Help with sociology research report please?

Question

I have a research report to write for sociology (qualitiative research), and to date have come up with nothing!!! I am interested in drug and alcohol services, however due to ethical constraints am not able to talk to anyone in this area unless it is an actual provider of a service. I have been racking my brain trying to come up with a research question that can be tested against some sociological theory or concept... still nada! Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Since you are conducting qualitative research (assuming you do not tend to quantify your results) your sample size can be relatively small.  One idea that pops in my brain is interviewing a few drug and alcohol treatment counselors about the potential for secondary deviance in their clients.  Do they perceive labeling theory to be affecting the long term sobriety of their clients?  Do they have any real proof of this label effect?  Do they have any solutions to this problem?  Since you are simply looking at what they say to you, you do not necessarily need to be able to quantify it.  However, if you were to create a system of scales for them to evaluate each question on (for example, How often would you say that your clients express frustration about not being able to get a job due to a previous convinction?  Once a session, Once every few sessions, Once in a while, never).  If you then got a large enough sample you could start to draw statistically inferences and correlations from these data.  However, sticking with the qualitative end, you could simply ask the questions.  Labeling theory is easily applied to drug and alcohol services, nobody sees this more than a convicted drug offender who is searching for a job.  

Just my 4 bits on the topic.  Hope that helps.  Feel free to email me if you have any questions or just want to kick around ideas.