Sociology
5221 Dr. Patti Adler
Ethnographic
Analysis Fall, 2002
SYLLABUS
Class:
M 4:30-8:00, Ketchum 118
Office:
Ketchum 207
Office
Hours: MW 2:00-3:00 and after class, by appointment.
Phone
Numbers: office 492-1177, home 449-3021 (preferred)
Internet:
adler@spot.colorado.edu
Website:
http://spot.colorado.edu/~adler
Course
Objectives
This
year we will be working with the ethnographic data you have previously gathered
and continue to gather. Hopefully, you will be entering this course with a clear
conceptual focus for the data section of your paper, some sense of the relevant
empirical literature, a good rapport with people in your setting or who
constitute your subject pool, and with a set of taped depth interviews that you
have transcribed over the spring and summer (possibly into a format for
computer-assisted analysis).
What
we will be focusing on this semester is analysis and writing. We will work to
develop the trans-situational implications of your work and to apply them to a
body of theoretical or policy-oriented literature. Thus, the first section of
the course will involve discussions of the theoretical leap for the conclusion
section of your paper and how this differs from the analytical conceptualization
found guiding the organization of the data section. We will then proceed to
discuss issues pertinent to writing, including technical and practical writing
strategies as well as more theoretical ones surrounding the postmodern issues of
voice, authority, lodging of the self, subjectivity, and narrative. I hope that
you will make the opportunity in this class to get a draft of your paper
submitted early enough so that we can give it feedback and you can revise it. We
will also work on how to network and give a paper at a professional
presentation.
We
will foster a workshop atmosphere of positive feedback and support. By
supporting, encouraging, and aiding each other we not only enrich each other,
but ourselves as well. Thus, please feel free to discuss problems you are
having. Most class meetings will consist of two parts: a discussion section
(first) in which members of the class will present their ongoing analysis for
feedback, and a general discussion of the week's topic, where we talk about the
theme of the readings and upcoming work (with the dinner break between these
sections).
READINGS
Required
Texts:
Norm
Denzin, Interpretive Ethnography
Gubrium
and Holstein, The New Language of Qualitative Method
Lofland
and Lofland, Analyzing Social Settings (from last class)
Harry
Wolcott, Writing Up Qualitative Research
JCE
Millenium issue: selected articles
Selections
of pieces of articles
These
books are available from the University Book Center. 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 towards which I would be happy to steer you.
Work
on the paper for this class will proceed in segments. We will discuss each
segment of the final paper and give you the chance to write them one at a time.
I expect you to hand in each segment as they are discussed and become due. I
will read what you hand in and return them in a timely fashion with comments.
This will enable you to stay together with the class and get your work done. I
expect that people will hand their segments in on time. Your final draft will be
composed of the revised versions of these segments.
Assignment
2: ORAL PRESENTATION
For
people who are caught up with their work, there will be time for a few oral
presentations. These will model the presentation at the professional conference.
We will discuss what to include in such presentations and what to omit (in a
15-18 minute talk), as well as how to modify this for the "job
presentation."
At
the end of the semester, a final research article is due. I would like these to
be as close to journal article format as possible. They can be mainstream,
classical, or postmodern, but they should fit within some existing genre. Most
ethnographic journal articles are limited to 25 to 30 pages of text, so you
should shoot for that goal. I would like to see these be as professional as
possible. They should be ultimately useable as the base for a comps paper, a
paper for a professional presentation/competition/publication, or a thesis.
Introduction
Setting
and Methods
Data
Section
various sub-sections
Conclusion
SCHEDULE
OF ASSIGNMENTS
DEN:
Norm Denzin, Interpretive Ethnography
G&H:
Gubrium and Holstein, The New Language of Qualitative Method
JCE
Millenium issue: selected articles
L&L:
Lofland and Lofland, Analyzing Social Settings (from last class)
WOL:
Harry Wolcott, Writing Up Qualitative Research
Date
Readings Due
Seminar Topic
Work Due
Aug
26
Review summer
Interview
activities and
Transcriptions
catch up on each
complete
other's projects;
nail down conceptual focus
Sept
2
Labor Day: University Holiday
Sept
9
L&L chs.8,9
Theoretical
Begin to
Analysis;
Think about
Relate data to Theoretical
Sociological
Focus;
Theories
conceptual focus
in place
Sept
16
Paris is Burning
Sept
23
L&L ch.10
How to Write
Theoretical
G&H ch.1 Ethnographic
Focus: Fitting
Literature review
Sociology:
Your Work into
Methods sects the
Methods
Larger Sociolo-
Section
gical Framework
Sept
30
CLASS DELAYED
G&H ch.2
Writing Continued:
Data sects
Data Section;
HAM chs.1-3
Return to Field
Oct
7
HAM chs.4-7
More Writing: Preliminary
Intro sects
Conclusions
Outline
Conclusions
and Introductions
due
Oct
14
G&H ch.3
Ethnomethodology
Oct
21
ATK chs.5,6 The
Postmodern
E&B Pt I
Impulse in
DEN Pt I
Sociology:
G&H chs.4,5
History & Development
Deconstructionism
Oct
28
CLASS DELAYED
Freeman excerpt
More
First Drafts
DEN chs.3,4,5 Postmodernism;
Begin to be due
E&F Pt.II
Authority and Voice
Leaving the Field
Nov
4
E&F Pt.III
Narrative;
Presentations
DEN chs.6,8
Fragmented Begin
Accounts;
Performances
Nov
11
G&H chs.6-9
Analysis and Writing
Nov
18
Adler&Adler art The
Postmodern
DEN ch.7
Self
PRU ch.6
Denzin excerpt
Nov
25
More First
PoMo Day:
More Student
Drafts
Present PoMo
Presentations
Creations
And First
Drafts
Dec
2
Others'
Student
Comments on
Drafts
Presentations
Others' Drafts
DEN ch.9
Future of Ethnography
JCE Millenium Issue
Last Day for Final Papers to be turned in