Sociology 5121 Dr. Patti Adler
Ethnographic Research Methods Fall, 1999
SYLLABUS
Office: Ketchum 217
Class: Mondays, 5:30-9:00pm, Ketchum 8
Office Hours: Before and after class, by appointment.
Phone Numbers: office 492-1177, home 449-3021.
Internet address: adler@spot.colorado.edu
Course Objectives
The main objective of this course is to teach you the practicalities, realities, joys, and limitations of ethnographic research methods. To facilitate this, you will be asked to conduct your own research project that combines both your natural skills as astute observers of the social world and your developing sociological expertise. The course will be taught as a workshop and seminar: as such, you will be expected to participate in classroom discussion (this will constitute part of your final grade). In addition, there will be weekly assignments (some written, but often just things to do or to think and talk about). The first several assignments are short and are meant to serve as a precursor to the larger research project you will be conducting. It is important that you hand in each of these mini-assignments on time because there is one due so soon afterward. The primary portion of your grade will come from the major research project that you will be researching for most of the semester, which will form the basis for your short written paper.
My hope is that we can create an atmosphere in the classroom of openness and friendliness. The sometimes arduous task of doing qualitative field research often requires a great deal of discussion of the problems people encounter in the field. If we can develop an atmosphere where these issues can be raised and discussed freely, the final products will be better, the course will be more fun, and the learning process will be enhanced. We can all broaden our base of knowledge and experience by hearing about and reacting to the situations others find themselves in, so that should we someday encounter something similar, we might have ideas about how to react and where our reactions will lead. By sharing our experiences and thoughts with each other, we can also gain the benefit of the group's ideas and reactions about problems we may be having, or behavior we may be encountering. Thus, please feel free to bring up any problems you are having in doing your research. Each class meeting will consist of two parts: a discussion section (first) in which all members of the class will participate, and a general lecture presented primarily by me, in which I will discuss the activities and problems we will be tackling in the upcoming week (there will be a solidarity-building snack [meal] break between these sections).
READINGS
Required Texts:
Patricia A. Adler and Peter Adler, Membership Roles in Field Research
Amanda Coffey, The Ethnographic Self
Barry Glassner and Rosanna Hertz, Qualitative Sociology as Everyday Life
John Lofland and Lyn H. Lofland, Analyzing Social Settings, Third Edition
Robert Prus, Symbolic Interaction and Ethnographic Research
Alex Stewart, The Ethnographer's Method
Xeroxed reading selections
These books are available from the University Book Center and the Colorado Book Store. Please note that five of them are from the Sage blue book paper series on qualitative methods, so that they are short and (hopefully, relatively) cheap. They are meant to provide a groundwork and checklist for some of the ideas you will be developing as the course, and your own research project, progresses. They are not meant to be the "final word" or "correct" approach to doing qualitative sociology. As the course continues, we will refer back to various portions of these texts for inspiration, points of departure, controversial elements of research and the like. For those of you unsatisfied by these approaches or who feel the need to read more, there is an extensive literature on qualitative methods that I would be happy to steer you towards.
DESCRIPTION OF ASSIGNMENTS
(for this year and next)
Assignment 1: SIGHT WITHOUT SOUND
Observe "at a distance" two scenes (settings, activities, encounters, exchanges), devoting a brief observational period to each. These are to be scenes in which you can see but not hear --or, if you can hear some things, they should in no way significantly improve the "informational input" of the data available to your eyes alone, e.g., the loud noises at a bus depot or large railroad station.
Try, if possible, to select two of the following three types of scenes: one highly public, rather anonymous scene (e.g., pedestrians grouping themselves together at a downtown intersection waiting for the light to change); one quasi-public yet not so anonymous scene (e.g., a playground game of children), and one tending toward the private, intimate end of the continuum (e.g., a pickup or flirtation in a bar).
In your written account, no more than 2-3 pages for each, describe what you saw and try to interpret, speculate, and extrapolate from the scene. I would like to see the paper laid out beginning with a description of the physical setting and ambience, then of the participants, and what you can infer from their appearance, and then of their behaviors, and what you can infer from these. Do not worry if you fail to cover "everything:" for present purposes, a segment of the action will serve as well as the "whole scene." Provide an appropriate descriptive title for each observation.
Assignment 2: LISTENING IN (SOUND WITHOUT SIGHT)
Listen in on two conversations, again trying to vary both the setting of the conversation and the degree of intimacy. If possible, try to choose at least one conversation which can be heard but not seen (e.g., listening outside a closed office or to conversing passengers seated behind you on a bus). The other should be one where you may briefly glance at the participants, as they are taking their places, for example, but you do not really get a good look at them. Needless to say, you are not to participate in the conversation either verbally or through some other communicative channel.
