How to Research Inner-City Issues
When researching inner-city issues, you want to put aside your personal biases because your purpose is to conduct research that is not only fair to this particular group; but also in a way that can give readers an objective overview of these issues and possibly offer solutions as to how certain problems can be remedied. You also want to connect the themes of race, class, gender, economic issues and political issues in your research.
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Instructions
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Interview inner-city residents. This is especially important because you want to get a sense of what they believe the real problems are in their neighborhoods. Interview families from different backgrounds and who have different beliefs about what the problems are and possible solutions. This keeps your article from appearing detached from the subject you're writing about and it will make your work more credible.
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Interview local law enforcement officials. They can explain to you the issues of crime in the inner-city and what they believe needs to be done in order to curb the crime. Also talk with law enforcement officials who also serve as mentors in the community as this helps readers understand some of the social and economic reasons for inner-city crime.
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Have conversations with church leaders. Ask what they believe are the top issues facing the inner city and what solutions may work. Also interview participants in church-sponsored community programs and ask how these programs benefit them. For example, you can visit a church's after-school tutoring program and interview both tutors and attendants about why the program is important to the community.
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Analyze the mass media's representation of inner-city issues. Look for cultural, gender-based and class-based biases in these representations and find ways to refute these biases in your research. If you're seeing a pattern of teenage African-American boys who are not interested in school in your analyses, try to locate young teenage boys in the inner city who are interested in obtaining a good education.
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Attend meetings held by community advocacy groups. You'll be able to learn more about the specific issues that they're concerned about. For example, if you'll be attending a meeting that is sponsored by a group that focuses on the improvement of quality education in the public schools, interview group leaders, teachers and parents on how they feel about the state of education in the inner city.
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Read scholarly articles and government documents. These can provide concrete data and a more analytical view of what the inner-city problems are in the country. Some good websites to visit include www.jstor.org, Google Scholar at www.scholar.google.com,the Bureau of Labor Statistics's website www.bls.gov, the U.S. Department of Education at www.ed.gov and the National Institutes of Health at www.nih.gov.
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References
- Photo Credit city 2 image by Cesar Andrade from Fotolia.com
