Sociology is a broad discipline with many specializations. Narrowing down which specialization interests you is a good starting point. Popular sociological specializations include marriage and family, poverty, race and ethnic relations, aging and immigration. Selecting a topic from one of these specializations requires a specific focus. For example, if you choose to research marriage and family, more specific topics within this specialty could be an analysis of different parenting skills or examining the relationship between divorce rates and the economy.
The study of psychology generally concerns individual behavior in differing environments as well as the effect of mental abnormalities and illness on the individual. Concentrate on a certain area of psychology, such as human development across the life span, mental illnesses such as depression and bipolar disorder or abnormal behavior such as social deviance. You can also create topics based on a combination of psychological areas. Then create a more specific definition of your topic such as: "The relationship between exposure to media violence and deviant behavior among adolescents."
Anthropology focuses on the study of humans in a broad spectrum of areas. When choosing a qualitative topic in this field, it is important to choose one area to focus on since each differs greatly. The two basic subfields of anthropology are biological anthropology and cultural anthropology. Biological anthropology includes human paleontology and human variance. Cultural anthropology includes the study of linguistics, archaeology and ethnography. Ethnography is a common qualitative topic among anthropological researchers since it encompasses the general study of human culture. A topic idea in ethnography could be "How has western culture influenced the eating habits of families in developing nations?"
Topic choices can be influenced by the availability of data. Choose topics that will realistically allow you to gather data that you need in the time you have allotted. For example, choosing the anthropological topic "How do the relationships of parents and children during ancient Egypt differ from those in modern western culture" would require extensive historical research in addition to current research. This means you would need to have access to an adequate number of historical studies as well as the ability to conduct your own research on current parent-child relationships. While this information is available, this is would be an extremely time-consuming study and a poor choice for a class assignment. Another aspect to consider is access to subjects. If you plan on studying the effect of sexually suggestive television programming on adolescent behavior, you will need to have access to minors, which while possible, requires additional work such as obtaining institutional permission.