In your written account, try to reproduce a major portion of the conversation, verbatim (about a page worth). Before and/or after your verbatim and overall summary transcript, work in such descriptions, interpretations, and self-observations as you deem relevant. The purpose of both this and the previous assignment is to develop and hone your observational, description, and analytical skills.
Assignment 3: TAKE-HOME EXAM
Based on the readings and class discussions on the ethical and epistemological portions of the course, we will have a take-home exam that you will have two weeks to complete.
Assignment 4: PICKING A RESEARCH SETTING
This will be the first step toward your major research project. Go out, explore the world and come back with some possibilities for a research topic, setting, scene, locale, etc. I expect, for most of you, that this course will guide you in your thesis research. Be prepared to present your idea to the class for discussion and possible modification. It is at this time that I will decide on final approval for the project.
Assignment 5: OBSERVATION RESEARCH
Do observational research that focuses on the characteristics of the setting of the research. Here, simply describe what the place and/or people look like, what your initial impressions are, what you can infer from them, and comment on some problems or excitements you may have encountered. Type this report, as it will be very useful to you at later stages of the research.
Assignment 6: PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION
This portion will last several weeks, and in many ways, through the remainder of the year. In the beginning, focus on interaction between members of the setting, the types of participants and groups in the setting, the relations between these groups, and the questions and problems each set of individuals face in dealing with their social world and daily lives. Begin to mingle and make friendly relations with them. Keep detailed field notes.
Assignment 7: DEPTH INTERVIEWS
After establishing yourself in the setting (the time may vary according to your personality, the people in the setting, the luck you have, etc.), you should focus down on some empirical theme and begin to interview your research subjects in depth about particular problems or questions or their work, lifestyle, or whatever issues you see as emerging that might be relevant to your research. You will probably want to start by interviewing your key informants, as they will prove the most helpful in formulating your ideas, and they can be re-interviewed later, if you discover that something is important that you had not thought of earlier. If possible, use a tape recorder and, of course, keep a field notes diary.
Assignment 8: TENTATIVE OUTLINE
Combine the above observations, field notes, interviews, and loose ideas into a tentative outline of the data section. We will discuss in class how you can organize your data section to present a logical flow of ideas, concentrating on some major theme, and putting aside (at least temporarily) some of your other material. We will discuss various ways of analyzing your data, including some forms of computer analysis. At this point we will also assess the relative completeness of your data and may suggest additional concepts to develop or variations on the data to explore. Missing gaps in your data may appear once you try to lay them out logically. You may also begin to do some literature search at this point in the area of your empirical focus. You will want to present as clear a picture of your outline as possible so that we can assess where you should go from here.
Assignment 9: END OF FIRST TERM PAPER
At the end of the first semester in the course you need to hand in a 10 page paper. This should fall into two roughly equal sections. For the first five or so pages, I would like you to present and briefly "flesh in" the tentative outline of your data section. You should convey to me the (type A heading) theme overarching your data section, that constitutes the conceptual/empirical focus of your paper and a brief description of what it means. You should follow this with the subsections (type B headings) falling within this, stating each, defining or explaining what you mean by each, and describing the kinds of ideas and/or data that you are thinking of falling within each. This can be very informal. I want to see your thinking here, not something polished. The second five pages should be about your setting and methods, and it should contain the following information (in one of the following two orders): (A) METHODS -- how you became interested in/chose the topic to study, how you navigated your way into the setting, the role you forged in the setting, what types of relationships you established with setting members, and the actual data you gathered (you will gather more, so put what you have done and what you still anticipate doing); and (B) SETTING -- what your setting is and something about the people who inhabit it. You can put either the methods or setting stuff first, depending on which seems more logical in your case (this will vary from study to study). I expect this short paper to be referenced if you use any citations, although it is not absolutely necessary (the more you do now, the less you will have to do later). In order to facilitate the most useful methods section, I will be handing out sample methods sections for qualitative papers.
Assignment 10: RETURN TO FIELD
Once you have begun to formulate your outline, you will have an idea of several questions with which you will be dealing. You will probably discover that you do not have all the answers to the questions you are trying to pose. You will then go back to the field for some more interviews or focused casual conversations that are specifically directed at gathering information about certain points.
Assignment 11: THEORETICAL FOCUS
Every good ethnographic paper has a theoretical focus in addition to its empirical focus. In the theoretical conclusion section at the end you address the question of "what can we learn from this setting more generically?" After thinking about this and discussing it in class, you will need to come up with a theoretical focus. At this point you will need to do another literature search, in the area of your theoretical interest, to determine what others have said and how you can contribute to this literature. This will be primarily done in the fall semester, although we may discuss some ideas, depending on how you are coming on your individual project.
