The Department of Sociology and Anthropology offers students the opportunity to engage in undergraduate research with departmental faculty. Students might begin the process by exploring the departmental faculty website to identify professors who have expertise in research areas that overlap with student interests. After identifying possible faculty to work with, students should reach out to those faculty via email to set up an initial meeting.

Students might also consider joining an existing research project. For descriptions of these projects, see below.

    Understanding Culture through Content Analysis

    “You can’t measure culture!” Dr. Ghoshal’s students in Quantitative Methods (SOC216/ANT216) have taken up this challenge by using content analysis, a method that systematically analyzes already-existing cultural artifacts such as magazine advertisements, children’s books, pop songs, Tweets, webpages, Tinder profiles, course syllabi, and more to learn about culture. Is pop music more sexualized now than in 1990? Has representation in Disney movies changed over time, and how are male and female characters depicted differently? Are American TV shows more violent than Canadian ones? Content analysis can be used to find clear and interesting answers to these and other questions related to culture, often with special focus on issues of gender, race, and representation.

    Ways to get involved:

    1. First-year students can take the SOC216/ANT216 and conduct research as part of the class.
    2. Students interested in this work can draw on existing data and/or collect new data to continue this work as part of independent research projects.

    Email Dr. Raj Ghoshal at rghoshal@elon.edu if you are interested in joining this project.

    Audit Studies of Discrimination

    Following civil rights victories of the 1960s, many individuals and businesses became reluctant to admit discriminating by race, gender, or other traits. Researchers developed audit studies as a means of uncovering hidden discrimination. Initially, researchers would send two matched individuals, usually one white and one African American, armed with equal qualifications, to apply for the same sets of jobs or housing opportunities, and observe whether they received similar response. In the last 15 years, audit studies have moved online, and researchers have used this method to study discrimination by race, gender, class, sexual orientation, and other traits in areas including housing, jobs, therapists’ responsiveness, treatment by government officials, and more.

    Some of Dr. Ghoshal’s students in Quantitative Methods (SOC216/ANT216) have undertaken original audit studies of their own. Most have studied unequal treatment in roommate-search markets. If Lakisha and Amanda each reply to 100 roommate-wanted ads, using equally well-written messages that suggest they are both well-educated and employed, how many responses will each receive? If two male identities reply, with one mentioning a boyfriend and the other mentioning a girlfriend, will they be treated differently? Will a well-written message from someone whose name suggests Hispanic ancestry receive more responses than a poorly-written message from someone whose name signals white ancestry?

    Ways to get involved:

    1. First-year students can take the SOC216/ANT216 and conduct research as part of the class.
    2. Students interested in this work can draw on existing data and/or collect new data to continue this work as part of independent research projects.

    Email Dr. Raj Ghoshal at rghoshal@elon.edu if you are interested in joining this project.

    Immigrant and Refugee Resettlement in the Local Community

    Dr. Idris has an ongoing ethnographic research project with immigrants in Greensboro and Burlington working in partnership with a refugee resettlement agency to better understand the processes by which refugees from East Africa and beyond adjust to their new life in North Carolina. This includes understanding the challenges and opportunities refugees have in their resettlement and integration process and the challenges and opportunities the resettlement agency and its workers and volunteers face while serving the newly resettled refugees.

    Dr. Idris is also conducting ethnographic research on a microenterprise project, a micro-loan for refugee-owned businesses, and a credit-building program in the Triad area.

    In recent years, Dr. Idris has involved several Elon students in his volunteer work (for instance, guiding refugee families to adjust to their new lives, and assisting with business plan writing and online marketing) and in his research projects on refugee integration and microenterprise initiatives (including presenting with students at undergraduate research forums at Elon and in national Anthropology conferences, such as the Society for Applied Anthropology). He is certainly willing to continue doing so if there is a good fit between the student’s interests and Dr. Idris’ areas of expertise.

    Ways to get involved: Students interested in these topics can join the project as volunteers, interns, or mentored undergraduate researchers.

    Email Dr. Mussa Idris at midris@elon.edu if you want to join this project.