Date: Tue, 24 Jun 1997 09:21:33 -0500 (CDT)
From: Rodney Arthur McDanel <rmcdanel@jove.acs.unt.edu>
To: Sociology Graduate Students -- International <socgrad@csf.colorado.edu>
Subject: Re: tracking
In-Reply-To: <97Jun23.201234edt.123-7@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.3.95.970624090930.9951B-100000@jove.acs.unt.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
On Mon, 23 Jun 1997, Thomas F Brown wrote:

Quite simply, all research begins with a question, followed by some ideas
as to what the answer is.  The next step is to perform the research to
gather and analyze the data necessary to support or discount the ideas.
No, I don't suggest you take anything on faith, except perhaps religious
beliefs.  What I do suggest is that we think very hard about where
tracking, as it has been presented in this threat, originates and look
there for our data.  I suggest that its origins are deeply rooted in
the soil of society.  Looking at tracking in terms of individual choices
that may or may not be "forced upon" one by social pressures is like
cutting off weeds at ground level.  Until you pull the roots the damn
things keep growing back.  The research should, IMHO, look for the reasons
1) why the forces of society tend to push people into "tracks" and 2) why
people accept the fitness of being tracked.

Rod McDanel

 > > > >I don't doubt a bit that tracking exists.
> >Nor do I doubt that it extends far beyond gender issues or that, to some
> >degree, we all perpetuate and fall victim to it.
> 
> So we're just supposed to take it on faith because you don't doubt it?
> That's not enough for me. I want to see an argument based on logic and
> evidence. We can hash out whether or not the logic is sound and the
> evidence is valid, but until we get down to that level, you're talking 
> theology, not science.
> 
>