Russel-Research-Method-in-Anthropology

546 Chapter 18
ple, there could be a win or a loss, which means there are eight possible outcomes.
In total, then, Schweizer needed to account for 17 unique combinations of
actors and outcomes. He partitioned the 17 unique cases according to three
binary independent variables (whether a villager was originally from a city
or had been raised in the village, whether a villager had a proletarian or a
nonproletarian background, and whether a villager had ties to people outside
the village or not) and one dependent variable (whether the person was an
overall success). There are a total of four variables. Table 18.8 shows the 16
TABLE 18.8
The Outcome of 17 Cases from Schweizer’s (1996) Text Analysis
Success External ties Proletarian background Urban origin No. of cases
0 0 0 0 2
0 0 0 1 2
0 0 1 0 1
0 0 1 1 0
0 1 0 0 0
0 1 0 1 0
0 1 1 0 2
0 1 1 1 0
1 0 0 0 1
1 0 0 1 3
1 0 1 0 0
1 0 1 1 0
1 1 0 0 0
1 1 0 1 1
1 1 1 0 4
1 1 1 1 1
outcomes that are possible with four binary variables, and the number of
actual cases, out of 17, for each of those outcomes.
By setting up the logical possibilities in table 18.8, Schweizer was able to
test several hypotheses about success and failure in Chen Village. You can see,
for example, that just two people who were originally from a city (people who
had been sent to the village to work during the Cultural Revolution) turned
out to be failures, but five people from the city turned out to be successful.
People from an urban background have an advantage, but you can also see
from table 18.8 that it’s not enough. To ensure success, you should come from
a proletarian family OR have good external ties (which provide access to
information and power at the regional level).