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Sunday, March 16, 2014

Historical/Ethnographic Analysis - Student Protests

Katy Intakeo
Dr. Kubal
Sociology 176
16 March 2014
Word Count: 2772
Historical/Ethnographic Content Analysis #1 – Student Protest
            For this week’s qualitative research paper I did a historical analysis on the archive of student protests, in which students interviewed other students about student fees.  I used the file that was posted on qualitative-methods.blogspot.com.  The General Social Survey variable I used from the SDA Berkeley website was RPRTST3, which asked, “Would you or would you not do any of the following to protest against a government action you strongly opposed? b. Go on a protest march or demonstration.”  
            I downloaded the student protest file and then imported all the data into NVivo. The student protest file had 193 items to analyze.  The first thing I did was create a word frequency. The word frequency showed how frequent specific words came up.  The top ten words were classes, get, students, increases, school, fees, take, money, people and affected.  The word cloud demonstrates the frequency of words by creating a cloud with words such as “classes” and “students” being larger than words such as “tuition” or “semester” which were much smaller.  The smaller words were near the edge of the cloud, which demonstrates that those words did not come up as much and the words that came up the most were near the center of the word cloud.  It makes sense that classes would come up the most as the word is used in a variety of ways.  It came up 497 times and people may have discuss social classes as well as the courses in school that could have contributed to why class was the most used word in their interviews.  The word “students” came up 272 times, as those being interviewed were students and they are discussing student fees.  The word “increases” came up 272 times and shows that increase in student fees were the biggest part of the interview.   The smaller words in the word cloud such as Fresno, loans, csu, and sizes show the context of location and wwhat people were discussing, but were not frequently said.
            The next thing I did was create two text search queries.  The first text query was for the aggressive word list and then I created a text search query for the passive word list.   In the text search queries, I put in the appropriate word lists and for the results, I created the results as a new node, selected the text search queries to be found in “Nodes” and the coding was specified to “Custom Content.”  When I ran the text search query for aggressive, the 134male respondent said, “Paying extra is wrong. Were paying more he get getting less. Classes are getting filled up quicker and there is no reason.” He also responds with, “I believe me and my partner agreed on these views. We both put the blame on the government.  Instead of lowering taxes on the rich like in the Reagan years.  We should bring back those taxes to fund education more.”  Although the first quote is not 100% clear in what the male respondent was trying to say, I think he believes that students are getting less in terms of quality of education, but are paying a lot more for the sub-standard education.  The male respondent also wants to tax the rich as he believes it will really help education as he thinks the government is not doing enough to help students.  In the 169female interview, the respondent says “The free increases make it difficult to go to school.  A lot of students have to pull out student loans.”  The female respondent also says, “Class sizes are too big and don’t allow the one-on-one connection to the teacher and student.”  Both the male and female respondents in the aggressive word list demonstrate that there are many problems that arise from student fees.  The free increases result in lower quality of education and the female respondent uses student and teacher one-on-one time as an example of a way that hinders students from being able to talk to their professor, as the class size is too large.
            The next text search query used the passive word lists.  The 1 MALE respondent replies, “Prices are going up, they will always be going up.  If you look at the UC system and compare those prices. We are getting a good bargain.”  The male respondent also says, “Everything is expensive in California and it actually is amazing that we are getting such a great deal for our education and that even if the fees increase, we are still getting a great deal that you could go to Arizona or just about any other state and pay a lot more.”  This male respondent is aware of increases all around the state and even the country, so he believes that the fee increases at his school are okay because he is not paying as much as in other places.  The fee increases may not be affecting him as much as it does for other students at his school.  The 166female respondent replied, “It can be a problem everywhere.  There’s just no money.  We don’t know how to fix this.  We are not going to rely on government, hopefully.  That would hurt the process rather than help it.”  The female respondent does not necessarily want government help because she does not think it would be a clear solution in solving the fee increases.  The male and female respondents in the passive word list do not seem to be very adamant that fee increases is so terrible and that they are inevitable.  So these students may not be very likely to want to protest or rally against fee increases, as they may not believe it is such a huge issue. 
