Research Report: Criminology, Discourse Analysis and Ethnography

This report presents a comprehensive analysis of three distinct research areas: criminology, discourse analysis, and ethnographic research. The first section delves into criminological research, examining its role in serving social justice, analyzing its impact on policy, and exploring the factors that influence crime. It discusses the importance of research in shaping laws and addressing societal inequalities. The second part focuses on discourse analysis, specifically investigating the teaching of black history in schools. It examines how language is used in this context, the impact of the Black Lives Matter movement, and the evolving perspectives on race and education. The final section proposes an ethnographic research study, outlining its aims, advantages, and potential for understanding the impact of racism on the Black British community in the UK, as well as exploring ethical and practical concerns. The report provides insights into research methodologies and their applications in understanding complex social issues.

EXAM 1

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
PART 1............................................................................................................................................3
Does criminological research serve the interests of social justice?............................................3
PART 2............................................................................................................................................5
Discourse analysis on teaching the black history in schools.......................................................5
PART 3............................................................................................................................................7
Ethnographic research proposal..................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Research is a process of conducting a systematic inquiry which involves collecting the
data and then analysing and interpreting it so that suitable result can be drawn. There are many
types of research which involves collecting either quantitative data or qualitative data through
the use of research methodology which may be primary or secondary (Baird and Walters 2020).
This report shall discuss three types of research which includes criminological research,
discourse analysis and ethnographic research.
PART 1
Does criminological research serve the interests of social justice?
Criminological research is interdisciplinary study of the crime as both the social and
individual phenomenon with the research on origin and forms of the crime, its consequences and
causes and the governmental and social reactions to it. Research plays a pivotal role in the
development of the criminal justice and a well explored research helps in studying the impact of
the programs, policies and practices which helps in curbing the crimes (Ronel and Ben Yair,
2018).
Social justice is a view that everyone deserves the equal political, social and economic
opportunities and rights. Social justice is just about making the society function better. It is
focused on just the relations between the groups in a society as opposed to justice of the
individual conduct or the justice for the individuals. It is the political philosophical concept
which is originally centred around the equality among the people with various social dimensions.
It is generally assumed that the human behaves to maximise their personal pleasure and
minimise the pain. Like the social reformers like Beccaria and Bentham elaborated and argued
that the crime can be deterred by enhancing the cost of the criminal behaviour or increase the
reward of the non criminal behaviour. For those people who assume that crime may be caused by
the factors which are outside the control of the offender, the role of criminology is just not to
investigate the deterrent effect of the variations in the law and its enforcement but it helps to
improve problem of the crime by taking and identifying the steps in order to alter the
psychological, biological or the social conditions which produce it.
By conducting a criminological research, a better informed policy can be made which
shall be more responsive in developing the knowledge of factors which affect the crime. By

undergoing a criminological research, the government may come up with advanced allocation of
the resources in order to render social justice. It helps in identifying the number of crimes
happening in the country and also helps in determining nature of crime and the factors which led
to such crimes. By identifying the factors, a better policy and laws can be made which help in
serving the social justice and protect the society from heinous crimes.
The criminology research direct its enquiry into three lines of which first is that it
investigates the nature of the criminal law and its condition and administration under which it is
evolved, second is that it analyses the causation of the crime and also analyses the personality of
criminals and third is that it study the control of the crime and rehabilitation of the offenders. All
these enquiries helps in screening the law thoroughly and then identifying the loopholes in the
existing law. After this, the researcher can suggest the amendments in the laws so that social
justice can be served and laws can be improvised in order to make the society better and prevail
social justice in the society (Goyes, 2016).
The makers of the law under go the criminological research and identify its crust in order
to make changes in its policy and procedure so that the victims can get justice and the culprits
can be send behind the bar. By scrutinising the criminological research, the law makers works to
create a deterrent effect in the minds of the people so that crimes can be minimised and peace
can be prevailed.
For instance, in the early years, their was no equality given to men and women together,
but when the criminological research was conducted, it was found that their was lack of equality
in the society which led to degradation of society so the law makers came up with such
developments which led to social justice to women and helps in better functioning of the society.
Another example is the suicide, which was decriminalised 60 years ago in United Kingdom. This
crime has emerged as the major social issue where it is considered as the unknown and unnatural
form of death. The research revealed that such incidents were increasing gradually which were
affecting the minds of the millenniums and children, so the criminological research helped in
reducing the number of such crimes by forcing the law makers to come up with strict law.
Likewise, the criminological research helps in serving the social justice in the society and also
helps in making the society a better place to live in (Sampson and Laub, 2016).

