NCJ Number
147827
Date Published
1979
Length
67 pages
Annotation
The author discusses the integrity of social research into Chicano gangs.
Abstract
Interviews with former and current gang members are presented to render subjectively meaningful testimony to life in Chicano gangs. Congruities and incongruities between them and academic theories, results of recent surveys, and media depictions are noted. The author asserts that mainstream social research may inadvertently obscure understanding of the phenomenon of Chicano gangs. Sociologists are at once observers and producers of human reality, and, as members of society, are influenced by the ebb and flow of media coverage of social phenomena. It is necessary, therefore, to account for all time- and culture- bound biasing factors. A social phenomenon can be better studied from a sociology of knowledge perspective. Appendix, 52 references