The IDEA Project - Research Paper Example

An Exercise on the IDEA Project Introduction The IDEA Project is a powerful tool that enables statistical analysis of various social factors. Instead of the clutter of data, the IDEA provides a database for all the statistics that every U.S. departments have conducted. It also performs for statistical analysis which makes it very convenient for the researcher. As a requirement, we are tasked to identify a topic or variable- one for GSS and one for WVS. After accomplishing this, we must conduct a cross-tabulation of the variable where we are controlling for race and differentiating response by gender. Thus, the sex variable is placed in the column while the race variable is chosen for the control. For GSS, the variable designation is SEX and RACE while for the WSV, the designations are v214 for column and v208 is control. GSS Row Variable Browsing upon the index of variables, I became interested in finding out ethnic and gender differences on many topics. Ultimately, I chose to deal with the following problem: "What ethnic and gender differences exists in receiving respect at work" For the variable I chose, the statement to be answered was: 'At the place where I work, I am treated with respect' WSV Row Variable There were also many interesting topics on the WSV but what interested me the most is answering the following question: "What ethnic and gender differences exists in buying stolen goods" The variable I chose determines how people view buying stolen goods. The study used a 1-10 ranking with 1 as 'never justifiable' and 10 as 'always justifiable'. Hypothesis Our best guess of what the result would show is that: For the GSS Test: White men would generally receive more respect than the Black American. For gender differences, the female would enjoy more respect than the male. For the WSV Test: There would be no significant differences among the race classification and between genders in their ranking of buying stolen goods. A larger percentage of women would consider buying stolen goods as never justified as compared to the men. I will not delve further on explaining why my hypothesis came to be this way. Suffice it to say that this was based on gut feeling and knowledge of racial discrimination experiences. Results for GSS: Chart for RACE = 1(WHITE) Chart for RACE = 2(BLACK) Male Comparative Chart for Race(My Own Work): P Values: p < 0.05 This implies that the relationship is not statistically significant and the results cannot be generalized to the whole US population. The results show that a greater percentage of women strongly agrees that they receive respect at work for both races ( 43% as compared to 29% for men of the race=white and 45% as compared to 35% for the men of the race =black). However, when we consider the 'agree' column, we see that more men 'agree' that they receive respect. Taking the cumulative percentage for 'strongly agree' and 'agree', the percentage of male and female in the white race agreeing that they receive respect at work has a minimum difference (92% for men and 91.6% for women). The same is also true for the black race (93% for both sexes). It is also worthy to note that 3% of black women strongly disagrees as compared to 0% for men. Comparing the male response, one can see that a greater percentage of black men strongly agrees that they receive respect at work but then again a greater percentage of white men 'agrees' that they receive respect at work as compared to the black men. Taking it cumulatively, we see that there the difference is not significant (91% for white while 91.8% for black). Note also that 3% of white men strongly disagree that they receive respect at work. Results for WSV: Chart for Hispanic American Chart for Black American Chart for White American Chart for Asian American Chart for Indian American P Values p < 0.05 This implies that the relationship is not statistically significant and the results cannot be generalized to the whole US population. Male Comparative Chart for Races Results for all the race categories show that a larger percentage of Hispanic, White, Asian and Indian female considers buying stolen goods as never justified. For the Black, the male percentage is larger than the female (81% as compared to 78% of the whole population). For the male comparison chart (which I did myself), we can see that the greatest percentage of not considering buying stolen goods as greatest for the white and lowest for the Asian male. Discussion Our hypothesis that the percentage of those who agree that they receive respect at work is larger for the women and smaller for the men is not supported by the results. The percentages are the same when taken cumulatively. For the racial differences, we note that a larger percentage of black male strongly agrees that they receive respect than the white male but the white male is larger for the 'agree' column. We can attribute this to the notion of respect the both race may have. The White male may have a higher notion of what he sees as strongly agreeable as compared to the black. For instance, a "Good Morning" remark may be perceived by the black mail as a strong sign that they receive respect at work while the white considers it as only as a moderate sign of receiving respect. This maybe the reason why the 'agree' part is larger than the 'strongly agree' for the white. Nonetheless, when taken cumulatively (strongly agree + agree), the percentage are the same for both races and the difference are not significant. For the buying of stolen goods, our hypothesis for gender differences holds true only for the Hispanic, White, Asian and Indian. For the Black, a larger % of male considers buying stolen goods as never justified as compared to the female. For the first statement, we see that the male is more prone to consider buying stolen goods as not highly 'never justified'. We can actually attribute this to the women's greater sense of what is right and what is not which we can observe in daily life. A woman tends to be more morally upright. For the male comparison part, we see that the white male has the largest percentage of the 'never justifiable' column. We can actually attribute this to the other races' consideration of buying stolen goods as not highly objectionable especially when they cannot make ends meet. Sources: The IDEA Project Online Read More