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Baird, A. and Walters, R., 2020. Water theft through the ages: Insights for green
criminology. Critical Criminology, 28(3), pp.371-388.
Goyes, D.R., 2016. Green activist criminology and the epistemologies of the South. Critical
Criminology, 24(4), pp.503-518.
Ronel, N. and Ben Yair, Y., 2018. Spiritual criminology: The case of Jewish
criminology. International journal of offender therapy and comparative
criminology, 62(7), pp.2081-2102.
Sampson, R.J. and Laub, J.H., 2016. Turning points and the future of life-course criminology:
Reflections on the 1986 criminal careers report. Journal of Research in Crime and
Delinquency, 53(3), pp.321-335.

PART 2
Discourse analysis on teaching the black history in schools
Discourse analysis is the research method used for studying the written or the spoken
language in relation to the social context. It mainly focuses on the underlying meaning of the
language used and what implicit meaning might be from the research. The main aim of this
research is to understand how the language is used in the real life situation (Samaie and Malmir,
2017).
In order to know the teaching of black history, discourse analysis is bing done which will
help in figuring out how this teaching takes place in the school. Through the discourse analysis,
it is found that the topic of black life matters is considered as the political movement and to that
the schools have decided to support the group of black lives matter as anti capitalist. The schools
are aware that they nee to be politically impartial so they support the anti capitalist Black lives
matter. The schools are of the view that teaching about the white privilege and also their
inherited racial guilt can be seen as dangerous trend in the race relations. By the discourse
analysis, it is also found out that the universities and schools are in the urge of decolonising the
curriculum and also wants to examine their course in the light of this protest so that they can
work as neutral and stay anti capitalist.
When the discourse analysis was conducted, it is examined that Ms Badenoch responded
to decolonise history and said that they do not want to see the teachers teaching about white
privilege and their racial guilt and also cleared that any school which teaches to promote partisan
political views shall be regarded as breaking the law.
The students are picking wrong values as the schools have initiated black history month
as every month they were taught black history so this value in them may develop racism in them
which may lead to racist and discrimination.
While undergoing the article of black history, discourse analysis is done on this article
through which the perspective of people have been identified and examined so that a meaning
can be drawn. I have conducted discourse analysis by thoroughly reading the article and I mainly
emphasised on the language being used by the writer. I have interpreted the text based on my
contextual knowledge and material so that I can bring out the true meaning of what the author
wants to communicate.

After analysing the article, I found that black history was taught to the students rarely
before this protest was emerged. Earlier the students were only taught white history which
inculcated the feeling of racism among them and when the protest was highlighted, the schools
suddenly became anti capitalist and neutral and started teaching black history. As one of the
student also told that the school have initiated black history month otherwise they were only
taught white history throughout their curriculum. Moreover the schools have become politically
impartial due to the black lives matter protest becoming political movement. The people have
become anti racist and gave their opinion that teaching white privilege may become dangerous
trend in the race relations.
The research method of discourse analysis have several advantages which includes -
 The research of discourse analysis is used to shape the behaviour as it develops the
dominant meaning (Hood, 2016). Like for instance, when undergoing the discourse
analysis of black history teaching, this analysis have helped in seeing the impact of the
protest which changed the teaching scenarios in school.
 The discourse analysis helps in showing the importance of overall context (Flatschart,
2016). When drawing meaning of the black history teaching, it is analysed that by the
highlight of black live matters protest, the importance of equality have emerged and
suddenly people have become conscious regarding the elimination of racism and
discrimination and brought sympathy for the black people. The schools have began
teaching black history to students also.
The disadvantage of the discourse analysis is that-
 The research of discourse analysis takes a lot of time and efforts. As when I was
undergoing this analysis, I took long time to analyse the opinions and experience of the
people in relation to black lives matter protest and how it shaped the behaviour of the
people.
 Another limitation is that it focuses only on language (Molodychenko, 2017). There are
many factors which are taken into consideration while interpreting any text like opinions,
experience, etc. So language alone cannot help in bringing the true meaning of the text
which other factors will collectively help.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Flatschart, E., 2016. Critical realist critical discourse analysis: A necessary alternative to post-
marxist discourse theory. journal of critical realism, 15(1), pp.21-52.
Hood, R., 2016. How professionals talk about complex cases: a critical discourse analysis. Child
& Family Social Work, 21(2), pp.125-135.
Molodychenko, E.N., 2017. Identity and discourse: from social theory to practice of discourse
analysis. St. Petersburg State Polytechnical University Journal. Humanities and Social
Sciences, (3).
Samaie, M. and Malmir, B., 2017. US news media portrayal of Islam and Muslims: a corpus-
assisted Critical Discourse Analysis. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 49(14),
pp.1351-1366.

