Russel-Research-Method-in-Anthropology

Structured Interviewing II: Cultural Domain Analysis 317
list of occupations. Please rank them in order, from most likely to least likely
that your daughter will have this occupation.’’ Then ask respondents to do the
same thing for their sons. (Be sure to assign people randomly to doing the task
for sons or daughters first.) Then compare the average ranking of accessibility
against some independent variables and test for intracultural differences
among ethnic groups, genders, age groups, and income groups.
Weller and Dungy (1986) studied breast-feeding among Hispanic and
Anglo women in southern California. They asked 55 informants for a free list
of positive and negative aspects of breast- and bottle-feeding. Then they
selected the 20 most frequently mentioned items in this domain and converted
the items to neutral, similarly worded statements. A few examples: ‘‘A way
that doesn’t tie you down, so you are free to do more things’’; ‘‘A way that
your baby feels full and satisfied’’; ‘‘A way that allows you to feel closer to
your baby.’’
Next, Weller and Dungy asked 195 women to rank the 20 statements. The
women were asked which statement was most important to them in selecting
a method of feeding their baby; which was the next most important to them;
and so on. In the analysis, Weller and Dungy were able to relate the average
rank order for Hispanics and for Anglos to independent variables like age and
education.
Everyone is familiar with rating scales—all those agree-disagree, approvedisapprove
instruments that populate the surveys we’ve been filling out all our
lives. Rating scales are powerful data generators. They are so powerful and so
ubiquitous that they deserve a whole chapter—which comes up next.