This Virtual Exploration is designed to introduce you to relevant resources on the world wide web and to use the web to supplement and extend what you have learned in class. Although the websites have been carefully selected, please keep in mind that it if always important to evaluate critically all web resources [http://www.mlb.ilstu.edu/ressubj/subject/intrnt/evaluate.htm]. You are encouraged to bookmark and explore these sites further on your own.  This tour is constructed so that each time you click on one of its links, a new window will open. This way you can use your toolbar to switch back and forth between these tour instructions and the website you are exploring. Unless you are instructed otherwise, you may enter your responses online and may email your responses to your instructor or to yourself. Be careful not to close the Tour window, because that will result in your responses being lost. You may want to print out these instructions and copy the answers by hand as you go along, so that you don't run the risk of losing your work part-way through if you accidentally close the wrong window or if your computer freezes up.

This Virtual Exploration is designed to introduce you some of the different types of sociological resources that are available on the world wide web. It is also designed to develop your skills in navigating websites to locate specific information and to make critical evaluation of websites an intrinsic part of the way you use the internet. 

1. U.S. population: 
2. World Population: 

Suppose you want to find out the latest poverty figures. You could use the search feature, but under People and Households click on the link for Poverty.  In the box entitled Current Poverty Data, you should find a link to the latest poverty rate data, which is announced for the previous year each August or September.  (For example, in fall 2006, you should be able to find data for 2005.)  You may be offered several options; the press release is the shortest and easiest to find the information you need.

3. What is the most recent year for which national poverty data are available? 
4. The poverty rate in that year was 
5. The number of people in poverty in that year was 
6. The poverty threshold in the latest available year for a family of four was 

Close the Census Bureau window and return to the Sociology Virtual Exploration.

The U.S. Census Bureau's annual publication, The Statistical Abstract of the United States [http://www.census.gov/prod/www/statistical-abstract.html] is an invaluable resource for looking up just about anything about U.S. society. Since one of the earliest and most classic studies in sociology was about suicide, let's check out suicide rates in the U.S. In his classic late-nineteenth century study, Emile Durkheim was impressed with the stability of suicide rates: the fact that they fluctuated very little from year to year, for him, this was evidence that he was looking at what he called a social fact.

Click on Vital Statistics for the 2003 edition, and when the PDF file comes in, find the table on Death Rates From Suicide by Sex and Race (Table 114 in the 2005 edition).  Answer the following questions:

7. Does the suicide rate for all ages fluctuate wildly from year to year?
Yes
No  

8. Do suicide rates vary by sex and race? Discuss briefly in the textbox below.

Close the Statistical Abstract window and return to the Sociology Virtual Exploration.

As internet technology has become more sophisticated, it has become possible to call up specified information from online databases, often in attractive table formats. In this part of our virtual exploration, we shall look at two such sites.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation's Kids Count [http://www.aecf.org/kidscount/index.htm] website tracks the status of children in the United States. Click on Online Data, then State-Level Data, then Population and Family Characteristics under Comparisons by Topic.  Now click on Children in Single Parent Families.  This will produce a bar graph with the states listed alphabetically.  On the left side under Sort order/by, change the default to Numerical by Value and click Update!  You will now have a rank order of states by the proportion of children born in single parent families.

9. Do states vary very much in the percent of children born in single parent families?  Looking over the rankings, what sociological factors can you think of that might explain this variation? 
Discuss briefly below.

Now click on Create a New Comparison on the left toolbar, then Education.  Access the relevant tables to locate the following information.

10 -11. percent of U.S. eighth graders fall below basic proficiency in reading, and percent of U.S. eighth graders fall below basic proficiency in science..

12. Do these data at the Annie E. Casey foundation website surprise you?  What significance do you think they have for our society?

Close The Kids Count window and return to the Sociology Virtual Exploration.

Let us now turn to two excellent sites for comparative international news and data. Start with World Press Online [http://www.worldpress.org/]. Scroll down to get a sense of the range of current news stories from newspapers and magazines around the world. Click then on Country Maps and Profiles under Features on the left toolbar. Click on Africa and Asia to find the following information for Senegal in West Africa and South Korea in East Asia and find the following information. As you do, take note of the different kinds of issues and concerns reflected in the news links on the right.