PART 3
Ethnographic research proposal
It is a type of research which is qualitative in nature in which the researcher observe and
interact with the participants in the real life environment. It is a study in which the direct
observation of the user is studied in their natural environment. The main purpose of this
ethnographic research is that it helps in gaining the insight as to how the users interact with the
things in their natural environment (Merry, 2017).
Research aims
 To analyse the impact of racism on Black British community in UK.
 To investigate the ethical and practical concern of Black British community.
 To study the impact on Black British community from the treatment of police on the
streets of London.
Advantages of ethnographic researcher It helps in getting the more realistic picture- Through the ethnographic research, the
researcher gets to know the attitude of the target audience and look after their behaviour
and motivation so that the real insight can be brought of the user's mind (Hinojosa, Ruis
and Shaffer, 2019). Through this research, the researcher will get to know the impact of
treatment of Black British men by the police. It uncovers the valuable insight- The data collected through the research of ethnography
research relates to the everyday solution and innovation which the participants actually
needs. It is an in depth approach which reveals the valuable insight from the survey so
that true information is received. By conducting ethnographic research, the researcher
will get to know the actual feelings and viewpoint of the Black British men. Extended observations- This ethnographic research helps in studying the behaviour of
the users and develop the understanding of them so that a better conclusion is drawn from
the insight and observation which will help in coming up with great analysis. This
researcher will help in making the clear observation of the Black British men and what
they feel when facing such racism.
 It helps in analysing the unexpected issues- This research involves in depth observation
so it helps in foreseeing the unexpected issues as well as it brings clarity about the topic

and also focuses on opinion and experience of the people which supports in analysing the
unexpected issues (Saglam, 2019). By conducting this research, the researcher will know
the unexpected things which will help in drawing the actual conclusion of the research.
Observation and finding about treatment of young Black British men on the streets of
London by Police what where how
While undergoing the research of ethnographic, the researcher would use both primary
and secondary research so that it can get to know what, how and where the treatment of young
Black British men faces on the streets of London by the police.
In primary research, the researcher may opt qualitative research to know their experience
and opinion which will be taken by the researcher with the help of conducting interview. It will
help in knowing the actual experience of the Black British men so that the researcher can fulfil
its research aims.
The researcher shall also undertake the use of secondary research where it will use
newspaper articles, journals and books so that it can get to know the actual reality from the 360
degree angle. The secondary research will give insight to the experience of other people also
which will help in fulfilling the aims of the research.
Ethical and practical concerns of doing ethnographic research
Ethical issues are the components in a research which are considered during the planning,
designing and conducting the research. These are the ethical challenges faced by the researcher
when conducting the research or while collecting the data. When collecting the data for the Black
British men, the first ethical concern which the researcher will face is the problem of consent.
When the researcher will conduct interview, the main problem it will face will be when
collecting data from respondents as they might not be comfortable in sharing their views or
experience. Another ethical concern is problem of interaction. The researcher may not be able to
share a relationship with the participants where they may not share the emotional involvement.
The relationality of the participants makes it difficult for the researcher to manage the informed
consent in practice as researcher may not be able to interact with the British Black men as they
may have fear to share their opinions or experience. This will work as hurdle in the researcher as
researcher will not get the actual information for achieving the aims of the research.
The practical concerns linked to ethnographic research is that the researcher may not get
the accurate or true information from the Black British men as it may not be feasible for the

researcher to get true information. Another practical concern may be the problem of building
trust as Black British men have trust issues as they are not treated in right way. The researcher
will face this problem while conducting research or collecting data by interview (DeLuca and
Maddox, 2016).

CONCLUSION
It is concluded from the above report that research is the process which involves doing
inquiry which entails the collection of data and then analysing and interpreting it with the use of
appropriate research methodology. One such form of research is Criminological research where
the researcher collect data regarding the crimes, its increased numbers, nature of crime, factors
which led to increase in crime numbers and many other. It helps in serving the interest of social
justice. Another form of research discussed in this report is discourse analysis where the focus is
made only on the language and the data collected is qualitative. This analysis is used to interpret
the information on teaching black history in school. Third research which is discussed in this
report is ethnographic where the data collected from the participants in their real life
environment. The information is collected by the researcher by the Black British men in order to
know their opinion and experience on treatment by the police in the street of London.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
DeLuca, J.R. and Maddox, C.B., 2016. Tales from the ethnographic field: Navigating feelings of
guilt and privilege in the research process. Field Methods, 28(3), pp.284-299.
Hinojosa, C., Ruis, A.R. and Shaffer, D.W., 2019, October. Designing an Interface for Sharing
Quantitative Ethnographic Research Data. In Advances in Quantitative Ethnography:
First International Conference, ICQE 2019, Madison, WI, USA, October 20–22, 2019,
Proceedings (Vol. 1112, p. 334). Springer Nature.
Merry, S.E., 2017. The potential of ethnographic methods for human rights research. In Research
Methods in Human Rights. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Saglam, E., 2019. Bridging the Social with What Unfolds in the Psyche: The Psychosocial in
Ethnographic Research. In New Voices in Psychosocial Studies (pp. 123-139). Palgrave
Macmillan, Cham.