As I stated in my discussion in the empirical claims made by Mitchell and Gladys, I see the strengths of their methodology in the identification of three distinct cities, one being Salvador (the greatest income inequality in Brazil) to aid in their analysis. By selecting key cities for comparative analysis, the authors are able to capture a part of the population and dissect its racial issues without having to interview the entire country. I believe they also do well in how they create their mixed-method study to understand how Brazilians view themselves compared to the binary view of race held by other countries. However, the limited survey of 1500 people and the 76 public area surveys are too small for broader analysis. They would need to conduct more surveys for more people over a greater period of time to gain better data for their hypothesis. The empirical claims they make do have merit from their study, however the scope/range of these claims remains in question.
Very good synopsis.
Everyone:
What do you see as the strengths and weaknesses of the methods used in the book?
Dr. Manning,
As I stated in my discussion in the empirical claims made by Mitchell and Gladys, I see the strengths of their methodology in the identification of three distinct cities, one being Salvador (the greatest income inequality in Brazil) to aid in their analysis. By selecting key cities for comparative analysis, the authors are able to capture a part of the population and dissect its racial issues without having to interview the entire country. I believe they also do well in how they create their mixed-method study to understand how Brazilians view themselves compared to the binary view of race held by other countries. However, the limited survey of 1500 people and the 76 public area surveys are too small for broader analysis. They would need to conduct more surveys for more people over a greater period of time to gain better data for their hypothesis. The empirical claims they make do have merit from their study, however the scope/range of these claims remains in question.