SOC 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Ethnography, Participant Observation, Nomothetic
Document Summary
An umbrella term that captures a variety of different methods. Textbook: interviews, participant observation, ethnography, case study of individual or small group. Ethnography: a type of participant observation that is broader, focused on cultural and perspectives of entire social setting, community. Ethnography: although ethnography resembles journalism, it differs by requiring the systematic long-term gathering of data and by engaging general theories of human behavior rather than simply reporting the news. Ethnography resembles literature as well, but differs in focusing on social trends and patterns rather than character development. Finally, ethnography differs from common sense interpretations by drawing on meticulous field research rather than popular stereotypes. Whyte"s classic ethnography teaches us, it is not always obvious which ethnographic reports are sufficiently systematic, sufficiently accurate or sufficiently useful. In making the familiar distant, researchers find new ways of looking at what we think we know and bringing the unknown to light. Weak ethnography runs the risk of rediscovering the obvious.
