Social science research methods books borrowed

Here are the books I just borrowed to help me learn social science research methods.

Miller, Robert L. and John D. Brewer. eds.The A-Z of social research : a dictionary of key social science research concepts (London; SAGE, 2003).

There are about a hundred entries on research topics in this book. I will study various entries here for my paper and started with reading the entry on social simulations.

Scarbrough, Elinor and Eric Tanenbaum. eds. Research strategies in the social sciences : a guide to new approaches (Oxford, England: Oxford University, 1998).

This is a quantitative research book based on the Essex summer school in data analysis that has been going since 1967. The summer school has apparently been quite influential within European social sciences. It also relates to the Michigan summer school on political studies. I think that's what the intro to this book said. I will not read this book to help with my paper.

Schratz, Michael and Rob Walker. Research as social change : new opportunities for qualitative research (London: Routledge, 1995).

This book seems inspiring but I will not read it for my paper.

Second Life as an anthropological study

I found this book on the new book shelves on the social science floor at the university of Ottawa library yesterday. I am almost through the first chapter. Here is the citation:

Boellstorff, Tom. Coming of age in second life : an anthropologist explores the virtually human (Princeton: Princeton University, 2008).

The virtual world as a culture for ethnographic study.

I read the first chapter of Petra Kelly's book.

Her first chapter is about feminism and is titled: Women and Power. Here is the full citation:

Kelly, Petra. Women and Power in Thinking Green! (Berkeley, Cal.: Parallax Press, 1994).

I am deep in patriarchal society. I can connect her to cyber feminists and third world feminism.

Reading about knowledge industries, wage differences by age and gender, the educational premium, and the educational fields premium.

My reading these days is full of statistical modeling of wages and other economics variables. I have been gaining an education in economics and micro economics. This evening I finally read a Statistics Canada document for my thesis. I have been so busy at work that I have not worked on my thesis. Another big time user the past month as been my board of directors work with a non-profit. Other volunteering has also kept me busy.

Here is the citation for the paper I read tonight.

Morissette, Rene, Yuri Ostrovsky and Garnett Picot. "Relative Wage Patterns Among the Highly Educated in a Knowledge-based Economy." Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series. Statistics Canada Catalogue no. 11F0019MIE2004232 (Ottawa, Statistics Canada, 2004)

This paper has a clear SIC code division of high knowledge, middle knowledge and low knowledge, industries they borrowed from elsewhere. I would like to use these studies from elsewhere or at least review these studies. The wages analysed and the other parts of the analysis in this analytical paper are not so important in my research. But I should note that these more demographic variables may effect knowledge management policies and effects of knowledge management in firms. My brief search of current Ph.D research on knowledge management showed this. But this search had been meant to find that combination of demographics and knowledge management. So whether there is strength in this or of what direction this effect has is still not clear. But catagorising knowledge management firms is something I should deal with in my paper so I am off to the library web site now or google scholar, and Statistics Canada's web site to find these elsewhere studies.

The two other studies are cited here.

Lee, F. and H. Has. “A Quantitative Assessment of High-knowledge Industries Versus Low-knowledge Industries” in P. Howitt (ed.), The Implications of Knowledge-Based Growth for Micro-Economic Policies Industry Canada Research Series, Volume 6
(Calgary: University of Calgary, 1996)

This article should explain a catagorisation of industries.

Baldwin, J. R. and J. Johnson. The Defining Characteristics of Entrants in Science-based Industries Catalogue no. 88-517-XIE (Ottawa: Statistics Canada, 1999).

This article should should show some adjustments to the catagories needed to define knowledge intensive industries.

Chart making in Excel

I have recently learned more about making charts in Excel.

Thanking Rob Salkowitz for his comment

I want to thank the author of Generation Blend, Rob Salkowitz for commenting here on my posts about this book. Rest assured Rob, I will be reading more of this book, as my research may depend on finding something I can apply to variables in my simulation of retiring workers. I also want to thank Mr. Salkowitz for engaging my blog that is very good scholarship and shows good use of web 2.0.

Studying PHP and MySQL and ESRI GIS.

I am studying PHP and MySQL together in an O'Reilly book. I am also three chapters into a book on GIS and databases. I may be writing a test in GIS at work for a promotion.