            After I made those two text search queries, I created two more for women using the positive and negative word lists and then the same for males. I filtered the lists so that only females and then males would be included in each of the four text search queries I created.   For the female position emotion text query, the 12FEMALE respondent said, “Some of the money from extra tuition shouldn’t be going to buildings but it should be going to education students through decreases in tuition, but I haven’t seen anything around campus as a result of the budget cuts, hope this gets better.”  For the negative female emotions list, the 114fem expressed anger toward “the increase in rates and the quality of the facilities in bad conditions.”  It was interesting to see the contrast in what both the females wanted the money to go to.  Although they both expressed that fees should not be increased, the first female did not want the money going towards buildings, while the second female believed the buildings are not in good conditions due to funds not going to them. 
            Regarding the male negative emotions, the 143male respondent believes, “It is a worry of the future not the present.”  Meanwhile, in the male positive text search query, the 65 MALE respondent said he hoped that the tuition would decrease but it did not affect him because of receiving financial aid. From the male comparisons, I did not notice too much worry about the fee increases.  In the dataset, some felt pretty neutral about the situation, and the males selected here did not have a personal feelings or experience with the fee increases.  It could be that the social construction of society tells females to discuss their emotions while males are taught to suppress them.  So males may be more reluctant to share or see the situations that affect others. 
            After I created the text search queries, I made five main nodes.  The five main nodes are “Location”, “Participants”, “Problems”, “Solve Problems”, and “Ways of Protesting.”  I put my initials K.I. in front of my main nodes to differentiate from the other nodes on the Nodes page and so that all the nodes would be together.  It made it easier for me to see them all in one cluster and made it easier to organize and screen capture them.  In the “Location” node, I created the subnodes California, csu, Fresno, Ponoma, Sacramento, school, and university to demonstrate the different locations that may have involved the interviewees, where the fees are taking place, and where the interviewees may live.  In the “csu” subnode, the 106male respondent said “Cutting the number of classes gives the CSU a bag image.  When there are fewer classes more students are less likely to be attending the CSU.”  This respondent shows that he does not have much faith in the California State University system if they keep continuing to cut classes and believes it will deter people away from wanting to attend a California State University.  Former Fresno State President Welty (16 WELTY RESPONSE) made a statement on April 14, 2011, a day all California State Universities had students protest over budget cuts that resulted in things such as increase in tuition.  Welty responded, “…I wholeheartedly agree with the rallying cry to “fund fully the CSU.” Current budget pose will have disastrous consequences current and future students at Fresno State and the CSU.” So not only did students see the bad effects of fee increases, but also the statement from President Welty demonstrated that faculty or people of higher positions also agree that higher education should be fully funded as he believes “…higher education is critical to the future of our state.”  For the “Participant” node, I created the subnodes, faculty, people, professors, students, and teachers to show who is directly affected with fee increases.  The 135male respondent replied, “Large classes with hundreds of students sometimes is unfair because they professors don’t have time to pay attention the needs if you.”  As states in the aggressive text search query, many students find not being able to get enough attention or time with a professor problematic because professors should have time to talk to students, but in reality, there are hundreds of students and one professor. It can be difficult to meet up with a professor or try to talk to them before or after class.  The next main node I created was “Problems” where the subnodes, debt, fees, increases, loans, money, pay, qualify, and tuition were created to demonstrate the types of issues that arise from fee increases.   For the “qualify” subnode, the 122fem respondent ended up qualifying for financial aid so she felt that she was not affected by the fee increases.  The 160male respondent tried to apply for financial aid, but did not qualify and says, “…Trying to get a loan has become much harder since everyone is trying to get a loan as a way to get through college.”  The “qualify” subnode shows that those who do qualify for financial aid may not think too much about the fee increases and those who do not qualify for financial aid most likely have to take out loans if they want to go to college.  The next node is “Solve Problems” and the subnodes are benefits, family, grants, parents, programs, and scholarships. The 101FEM respondent replied that her parents are supporting her and she feels uncomfortable but says, “it’s something she has to do.”  She believes the solution is to “…limit the emissions and don’t just accept anybody. They need to be more strict than who they accept.”   The transcription for this respondent was a bit unclear, but I believe this respondent wants admission to be more limited and admit certain people.  However, the respondent did not specify what type of limitations should be put in place on who should be accepted.  The last node is called “Ways of Protesting” and I created the subnodes chant, cheer, drums, fight, march, signs, and speech.  The 19FEMALE respondent discussed an observation she did.  She was at a debate and had a conversation with someone near and found out that the person was a student who worked three jobs and only has partial financial aid to attend Fresno State.  She has a child to support and took off a year from school to pay for the spring 2011 tuition.  She was yelling and chanting with the crowd of protestors who believed that the fee increases were unfair to the students and affected many people including herself.  The respondent herself said she worked full time to afford tuition and her books and that if fees continue to rise, she may not be able to afford it much longer.  The respondent believes there needs to be a change or the fees will keep rising and students such as herself and the one she observed will no longer be able to continue to go to school. 
