Ethnography - Investigating the Social World Quantitative Research - Lecture Slides, Slides of Sociology

Download Ethnography - Investigating the Social World Quantitative Research - Lecture Slides and more Slides Sociology in PDF only on Docsity! Ethnographic Studies and Other Types of Field Research Docsity.com Types of field research • Ethnography, ethnomethodology, phenomenological studies, grounded theory studies are all different variants of what is called field research in sociology • Often field research is a combination of two or more approaches, done along with interviewing. • Case studies may also be done. Docsity.com Changes in Ethnographic Research • Tedlock (2000) identifies various genres in ethnographic history – Life history – “representative” individual stands for a culture – Memoir – “a corner of author’s own life” – Narrative Ethnography – hybrid of biography (life history) and personal memoir – includes ethnographic “novels” that combine “internal textual accuracy with external cultural accuracy” and literary ethnographies (fictive works) – Tell-all ethnographic diaries – New trend for ethnography to become more critical and emancipatory moving from “participant observation to the observation of participation” (Tedlock) Docsity.com Changes (cont.) • Feminism has had a democratizing influence to “co- produced ethnographic knowledge” • Trend: “critical interactive self-other dialogue” • Read Tedlock’s Ethnography and Ethnographic Representation (2000) • New Ethnography (Berg) - detailed examination of people and their social discourses and the various outcomes of their actions. – “Extensive fieldwork of various types including participant observation, formal and informal interviewing, document collecting, filming, recording and so on.” Docsity.com Ethnomethodology • The study of commonsense knowledge • How do individuals make sense of social situations and act on their knowledge? • What are the tacit rules used by members of a culture? • Detailed studies of interactions • Breeching experiments (Garfinkel) – To uncover hidden norms Docsity.com Grounded Theory (cont.) • Main assumptions (Glaser and Strauss): – Social life integrated and patterned – All actions integrated with other actions – Can discover pattern categories within which the action is integrated – All social action is multivariate • Inductive vs. deductive is an oversimplification of complex thinking processes (i.e. thinking up hypotheses actually an inductive process) Docsity.com Validity in Field Research • Problematic because of investigator subjectivity • Can counteract by: – using multiple sources of evidence, – establishing a chain of evidence as in a grounded theory study – and having a draft case study report reviewed by key informants (Yin, 1994) Docsity.com Preparing for the field: • Become familiar with the people being studied – argot (specialized language) • Background preparation and literature review important first step • Talking to potential informants – Look for referrals • Plan how to gain entry into the group • Gatekeepers • Public vs. private settings Docsity.com Getting Acclimated • Take in the physical setting • Develop relationships with inhabitants • Track, observe, eavesdrop and ask questions • Locate subgroups and group leaders Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2010 Docsity.com Issues • “Converts” (going ‘native’) vs. “double agents” (Tedlock, 2000) • Ambient Danger –Dangerous research settings • Situational Danger –Danger is triggered by researcher’s presence Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2010 Docsity.com Field Notes • Narrative accounts of what goes on in the lives of study subjects –Verbal Exchanges –Practices you observe –Connections you see Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2010 Docsity.com A Note on Reflexivity: • Acknowledging that your own subjectivity is part of the research and can influence outcome. • In ethnography, reflexivity is not only encouraged, it is demanded. • You must have a “dialogue” about not only what you know, but how you come to know –how did you arrive to your interpretations, and disclose that in your writing. Docsity.com Initial analysis of field notes • Typologies- classify similar events, actions, and people into discrete groupings, by how they share similar “culture” in setting. • After having spent time in the field, look for patterns, similarities, and divide them into groupings that are exhaustive, mutually exclusive and have a significant meaning for differentiation. • Go back into the field and use your typology for further observation Docsity.com Sociograms • Graphic displays of relationships among people you are observing in the field –Positive peer nominations –Negative peer nominations Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2010 Docsity.com