<p>I’m a sociology student interested in documenting the experiences of homeless youth in a nearby neighborhood. In order to fully and accurately understand their experiences, I was thinking of going undercover. I will observe but will not engage in any of the youth’s activities. This project is not for school, as my professor won’t endorse it (I haven’t asked, but the answer is probably no). I would like to know if there are any legal concerns I should be aware of. For example, many of the youth engage in sexwork for money. Also, the police are notorious for mistreating the youth. Would I have a legal obligation to report these incidents should I witness them? (If so, I will back out of my plan.) Is my plan ethical (I plan to disclose my identity and purpose to the subjects but not the people they’re dealing with)? I’m (obviously) not a member of the American Sociological Association, so I’m not subject to their rules, but are amateur researchers expected to uphold certain standards as well? Finally, I know this plan is a bit dangerous, but I’m willing to take the risk. What do you guys think?</p>
<p>Feel free to let me know if you think my plan is completely unwise.</p>
<p>It’s completely unwise.</p>
<p>I would tend to think it might be a bit unwise.
Additionally, though, even as only a sociology student, you still should adhere to the ASA’s ethical guidelines. My guess would be that the ASA would not endorse what you plan on doing.</p>
<p>As far as legal mandates, you are NOT a legally mandated reporter as you are not a social worker, pastor, healthcare provider, or clinical counselor (or other position as provided by law); however, you have a moral obligation (and quite possibly an ethical one as well) to report what you observe to the authorities.</p>
<p>Overall, the giant red flag I see here is that you are not asking your professors for their opinion because you know they wouldn’t endorse the experiment! That alone is enough for me to advise against it in most cases (obviously, there are exceptions), so I would strongly suggest you meet with your professor and get her feedback on the experiment. You might find her very interested in it and wanting to find ways to help you perform the experiment in a safer, more controllable manner.</p>
<p>Lmao. I don’t think you realize what life in homeless “communities” are like – I’ve no idea how sheltered you’ve been so far, but that’s not something to immerse yourself in at such a young age. Also I’m not sure what exactly it is you would be focusing on.</p>
<p>Actually, and I was a sociology major, I think you have a legitimate reason NOT to expose your identity initially if you think that if your subjects know they’re being watched it would alter their behavior. Of course if they approach you, full disclosure of your true identity and purpose being there IS REQUIRED. I’m trying to think of the exact rules that were told to us during my sociology capstone project in which we had to do a qualitative research project. I ended up doing analysis of magazines though…</p>
<p>Have you checked to the ASA’s code of ethics? I don’t believe I’ve ever seen it. You should follow that, because if you decide to use any of this research later on, it needs to be ethical. That’s something that could come back to haunt you. If you have it, can you post some of the relevant portions you feel you are violating.</p>
<p>Qualitative field work like this is challenging both in execution and practice - you won’t be very good at it when you start off. What exactly is the scope of your project? What are you hoping to find?</p>
<p>There’s a reason why IRB’s exist, but in general students doing projects for educational purposes are exempt from getting IRB approval. The fact that you aren’t doing this for a class means you might need to get IRB approval. Your status as a student at your University means that you represent them even if you aren’t doing it for school, and it could have major consequences for them and for you.</p>
<p>I really think you should talk to your professor or major adviser, about what you want to do, what you hope to accomplish, what type of literature review you’ve done so far, and all those sorts of things. If you haven’t put together a good plan of what you hope to accomplish and how you’ll do it, this little research project could spiral into a very big one. Even if you get nixed for this particular research, your professor might be able to refer you to another professor doing similar studies…and who may eventually help you in designing this specific project in an appropriate manner.</p>
<p>that would never get through an IRB.</p>
<p>It would certainly be interesting…but isn’t wise. Safety appears to be the main issue in this, so you should definitely let people (outside of the experiment like your professors) know what you’re doing before you do it. </p>
<p>And I sure as heck wouldn’t tell the people you’re going to be “studying” that you’re using them. I don’t know about you, but most people don’t like feeling like lab rats without a choice in the matter…and asking them upfront (considering that they’d ever agree), like someone else has said, would probably alter their normal behavior. </p>
<p>You also need to consider how they would accept some random new person that wanders into their space.</p>
<p>Field studies like this are an important part of sociological research, and if she could prove getting informed consent would alter behavior (which I’m assuming there is some literature out there on) she is trying to study, it might get IRB approval with some close scrutiny that she wasn’t exploiting a vulnerable population. Part of that would be how she explains it in her research proposal and part would be dependent on how the IRB views such things…but there’s a chance.</p>