            The General Social Survey variable I used was RPRTST3, which asks, Would you or would you not do any of the following to protest against a government action you strongly opposed? b. Go on a protest march or demonstration.”  For the column variable, I used sex because the NVivo file I used had male and female respondents, so it made sense to use the sex variable to analyze the GSS data.  The four choices available for the question was “Definitely Would”, “Probably Would”, “Probably Would Not” and “Definitely Would Not”.  The results show that 24.1% of males “definitely would” protest or get involved in a demonstration, while only 19.5% said they definitely would.  However, 25% of the female respondents said they “probably would” protest while only 24.2% of males said the same.  I think this shows that the males in this particular survey are more definitive in wanting to protest, while more females in the survey may want to protest but are not too sure.  Meanwhile 29.3% of males said they “probably would not” protest and 22.4% of males said they “definitely would not.”  30.2% of the women in the survey said they “probably would not” protest and 25.3% of males said they “definitely would not.”  In relation to the results from the Nvivo file, there was not enough data to really show if females or males were more likely to protest.  The data mostly discussed fee increases and how that affected or did not affect students.  However, the data did show that both females and males could be angry about the increases because they worry about being able to afford school and the quality of education such as one on one time with professors.  The data also demonstrated that both males and females do not feel they are directly affected by the fee increases and that increases are inevitable as that is just the way the world is right now.  Since we all come from different social classes, have different demographics, and cultures, we all think differently about the situations that are happening in the world currently.  While there may be students who have children and work two jobs to pay for college, there are some students who receive financial aid or have parents pay for the tuition.  These different methods of paying for college frame our perspectives differently.  So some students have stronger feelings about certain issues such as fee increases because it directly affects how they live their life, while others may not have to think about it because it is not of their concern. 
            The data file I used was really interesting to go through and it really pertained to what students are going through.  I found it fascinating to read about people’s opinions on the historical event that occurred in April 2011.  I remember the faculty furloughs and how high the increases came.  At the time I thought having a day off from school was kind of nice, but since I was younger, I did not see why professors not being able to teach class was problematic.  I did not realize that my educational time was being cut short because of these budget cuts.  I was not getting the quality of education that I should have been getting.  The consequences of fee increases really resonated with so many students who had to take out loans or take on many jobs just to pay their tuition.  One thing I could improve on is analyzing more of the data.  There was so much good data that I could have used but I did not have the time to properly analyze all the content I wanted to look at.  I tried to write about what males and females thought about the issues, but could have elaborated further.  Overall, the historical analysis was more interesting to write about than the other content analysis papers I did because the topic was a lot more personal and the data that was available for this topic was very useful.
