2.6b Issues of Bias in Sociological Research

Sociologists, like other researchers, must recognize their biases and work to minimize them when conducting and reporting research. Bias can take several forms. Not including some populations in research studies is a type of bias. For instance, sociological and other social science research efforts often exclude Indigenous and Asian Americans or lump all Indigenous people into one category and all Asian Americans into another, erasing diversity in the participant population. Asia includes nearly 50 countries with different histories of colonization and conflict, religious beliefs, languages, and more. Asian immigrants and Asian Americans thus also have different histories and experiences in the United States. As a result, some Asian subgroups have distinct advantages and disadvantages. As shown in Figure 2.14, Asian Americans have poverty rates ranging from 6% (Indian American) to 19% (Burmese American) and an overall poverty rate of 10%, which is slightly lower than the overall U.S. poverty rate of 11.1% (Shrider, 2024; Tian & Ruiz, 2024). Reporting the poverty rate for “Asian Americans” without differentiating among country of origin hides the more extensive poverty some Asian American groups face.

Bias Introduced by Funders

Bias can also be introduced by funders. Governments, nonprofit organizations, and for-profit industries fund research, and any of them can introduce bias into a study. For example, funders may prevent research publication if it makes them look bad. In other cases, a funder may have no input in what research is shared. Still, researchers need to disclose relationships with funders so the reader can understand the claims made in this context. Most professional disciplines and peer-reviewed journals require researchers to report their funding sources.

Bias Introduced Through Exclusion

Scholars may also present biased research when they exclude critical scholarship due to the race or gender of the scholar. Like other disciplines, sociology has a long history of ignoring the scholarship produced by Black sociologists, women sociologists, and other historically excluded groups. Morris (2015) provides an extensive accounting of how U.S. sociology ignored the groundbreaking work of W.E.B. Du Bois because he was African American. The field of sociology has only recently begun to recognize Du Bois as a key thinker in developing sociology as a discipline.

Bias Introduced by Governments

Moreover, governments may actively bias research that they disagree with. During President Donald J. Trump’s second term, he directed federal agencies to scrub data, and knowledge from federal websites, social media, and other publications (Sun et al., 2025). For example, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention websites were edited to support the belief that there are only two sexes, which contradicts scientific consensus (see Chapter 8). Moreover, many federal agencies have removed reference to topics on transgender people (Shanahan et al., 2025), climate change (Steakin, 2025), and diversity (Associated Press, 2025), to bias data and rewrite history. These actions were to support his ideological agenda, which conflicts with scientific knowledge.

Photo 8.8

A Screenshot of the Court-Ordered Notice Posted to Some Federal Websites During President Donald J. Trump’s Second Term

Moreover, President Trump has directed federal funding agencies to cut off funding for research already approved or in-progress because it focuses on climate change, racial discrimination, and other work that does not support his extreme right ideology (Kozlov & Mallapaty, 2025). It remains to be seen what the consequences these actions will have on scientific progress in the United States.

Value-Free Research

Sociologists study topics that can be controversial or about which people have strong opinions and beliefs. One of the key figures in early sociology, Max Weber (1864-1920), cautioned that sociologists should not let their values influence their research. Conducting value-free research means the researcher can put aside their values when conducting research. Whether sociology and other social sciences can be value-free is contested because all humans have values. However, social scientific researchers can still be objective when doing research.

Some sociologists also tend to be interested in social justice, and their research questions may focus on creating new knowledge about a topic to improve society. For example, Jane Addams (1860-1935) argued that sociologists should apply their results to solve the urgent social problems of her day. Sociologists have disagreed about using sociology for this purpose since its early days. Other sociologists believed (then and now) that sociology should study society, not try to change society.

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Jane Addams

Participants themselves can also bias research when they misremember or are intentionally dishonest. Sociologists design questionnaires and interview guides to confirm people’s honesty and memory by asking the same general question more than one way to check for consistency in their responses. Sociologists also conduct observational research, which does not rely on people’s reports of their behavior or attitudes. Observational studies can help confirm research findings obtained through other methods.