Fifty years ago, Senegal and South Korea had almost exactly the same level of income and there was more optimism about Senegal's development than Korea's. Explaining such variations in development outcomes—and identifying lessons that can be drawn--has been a major concern of the sociology of development.

Close the World Press Review Map windows and return to the Sociology Virtual Exploration.

Now go to the U.C. Atlas of Global Inequality [http://ucatlas.ucsc.edu/], a project of the Center for Global, International and Regional Studies of the University of California at Santa Cruz. This superb site is worth extensive exploration; we will use its database to explore the question of whether level of economic development (measured by GDP per capita) is the key determinant of human development (as measured by literacy, infant mortality, and life expectancy).

Click on Database on the top toolbar. You will proceed to generate your own table by choosing Countries, then highlighting the following countries (one by one) and put each in the right box by clicking on the right arrow: Brazil, China, Egypt, Philippines, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia. Once you have these countries in the right-hand box, proceed to Step 2 by choosing List Everything and then shift the following indicators into the right-hand box: GDP Per Capita, Illiteracy Rate (adult female), Life Expectacy At Birth, Mortality Rate, Infant. In Step 3, set Beginning and Ending both for 2000. Leave the defaults in Steps 4 and 5 and click on Submit Query at the bottom. You will now get a table comparing these ten countries, ranked by GDP per capita. (You may want to print out this table in order to answer the following questions more easily.)

14. What two countries have the highest female illiteracy rate?  and

15. What country has the lowest infant mortality rate?

16. Does the table consistently support the hypothesis, The higher the per capita income of a country, the higher the human development, as measured by the three indicators?  Discuss below. 

Close the U.C. Atlas window and return to the Sociology Virtual Exploration

Analyzing Data Online

Some websites allow you to go a step further than calling up information. These sites enable you to engage in basic data analysis online. Such sites give you a range of choices in manipulating data and can calculate tests of statistical significance.

Most students pursue a college degree in part to raise their status in society. Will higher social status make you happy? Sociology can't tell you that, but sociological data can tell us if there is a relationship between social class and reported happiness. Let's look at a website that allows us to analyze data online to find out.

Go to the University of California's Survey Documentation and Analysis (SDA) Archive [http://csa.berkeley.edu:7502/archive.htm]. This site makes available a number of datasets; click on GSS Cumulative Datafile, 1972-2004 (new interface). In the form you are presented with, type in happy for the row variable and class for the column variable. Click on the boxes for Column Percentaging, Statistics, and Question Text. Then click Run the Table. 

Enter the percentage of people who say they are "very happy" in the following social classes:

17a. Lower 
17b. Working 
17c. Middle 
17d. Upper 

18. Does (reported) happiness increase with (reported) class position? 

Close the SDA window and return to the Sociology Virtual Exploration.

Sociology Mega-Sites

Several sites on the web attempt to provide a comprehensive overview of sociologically-relevant internet resources. Here is one example.

Larry Ridener's Dead Sociologists Index [http://www2.pfeiffer.edu/%7Elridener/DSS/INDEX.HTML] provides a useful overview of many of the major sociological theorists. Click on the picture of Auguste Comte, the man who first coined the term sociology and laid out a vision of its potential. Then look for A Summary of Ideas and click on Introduction under it. Read the first four paragraphs.

19. What was the first term that Comte used to name the new social science he wished to create, before he changed it to sociology? 

20. What does his original term tell us about how Comte conceived of what he eventually called sociology? Did he believe that the task of sociology was to uncover fundamental laws, just as the natural sciences do? 

Close the Auguste Comte window and return to the Sociology Virtual Exploration.

In this introductory Virtual Exploration, we have looked up information at two U.S. government websites; called up data about children and nations from two online databases; engaged in online data analysis; and looked at a mega-site in sociology.

You have completed the Sociology Virtual Exploration! If you had any problems, or if you would like to make any comments, please use the text box below.

Enter the e-mail address below for submitting your responses to your instructor. To ensure that you retain a copy of your responses to this tour, enter your own e-mail address below.