 Figure 1: GSS Table
           
SDA 3.5: Tables
General Social Survey Cumulative Datafile 1972-2012
Mar 16, 2014 (Sun 12:03 AM PDT)
Variables
RoleNameLabelRangeMDDataset
RowRPRTST3WOULD YOU GO ON A PROTEST MARCH-DEMONSTRATION1-40,8,91
Column SEXRESPONDENTS SEX1-201
WeightCOMPWTComposite weight = WTSSALL * OVERSAMP * FORMWT .1925-11.1207
1
Frequency Distribution
Cells contain:
-Column percent
-Weighted N
SEX
1
MALE
2
FEMALE
ROW
TOTAL
RPRTST31: DEFINIETLY WOULD24.1
145.7
19.5
129.2
21.7
274.9
2: PROBABLY WOULD24.2
146.2
25.0
165.6
24.6
311.8
3: PROBABLY WOULD NOT29.3
177.2
30.3
201.0
29.8
378.2
4: DEFINITELY WOULD NOT22.4
135.3
25.3
167.8
23.9
303.1
COL TOTAL 100.0
604.4
100.0
663.7
100.0
1,268.0
Means 2.502.612.56
Std Devs1.091.061.08
Unweighted N5676971,264
Color coding:<-2.0 <-1.0<0.0>0.0>1.0>2.0Z
N in each cell:Smaller than expectedLarger than expected
Summary Statistics
Eta* =.05
Gamma =.08
Rao-Scott-P: F(3,297) =1.31(p= 0.27)
R =.05
Tau-b =.05
Rao-Scott-LR: F(3,297) =1.31(p= 0.27)
Somers' d* =.06
Tau-c =.06
Chisq-P(3) =4.41

Chisq-LR(3) =4.41
*Row variable treated as the dependent variable.

Figure 2: Word Frequency List
Word
Length
Count
Weighted Percentage (%)
Similar Words
classes
7
497
3.26
assortment, class, classes, course, courses, families, family, form, formed, forms, grade, grading, separate, sort, year, years
get
3
737
3.15
acquire, amazing, arriving, beats, become, becomes, becoming, begin, beginning, begins, bring, cause, caused, causes, causing, come, comes, coming, contracted, contracts, develop, developed, developing, development, draw, drawing, drive, experience, father, find, finding, finds, fix, fixed, fixes, fixing, generations, get, gets, getting, going, grows, let, letting, make, makes, making, mother, obtain, pose, receive, received, receives, receiving, start, started, starting, starts, sticking, suffering, sustain, take, takes, taking
students
8
272
2.04
student, students
pay
3
274
1.92
bearing, devoted, earning, earns, gain, give, gives, giving, paid, pay, paying, pays, salaries, salary, wage, wages
increases
9
261
1.91
addition, additionally, gain, growth, increase, increased, increases, increasing, progress, progresses
school
6
311
1.76
civil, educate, educated, education, educational, educationally, educators, school, schooling, schools, training
fees
4
213
1.60
fee, fees
take
4
514
1.57
accept, accepted, accepting, acquire, admit, admitted, adoption, ask, asked, asking, assumed, assumes, bring, carrie, carrying, choose, choosing, claim, claims, considering, deal, demand, demanded, demanding, demands, direct, direction, directly, drive, fill, filled, hire, hires, hold, holding, involved, involvement, issue, issues, lead, leads, learn, learning, leases, make, makes, making, need, needed, needs, occupy, packed, pick, picking, picks, read, reads, rent, require, required, requirement, requirements, requiring, return, returns, studies, study, studying, take, takes, taking, training
money
5
172
1.29
money, monies, wealthy
people
6
155
1.16
masses, people
affected
8
162
1.11
affect, affected, affecting, affects, emotion, impact, impacted, impacts, involved, involvement, manner, move, moved, moves, moving, pose, pretending, regarding, regards
aid
3
184
1.02
aid, aids, assist, assistance, assistant, assistants, attention, care, careful, help, helped, helping, helps, tend, tends
financial
9
125
0.94
financial, financially
tuition
7
123
0.92
tuition
going
5
335
0.92
break, breaks, crack, department, failed, failing, fit, function, going, last, lead, leads, leave, live, lives, living, loss, move, moved, moves, moving, offer, offered, offering, passed, passes, passing, run, runs, sound, start, started, starting, starts, travel, traveling, turn, turns, work, worked, working, works
government
10
187
0.89
administration, administrations, administrative, administrator, administrators, authority, control, controlled, controlling, government, governments, order, ordered, organizations, organize, organized, organizers, political, politics, regular
cut
3
147
0.87
contracted, contracts, cut, cuts, cutting, edged, ignores, issue, issues, ration, rationalize, reduce, reduced, reducing, tracks
time
4
117
0.86
multiple, time, timely, times
state
5
138
0.86
