U1794402
Sociology
Women in the Commercial Airline Industry
1. Introduction
A case study is an in-depth investigation of a single person, group, event, or community. (McLeod,2018) There are some disadvantages and disadvantages of case study. First, a case study can help to improve the knowledge of the case for not just the researcher but for future studies to be more advanced. However, due to the fact that case studies deal with only one person or group, it cannot be used a representative of a wider population and the results may not apply to another situation. Case studies allow us to explore difficult issues by providing a lot details in a way that promotes us to challenge research that has been done before.
2. Unit of analysis
The issue of women being underrepresented in the airline industry caught my interest after I watched a documentary on a woman that had just become the first female pilot in a popular airline. I then started to research more about it and found a lot of articles written by women who were also campaigning for more of them to become pilots. The goal of this research was to use a cultural comparative analysis to identify the attitudes, stereotypes that are linked to women in the commercial airline industry and compare the similarities and differences.
3. Study questions/objectives/propositions
1. What are the different jobs men and women do in the airline industry? (horizontal segregation)
2. What are the sexualisations of a flight attendant?
3. How does motherhood affect a woman’s job?
4. Research methods
For this case study, I used two different types of research methods that would allow me to get different perspectives. First, informal interviews with women and men in the airline industry would provide an insight to what goes on behind the closed doors. The interviewer can make the interviewees feel comfortable and ask the questions to be explained in more detail if it is not understood. Although it is very useful to get first hand information, these interviews can take lot of time and because of they are not structured, they can’t be repeated to get the same answers. Due to the fact, that it is an interview, it easy to get responses fast and detailed information. If the issue is one that the researcher feels strongly about or the researcher is close with the interviewee, then there could be researcher bias meaning that the researcher loses their perspective as an outsider on the issue.
The other method was a closed-ended questionnaire in which people of different ages, ethnicities, and gender answered. This was a way to get people’s opinion on the issue and if people had a role to play in the issue. This method had some disadvantages to it because it was done online which meant that there was a low response rate. This method could also be a disadvantage if the people answering the questions are biased or don’t know anything about the topic.
5. Literature review
While women play roles noticeable roles such as cabin c...
