own included) treat drug crimes like it’s some black thing that whites wouldn’t understand unless some kind-hearted interpreters explain to “us” those strange things “they”…
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I often wonder why anybody would prefer to crunch numbers than do fun qualitative research. I’m in Amsterdam right now. I made contact with and successfully gained access to my desired police station tonight (to make a long story short). I want to compare the attitude toward drugs of Baltimore and Amsterdam police officers. These…
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Professor Corey J. Colyer of West Virginia University sent me the following email: Peter, This note is motivated by a remark you make about your methods in the first chapter of Cop in the Hood. It is rare (and therefore refreshing) to see an ethnographer admit that they failed to capture details in their notes.…
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Fair warning: If you’re not interested in Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)–and there’s no reason you should be–you should probably just skip this whole post. Brief background: Federal regulations require IRB approval is required for all professors’ research on people. Since 1991 (I just learned this from Shrag’s blog), IRB approval was expanded to cover, among…
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There’s a very interesting exchange on Slate.com between Sudhir Venkatesh and Alex Kotlowitz. These are two authors I respect deeply (and not just because Prof. Venkatesh was kind enough to offer to write a blurb for Cop in the Hood). Their letters discuss the role of researchers vis-à-vis their research subjects. You should read all…
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Way back when, I submitted an article to a prominent ethnography journal. Time passed. Nothing happened. I submitted the article elsewhere. It was reviewed, accepted and published this past summer. Yesterday I received a reply from the journal. Rejection. I have never been in the somewhat awkward a position to receive a rejection for a…
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