Assignment 13: POMO REPRESENTATION
One never learns about or understands a project as well as when one experiences it firsthand. We will take a week during the second semester to put together our own postmodern representations of our studies. They can be poems, photos, videos, art, stories, dramas, multi-media assemblages, slide shows, or anything you like. Do whatever moves you!
Assignment 12: FINAL REPORT
At the end of the second semester, for those of you who stay in for the full year, you will write an article based on your field study. I would expect this to be at least 15-20 pages in length, although I am, of course, prepared to accept more from those who find this rather arbitrary length too confining (most ethnographic journal articles fall into the 25-30 page length). To complete this semester of the course, however, you need only turn in a ten page paper. I expect this to contain the briefly fleshed-in version of your outline, complete with the main sections, the ideas which will be filling up those sections, possibly some conception of the literature on and against which you will be building, comparing, and contrasting, and a discussion of your methodology. Your report should probably include:
a. a sociologically organized descriptive overview of the methods and setting. This should serve as the base for your future methods section, although we will refine it next semester when we study what methods sections look like and how they are written. Right now it would be good to include a brief description of the setting and people, and then go on to discuss the following: how you got interested in the setting, how you gained entree with the people and/or significant gatekeeper(s), how you developed a rapport and research relationship with setting members, your role in the setting, the type of data you gathered, and anything on how you analyzed the data (if you can say anything about this).
b. An overview of your data section, containing, at minimum, the major type A and type B headings that will overarch and subdivide your data section, and the main definitions and ideas of what these sections will comprise.
c. As this is a methodological class, you may wind up your paper with any ruminations, confessions, and methodological musings on your research experiences that you would like to offer (especially as drawn from your field notes), such as delights and distastes, anxieties engendered and surmounted, theories about the advantages and disadvantages of different methodological tasks under different conditions, and how you might approach this again differently if you had it to do over.
SCHEDULE OF ASSIGNMENTS
READINGS
Adlers: Patricia A. Adler and Peter Adler, Membership Roles in Field Research
Cof: Amanda Coffey, The Ethnographic Self
G&H: Barry Glassner and Rosanna Hertz, Qualitative Sociology as Everyday Life
Lof: John Lofland and Lyn H. Lofland, Analyzing Social Settings, Third Edition
Prus: Robert Prus, Symbolic Interaction and Ethnographic Research
Stew: Alex Stewart, The Ethnographer's Method
Photocopied Selections:
Janice M. Morse. 1994. "Designing Funded Qualitative Research." Pp. 220-235 in Norman K. Denzin and Yvonna S. Lincoln (eds.) Handbook of Qualitative Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Thomas J. Richards and Lyn Richards. 1994. "Using Computers in Qualitative Research." Pp. 445-462 in Norman K. Denzin and Yvonna S. Lincoln (eds.) Handbook of Qualitative Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Date Readings Due Seminar Topic Work Due
8/23 --- Introduction and ---
Overview
8/30 Adlers ch. 1 Historical Overview "Sight without Sound"
Prus chs. 1-4 Epistemology
9/6 Labor Day; No Class
9/13 Adlers chs. 2-4, Epistemology; "Listening In"
Epilogue Membership Roles
9/20 Lof chs. 1-3 Gaining Entree Decision on
G&H Part I Research Setting
9/27 Lof ch.5: I, II, IV, & V Fieldnotes Description of Setting
10/4 G&H Part II Fieldwork Write Fieldnotes; Readings Ethics Hand out epistemology & ethics take-home
Date Readings Due Seminar Topic Work Due
10/11 Lof ch. 4 Casual Take-home exam
Prus ch. 6 Conversing and due
G&H Part III Interacting
10/18 HRC Selections Human Research
Morse Committee appls.
G&H Part IV
10/25 Lof ch.5: III Intensive HRC Application
Stewart book Interviewing
11/1 Lof ch. 6 Conceptualization
Cof chs. 1-4 and Organization of
the Data Section
Call me individually to discuss the
conceptual organization of your data section
11/8 Cof chs. 5-9 Assisted Library Outline of Data
Literature Journey Section
11/15 Begin Scan of Computer Analysis
Journals of Qualitative Data
Lof ch.7
Richards and Richards
11/22 Thanksgiving Week; No Class
11/29 Continue Discussion of Begin Interview
Lit Search Methods section Transcription
Sample methods and final paper
sections for this semester
12/6 Final Paper due;
Ongoing Reading, Research
and Reviews;
Looks Ahead to Fall '97
Literature reviews