>What's Wolfe's justification for over-representing the well-off if the
>point is going after folks who think of themselves as "normal,
>typical"? Folks who make, say, $30,000 don't think of themselves as
>"'normal, typical' USers who uphold middle class values"?
>
>Yoshie
i've already explained why--he was replicating another research project--well, as best one can do with ethnographic methods. they provide reasons there in that book regarding why they choose to look ONLY at the "middle classes" in white suburbia. they are making claims about the production and reproduction of US culture, and as such they are looking at the more (not the most) powerful among us who have the ability to influence what it means to be "ordinary, average" etc.: school teachers, social workers, therapists, real estate agents, middle level managers. all of these people do things in their jobs and elsewhere in which they represent to others what it means to be among the "middle classes". you will note that in Bellah et al., they refer to this group as the "middle classes". they are doing "culture" --the sociology of culture--and so are using cultural categories.
as for doug's use of the data. i don't know whether doug and wolfe mean $50k is individual or family income. it matters.
second, i distinctly recall that the book addressed the numbers issue re gays. he was aware of this as a problem. but the fact is, when you do an ethnography you don't normally set out to find a representative sample. [1]
he is only claiming to be able to speak about the middle classes. and, as i recall, he makes clear that he wants to ask about the upper middle class more than anything else. but he claims that this can tell us something about how they think about morality and this as consequences for all of us because these people shape the very terms in which we speak about political issues, morality, culture, etc!
he is not claiming that they represent the views of all USers. he asking about how they think through moral views. he asks a series of questions about social issues. he wants to know *how* they think thru those issues, not necessarily *what* they think about gays or welfare. he doesn't care about the content of their thoughts so much as HOW they think about those issues. in doing so, he's arguing that these people shape HOW we talk about politics and ethics even if they can't necessarily dictate the content of what people think, they can and surely do have a powerful influence on the terms of the discussion -- the *how* of their approach to framing issues AS moral issues.
not surprisingly, it appears that he thinks that everything is about morality and is not political.
of course, one would have to actually understand that it isn't "mere" morality because when we are talking about the "political" we ARE talking about justice! and that is the point he makes in Whose Keeper? Scandinavian societies are so much better at providing a welfare state that takes care of people because they had a moral language, a narrative of social responsibility to others harmed by the economy/polity that we in the US lacked. as such, our puny welfare state crumbled under the onslaught of economic changes during the 70s. in Scandinavia this didn't happen and this has, in part, to do with our failure to recognize the debt we owe to others, to see the welfare state as about our obligations and interdependencies in and interdependent world. in the US we built the pylons of the welfare state were pounded into shale.
[1] you go to a location, "the field". you can do a number of things. typically, when going to a city one doesn't even know, you phone someone up and ask, "hey, this is what i'm doing and who do you know". typically, from there you ask the person you interviewed for some other ideas as to who to talk to. you get a lot of names and start phone. that technique is called "snowballing sampling". there are good reasons for using it.
if i am not mistaken, this is the technique wolfe used.
given that, you can't expect a "representative" sample and you can't expect to necessarily find 10% gay! but you see, he wasn't trying to use a a representative ample. just as Luker can say that she has insight into how conservative anti choice women think with the same techniques and the same low numbers, so can wolfe.