ethnography

characteristics and aims for ethnography

• natural method for observation and participation that aims at understanding a group or society

• varies in levels of immersion

  • yields rich data, but risks influencing the participants’ actions

• description than explanation

• documentation of patterns before an explanation

emic understanding

• insider’s understanding of group (ethnographer seeks this!!)

etic understanding

• outsider’s understanding of group (surveys, interview)

  • ethnographers DO NOT prefer this

streetcorner society (example, 1943; whyte)

• ethnography of an italian american neighborhood in the 40s

• insider account = segregation and misunderstanding of immigrant community (stereotyped as criminals)

informants

• someone well-versed in the life of the group you wish to study

  • who is willing to tell you what they know

  • can also act as gatekeepers to the group; members may allow researcher because of relationship with informant

sidewalk (example, 1999; duniere)

• studied homless men who worked as street vendors (greenwich village, ny)

• main informant was man named hakim, who introduced him to other vendors and communities

case selection

• allows researcher to address many facets of a research question

• they’d consider:

  • empirical and theoretical issues

  • how case relates to the relevant literature (is it typical or unusual?)

• come into field with provisional expectations (as opposed to formal hypotheses) and will be revised

within-case sampling

• adds complexity but also nuance to case studies, increases the range of possible analytic generalizations the researcher may make

  • each person duniere observed is a case within a case

  • each interaction observed could also represent a case, where the interaction is the case itself

between-case sampling

• comparing two or even three cases

• compared along the lines of theoretical significance

  • two communities with similar demographics and socioeconomic status: one gets income assistance and the other doesn’t

  • two schools with similar demographics: one implements diversity policy and the other doesn’t (will learning outcomes differ?)

fieldnotes

• term for ethnographers observations in writing

  • should take them in the field or as soon as possible after

  • may be audio or video recordings

open coding

• use to identify interesting or significant patterns in fieldnotes

validity (credibility)

• member checks

  • participants verify whether researcher’s interpretation is correct

• prolonged immersion

• returning to field multiple points in time (within-case sampling)

• multiple sources of data to base conclusion other than ethnography

reliability (dependability)

• intercoder: multiple researchers observing the same phenomenon and comparing notes

strengths + weaknesses (in ethnography)

• strong in validity = has direct access to participants and field site and can check AND update interpretations

• weak on reliability = two researchers who research the same site will not observe the same things

ethnomethodology

investigates how individuals, through their everyday interactions and practices, create and maintain social order and shared understandings of reality. It focuses on the "folk methods" people use to make sense of their world and navigate social situations