Poverty and inequality

Your proposal must include each of the following items; think of this as a template for the proposal:

Cover page including your name, student number, name of your tutorial TA, the date, and the title of your proposal (your research question).
Introduction and background information:
What is your research topic? (approximately half a page; think of this as the introduction to your entire proposal)
What is the theoretical and empirical context for your proposed study? (This is your literature review.) This section should end with your research question.
Details of the proposed study:
Is your research academic or applied?
Is your research experimental, cross-sectional, longitudinal, or case study? If longitudinal, what type?
What are the central concepts you are working with? Helpful hint: remember that concepts are the building blocks of theory (explanations).
Is your approach deductive or inductive? Positivist, interpretive, or critical?
Is your approach to explanation nomothetic or idiographic?
(All of the above—the first five bullet points under “Details”—should be approximately one to two pages)
Who makes up your population of interest? How do you propose to sample that population? (approximately half a page)
What is your proposed data collection technique? (approximately two to three pages)
Within this discussion, you should discuss your selected method, especially by drawing on your class notes and the relevant chapter. Please also address any relevant items in Chapter 4 or 9. (For example, for quantitative, this should include a brief discussion of how you are operationalizing your concepts.)
Include a paragraph related to the measures/observation strategy you will employ.

For example: if you plan on using a questionnaire, what kinds of questions will you include in your instrument? If you are using secondary analysis, what variables do you expect to include in your analysis? If you plan on using interviews, or focus groups, what kinds of questions might you ask of your research participants? If you plan on doing field research, what kinds of observations would you hope to collect or what interactions would you try to pay particular attention to?

Given your population and data collection technique, what ethical considerations should be made in proposing this research? How will you address these issues? (approximately half a page)
Conclusion (approximately half to one page)
As part of your conclusion, please include the following:
The contribution of your study to the literature
Any limitations or problems you might anticipate in executing your study
The potential impact of your study: how might your results affect policy or a group in society?
References (begin on a new page)
Appendix (begin on a new page)
Ethics protocol (produced in tutorial in week 10 of the course; template available on Quercus under “Files”)

For some of the above, it is not necessary to include a long discussion. For example, you can address the first two bullet points under “Details” in a single sentence. For others, such as the data collection technique, you will need to spend more time explaining that aspect of your proposal. I have suggested some guidelines regarding the length of each section, as noted above.

Sources: Your paper should make use of at least ten sources related to your topic. Your sources will likely be the same as those used in your literature review unless you received feedback about a source/sources not being relevant to your research topic. Your sources should meet the same criteria listed in the previous two assignments.

Formatting Instructions

Please double space and use 12 point Times New Roman font, 1 inch margins all around.
The title of your research proposal should be your research question.
You are encouraged to use headings to organize your work.
This is a formal assignment: use standard academic English and sociological terminology.
You are required to cite properly and include a reference for all articles in a References list at the end, using ASA format.