A quick shout-out to Ethical Imperialism: Institutional Review Boards and the Social Sciences, 1965-2009. It’s exactly what it says it is. And it does it well. It’s a book about the IRB. If you don’t know what an IRB is, it’s not your fault, it just means you haven’t done research at a university. (Trust…
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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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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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