countries, country, court, declare, expressed, expresses, formal, land, position, positions, positive, saying, state, stated, states, stating, tell
much
4
144
0.83
lot, lots, much, often, practice
just
4
150
0.74
barely, fair, faire, good, hard, hardly, just, justice, right
job
3
131
0.71
business, busy, job, jobs, line, problem, problems
make
4
278
0.67
building, buildings, builds, cause, caused, causes, causing, clear, clearly, create, created, creates, creating, doings, draw, drawing, earning, earns, fashion, fix, fixed, fixes, fixing, form, formed, forms, gain, give, gives, giving, hold, holding, make, makes, making, name, pissed, prepare, prepared, pretending, ready, work, worked, working, works
need
4
177
0.65
demand, demanded, demanding, demands, need, needed, needs, require, required, requirement, requirements, requiring, want, wanted, wanting, wants
like
4
105
0.62
care, careful, compare, compared, like, likely, likes, potentially, probably, similar, wish, wishes
education
9
170
0.61
develop, developed, developing, development, educate, educated, education, educational, educationally, educators, instruct, instruction, prepare, prepared, teach, teaching, training
see
3
183
0.58
assuredly, attend, attendance, attended, attending, attends, check, checked, checks, considering, control, controlled, controlling, date, dates, discovering, ensure, escort, experience, figure, figured, find, finding, finds, hear, hearing, image, insurance, interpret, learn, learning, look, looked, looking, meet, meeting, meets, picture, pictures, projects, regarding, regards, see, sees, understand, understanding, understands, views, watch, watching
really
6
84
0.58
actual, actually, real, really
keep
4
164
0.54
continually, continue, continues, continuing, hold, holding, keep, keeps, live, lives, living, observation, observations, observe, observed, observer, observers, prevent, prevented, preventing, save, saved, saves, saving, savings, support, supported, supporters, supporting, supportive, supports, sustain
feels
5
115
0.54
experience, feel, feeling, feelings, feels, find, finding, finds, finger, look, looked, looking, opinion, opinions, sense, tone
college
7
72
0.54
college, colleges
back
4
129
0.53
back, backs, cover, covered, covering, covers, fund, funded, funding, funds, second, support, supported, supporters, supporting, supportive, supports
loans
5
69
0.52
loan, loans
semester
8
68
0.51
semester, semesters
one
3
65
0.48
one, ones, single
think
5
103
0.47
believe, believed, believes, considering, guess, intelligent, mean, means, reason, reasonable, reasons, supposed, supposedly, think, thinking, thinks, thought, thoughts
even
4
85
0.46
equal, equals, even, level, regular, still, yet
next
4
64
0.43
follow, followed, followers, following, future, next
put
3
102
0.43
assigned, assignments, cast, commitment, invest, investing, investment, order, ordered, place, placed, places, pose, position, positions, positive, put, puts, putting, set, setting
stress
6
81
0.43
emphasis, emphasize, emphasized, emphasizes, focus, focused, focuses, strain, strained, strains, stress, stressed, stresses, stressful, tried, tries, try, trying
now
3
65
0.42
direct, direction, directly, now, present, presentable, presented, today
help
4
128
0.41
assist, assistance, assistant, assistants, availability, available, help, helped, helping, helps, portion, serve, service, services, support, supported, supporters, supporting, supportive, supports
female
6
54
0.40
female, females
less
4
54
0.40
less
graduate
8
54
0.40
alumnae, grad, graduate, graduated, graduates, graduating, graduation
know
4
96
0.39
bang, bed, experience, know, knowing, knows, learn, learning, letter, letters, live, lives, living, love, loves, screwed
hard
4
76
0.38
concentrate, difficult, hard, hardly, punished, several, strong, strongly, tough, toughness
big
3
92
0.38
bad, big, expect, expectations, expected, expecting, expects, give, gives, giving, great, greatly, large, liberating
noticed
7
103
0.38
bills, cards, comment, comments, discovering, find, finding, finds, mark, marking, note, noted, notes, notice, noticeable, noticed, notices, noticing, observation, observations, observe, observed, observer, observers, obvious, obviously, posted, poster, posters, posts
also
4
50
0.37
also, besides
larger
6
50
0.37
bigger, larger
