2022美国paper指导留学生Ethnographic Techniques essay 需求
Ethnographic TechniquesSession 3 SlidesSurvey research and ethnography
Comparing approachesEthnographyIs Iterative-inductiveDraws on a family of methodsIs direct and sustainedInvolves contact in contextWatches, listens, ask questionsCollects data (inc visual)Produces rich accounts
Comparing approachesSurveysAre deductive Use a single methodSeek generalisationsReduce complex dataAre standardisedEpistemological issuesSurveys often are founded on positivismEthnographies on interpretivism
PositivismDurkheim?For a positivist, sociology must emulate the natural sciencesHypotheses, experiments, observations, facts, generalisations, laws, predictionsPositivists seek facts, derived from observable (and testable) phenomena
InterpretivismWe cannot predict human behaviour.Individuals think and act, they don’t just react. Focus is on how social life is produced.Interpretation is the method.Weber, Schutz, Berger and Luckmann
Applications and usesSurveys as the starting pointAiding samplingRaising issuesExisting surveys. See Combining methodsContributing rich data to existing survey findingsWorking together and standardising findingsInterpretation of survey data
Combining methods: Examples
O’Reilly 2004The Extent and Nature of Integration of European Migrants in SpainSurvey of 340 respondents 50 questions44 recorded interviewsOne year of participant observation
Online CommunitiesBowker 2001Understanding Online Communities Through Multiple Methodologies Combined Under a Postmodern Research EndeavourChatroom behaviour and identity playTriangulationA postmodern approachNo meta narrativesNo unifying explanations‘Alternative approaches to knowledge produce a wider range of explanations from which to understand the world’
Online communitiesBowker combines: SurveysEthnographic methodsInterviewsSee Hodson 2001 for survey of ethnographic findingsSee Bryman for discussion of combining methods
