Diversity in Community Groups Research Plan

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Oct 2, 2025

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SCENARIO:
Imagine that you work for a nonprofit organization that is focused on increasing diversity in community groups in your area. Your supervisor asks you to develop a sociological study concerning topics of diversity and collaboration in a specific community group of your choice. Eventually you will prepare to share your research with colleagues.

ASSIGNMENT:
For this Touchstone, you will begin by formulating a question about diversity in a community group that you have access to. Then you will use the steps of the scientific method to prepare a research plan, including a bibliography for a literature review. As you learned, sociologists follow the scientific method so that their results are both scientifically valid and useful to the greater sociological community. A literature review allows researchers to learn from completed studies and to build upon their conclusions.

SOCI1010 Unit 1 Touchstone Template

Complete the following template, including all parts, using complete sentences.

STEP 1: Pick a Topic
Write a paragraph (approximately 6-8 sentences) describing the community group you have chosen. Remember, it should be a group in which membership is voluntary and recreational.

In particular, be sure to answer the following questions:

What is the community group?
What are the attributes or characteristics of this community group? (e.g. What activities does this group do together? What element of the members’ interests or identities brings them together? How is membership in the group defined, if at all?)
What kind of experience with or access to this community group do you have?

STEP 2: Ask a Question
Formulate a research question related to this group, and to topics related to diversity and/or collaboration. Write the question you have formulated for your study, and identify the independent and dependent variables.

Remember, an independent variable is a variable that causes or drives a change in outcome. A dependent variable is an effect, or a variable that is influenced by an independent variable.

Research question:

Independent variable:

Dependent variable:

STEP 3: Prepare a Bibliography
List 4-6 articles, books, or other resources that relate to your question for your literature review.

Remember, attributes of good readings for your literature review include:

They are academic, scholarly works about research findings or they are reliable journalistic reporting based on scientifically credible and reliable data.
They should have been published in the last 10 years—unless they are a landmark work on the topic and provide important background or as a comparison.
They look at different sides of the argument and a variety of perspectives.
They do not have to be written by sociologists or published in sociology journals, but they should be academic and not popular works.

Use the simplified method to format sources for your bibliography. Include five key elements for each source, with each element separated by a period:

Author’s name(s)
Publisher and Publication date
Title of the source, inside quotation marks
Page numbers (if applicable)
Source’s location for web-based texts (URL)

Example:

Alireza Behtoui. Journal of Sociology, 2015. “Beyond social ties: The impact of social capital on labour market outcomes for young Swedish people.” p. 711-724. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1440783315581217

📌 Struggling with where to start this assignment? Follow this guide to tackle your assignment easily!

✅ Step 1: Pick a Topic

Choose a community group that is voluntary and recreational (e.g., a sports team, book club, neighborhood gardening group, church choir, or community theater group).
Write a paragraph of 6–8 sentences:
- Identify the group.
- Explain what members do together.
- Describe what unites them (shared interest, identity, or purpose).
- Clarify how membership is defined.
- State what kind of access you have (e.g., you are a member, a friend participates, or you’ve observed them).

✅ Step 2: Ask a Research Question

Frame your research question around diversity or collaboration.
- Example: “How does racial diversity affect collaboration in a local community sports team?”
Identify independent variable (the factor that changes, e.g., level of diversity).
Identify dependent variable (the outcome affected, e.g., group collaboration, participation, or inclusivity).

✅ Step 3: Build Your Bibliography

Find 4–6 scholarly or reliable sources published within the last 10 years.
Make sure to include perspectives that cover both diversity challenges and collaboration benefits.
Use the simplified format: Author. Publisher and Publication date. “Title in quotes.” Pages (if any). URL.

Example entries you could use (depending on your chosen group and focus):

Putnam, Robert D. Simon & Schuster, 2007. “E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century.” Scandinavian Political Studies, p. 137-174. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9477.2007.00176.x
Phillips, Katherine W. Annual Review of Psychology, 2014. “How Diversity Makes Us Smarter.” p. 335-358. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-010213-115026
Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. Zed Books, 2021. “Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples.” 3rd edition.
Page, Scott E. Princeton University Press, 2017. “The Diversity Bonus: How Great Teams Pay Off in the Knowledge Economy.”
Moss-Racusin, Corinne A., et al. PNAS, 2012. “Science faculty’s subtle gender biases favor male students.” p. 16474-16479. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1211286109

📖 Step 4: Writing Tips

Use complete sentences for each section of the template.
Keep your language academic but clear.
For the bibliography, check for accuracy in citations.
Align your study plan with the scientific method (topic → question → data → analysis → conclusion).

Remember! It’s just a sample. Our professional writers will write a unique paper for you.

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