parents
7
62
0.37
parents, raise, raised, raises, raising
solution
8
54
0.37
answers, result, results, solution, solutions
male
4
51
0.36
male, man
cost
4
57
0.35
cost, costed, costing, costs, price, priced, prices
part
4
103
0.35
break, breaks, character, department, function, leave, office, officers, offices, part, partial, percentage, piece, portion, region, section, separate, share, shared, shares, start, started, starting, starts, voice, voices
want
4
74
0.34
desirable, desire, lack, lacked, miss, needy, private, privatized, want, wanted, wanting, wants, wish, wishes
full
4
73
0.34
broad, entire, full, fully, good, rich, total, wide
lot
3
99
0.34
deal, dozen, draw, drawing, fate, hat, hats, lot, lots, masses, messes, piling, portion, set, setting
major
5
45
0.34
major, majority, majorly, majors
teachers
8
45
0.34
instructor, instructors, teacher, teachers
finish
6
74
0.33
close, closed, closer, coats, complete, completely, culture, end, ended, ends, final, finish, finishes, finishing, last, stop, stopped
use
3
51
0.33
applies, apply, applying, enjoying, function, practice, use, used, useful, uses, using, utilities, victims
year
4
78
0.33
age, ages, day, days, year, years
work
4
136
0.32
act, acting, bring, form, formed, forms, function, influenced, influencing, played, playing, process, run, runs, shape, solve, studies, study, studying, turn, turns, work, worked, working, works
well
4
65
0.32
advantage, comfortable, considerable, easily, good, health, intimate, well
enough
6
45
0.32
adequate, decent, enough, sufficient
many
4
42
0.31
many
grants
6
69
0.31
accord, according, allow, allowance, allowances, allowing, allows, assigned, assignments, award, awarded, give, given, gives, giving, grant, granted, grants, subsidizing
first
5
70
0.31
begin, beginning, begins, first, initially, initiative, low, start, started, starting, starts
issue
5
110
0.31
consequences, effect, effective, effects, event, events, issue, issues, matter, number, public, result, results, subject, supplies, supply, topic
way
3
62
0.31
direct, direction, directly, fashion, manner, mean, means, path, rooms, way, ways
things
6
43
0.30
matter, thing, things
come
4
106
0.30
become, becomes, becoming, come, comes, coming, decent, doings, fair, faire, fall, follow, followed, followers, following, occur, seem, seemed, seems
change
6
50
0.29
change, changed, changes, changing, commute, commuter, commutes, shifts, switched, transfer, transferred, transferring, transfers
interview
9
48
0.28
audience, interview, interviewed, interviewing, interviews, question, questions
budget
6
37
0.28
budget, budgeted, budgeting
fresno
6
37
0.28
fresno
administration
14
73
0.27
administration, administrations, administrative, administrator, administrators, executive, president, presidents
csu
3
36
0.27
csu
able
4
35
0.26
able
faculty
7
35
0.26
faculty, staff
sizes
5
35
0.26
size, sizes
personally
10
37
0.26
impersonal, person, personal, personally, portray, pose, someone
worried
7
56
0.26
care, careful, concern, concerned, interest, interested, interesting, interests, occupy, trouble, troubling, upset, worried, worries, worry
harder
6
34
0.25
harder
high
4
43
0.25
extremely, high, highly, luxury, rich
spend
5
49
0.25
drop, dropped, dropping, expenditures, passed, passes, passing, spend, spending, spends
amount
6
61
0.25
amount, amounts, come, comes, coming, number, total
higher
6
32
0.24
higher
university
10
36
0.23
exist, general, population, universities, university
still
5
47
0.22
however, quiet, relieve, silence, silent, still, yet
better
6
35
0.22
best, better, break, breaks, improve, improvement, improvements
two
3
29
0.22
two
qualify
7
55
0.21
conditions, dependent, depends, limit, limited, limiting, limits, passed, passes, passing, qualified, qualifies, qualify, qualifying, restricted, restriction
problem
7
58
0.21
problem, problems, trouble, troubling
system
6
45
0.21
order, ordered, organizations, organize, organized, organizers, system
old
3
33
0.21
old, older, previous, sometimes
afford
6
41
0.21
afford, affordability, affordable, give, gives, giving, open

Figure 3: Word Cloud
Figure 4: Text Search Query Passive/Agressive

Figure 5: Female/Male Positive and Negative Emotions

Figure 6: Nodes

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