Odum Institute: Using Qualitative Research to Study Social Justice

This one-day course will be offered via Zoom only. Attendance is required as it will not be recorded.

This course will address how researchers can use qualitative research to draw attention to underlying mechanisms that define social problems. Once uncovered, a deeper understanding of these mechanisms can guide large-scale surveys, direct responses to requests for proposals by private foundations and government agencies, inform policy briefs, and even influence new legislation. In this regard, it is important for qualitative researchers to think beyond simply highlighting problems in order to also develop skills that leverage our work in ways that more directly impact people’s everyday lives. We will discuss qualitative processes to better position course participants in their efforts to design and collect data specifically aimed at contributing directly to social justice. Timely issues, including racial disparities in policing, will be used as examples of how decision-making across the methodological life of a qualitative project can be leveraged to address social problems.

Instructor: Rashwan Ray
Rashawn Ray is a Rubenstein Fellow at the Brookings Institution. He is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Executive Director of the Lab for Applied Social Science Research (LASSR) at the University of Maryland, College Park. Ray is also one of the co-editors of Contexts Magazine: Sociology for the Public. Formerly, Ray was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Research Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. He specializes in racial and social inequality with a particular focus on police-civilian relations and men’s treatment of women. His work also speaks to ways that inequality may be attenuated through social policy and racial uplift activism. Currently, Ray is working on a series of research projects creating innovative virtual reality experiments that focus on policing and other social outcomes.

Registration Fees
- UNC-CH Students: $0, with a $20 deposit to hold your spot (deposit is refundable upon your attendance for at least 66% of the course)
- UNC-CH Faculty/Staff/Postdoc: $40

Additional Course Registration
- Registration will close at 12:01 am on 1/11/2022. No late registrations will be accepted.
- Cancellation/ Refund Policy: A full refund will be given to those who cancel their registration no later than 10 days prior to the course. If you cancel within 10 days prior to the class, no refund will be given. Please allow 30 days to receive your refund.
- Zoom link for this course will be sent prior to the course. Registration must be made at least 3 days prior to the course date to receive the Zoom link.

For questions regarding the status of this class, please contact Jill Stevens at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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