<p>There is nothing unethical about observing their behavior, unless they have an expectation of privacy.</p>
<p>For example, observing what they do in a bathroom (shoot up heroin) is unethical, because they have an expectation of privacy. Observing their activities on a city street is ethical.</p>
<p>There are better ways to interact and gain insight into the homeless youth population, such as volunteering with an organization that helps them. I don’t understand how going “undercover” will help your research.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t do it without talking to your professors. They definitely know a lot more about these kinds of things so anything without their advice or consulting with them would be unwise IMO.</p>
<p>
Yeah, this is one issue too. I’m not trying to be snotty; I have no idea who you are or how your life has been. But I’ve had some “experience” in – what would a sociology student call it? an “urban atmosphere?” – and it’s not exactly very clean cut, we’ll leave it at that. How do you expect to “get undercover?” This isn’t a TV show, this isn’t “The Wire.” People are real people with real lives that got messed up. It’s not riveting, it’s not cinematic. It’s very sad. Judging by the naivete displayed in your post, you might try to intervene in certain situations, and that would not be beneficial for any parties involved. Anyway, you’re not being pragmatic. How do you expect to “go undercover?” That’s an awfully playful word for what you seem to be trying to do. These environments don’t have peepholes. You don’t ask to audit a date rape. </p>
<p>Either way, this is not a sociology experiment. How is it an experiment if you don’t alter the settings? You’re just making observations. This is immersion journalism, if I had to classify it. And from a journalistic standpoint (since I’m not well-versed in sociology), it’s unethical in many ways.</p>
<p>It sounds dangerous. I take it you’re a girl? I don’t think you should do that. Drugged up males might end up taking advantage of you. (I’m not kidding.)</p>
<p>“How do you expect to ‘go undercover?’”</p>
<p>I’m part of a national organization that has been documenting these cases and has, in fact, published a report on the mistreatment of homeless youth. Both the directors of the national and local organization have encouraged me (as the head of a sub-organization) to visit the homeless shelters to familiarize myself with the cases in preparation for a campaign that we are about to launch pending approval by the heads of the international organization. I came up with the idea of using my activist work for a sociology project, except the project will not go as in-depth (hence why I felt my professor didn’t have to know anything beyond the scope of my project, if it’s possible to draw a line somewhere). I haven’t decided on a specific focus yet, but I’m really interested in examining police culture and identifying the factors that affect police officers’ likelihood to mistreat youth. I realize that this is still a broad topic, and I will have to narrow it down to test for a specific variable. Even then, the study would require me to define many terminologies and think up complex methodologies. It sounds ambitious (especially given the nature of the project and the special considerations I have to keep in mind), but I have at my disposal the resources of my university and an international organization. </p>
<p>Maybe I should save this topic for an anthropology project instead? In that case, I would just have to make observations, not conduct an actual experiment. Btw, I’m aware of the observer effect, but I also know that after some time (perhaps, a really long time), people pretty much revert back to their normal behavior (very few would be able to sustain an act for a long long time). I read this in a sociology book.</p>
<p>Btw, I’m a guy. What made you people assume otherwise?</p>
<p>I’m not really sure how your observations are going to do anything but harm. It’s uglier than you see on TV in the movies - I have seen it first hand. Going undercover would be no problem because of the dynamic nature of the communities you wish to immerse yourself in.</p>
<p>What I really fail to see is your thesis for the project - what exactly is it because it seems the questions you want to answer have already been asked and answered.</p>
<p>I don’t think you need to put together a full experiment. Most sociology research doesn’t fit deductive models anyway, and field studies certainly don’t b/c the environment is too artificial. You’d more than justified in going with an inductive approach.</p>
<p>Again, I think you need to do the legwork for a research proposal first. Look at the literature (are you going to be doing anything new or just repeating a hundred other people just in a different location), put together a thesis, operationalize your potential data and measurements, decide exactly what methods you’re going to use. Is your field study going to lead to interviews later on? (that’s pretty common) Do you have an idea of how you’re going to code your data? All these things need looked at. Getting a professor on board can help.</p>
<p>I used to live in a part of LA where homeless youth were practically in my backyard. I’m not sure what you’re going for… it probably wouldn’t be that dangerous, but it will be far more disturbing than you can imagine. It should be an official report, not for fun.</p>
<p>generally a pretty dumb idea…what do you stand to gain from it? The risks far outweigh any type of benefit. You’d literally be playing with your life.</p>
<p>“I will observe but will not engage in any of the youth’s activities”</p>
<p>They’re not going to let you follow them around 24/7 like a dog. You either participate or you won’t see all the ‘activities’ you’re looking for.</p>
<p>who cares, do it. then make a discovery channel special out of it.</p>