In the Field: Readings on the Field Research Experience

Field Enquiry

The work of sociology rarely happens in limited, bars spaces. Sociologists seldom report subjects in their own offices or laboratories. Rather, sociologists exit into the world. They meet subjects where they live, work, and play. Field research refers to gathering primary data from a natural surround without doing a lab experiment or a survey. It is a enquiry method suited to an interpretive framework rather than to the scientific method. To conduct field enquiry, the sociologist must be willing to footstep into new environments and observe, participate, or experience those worlds. In field work, the sociologists, rather than the subjects, are the ones out of their element.

The researcher interacts with or observes a person or people and gathers information along the way. The central signal in field research is that it takes place in the subject's natural environment, whether information technology's a coffee store or tribal village, a homeless shelter or the DMV, a hospital, aerodrome, mall, or beach resort.

Sociological researchers travel across countries and cultures to interact with and detect subjects in their natural environments. (Photograph courtesy of IMLS Digital Collections and Content/flickr and Olympic National Park)

While field enquiry oft begins in a specific setting, the study's purpose is to observe specific behaviors in that setting. Field work is optimal for observing how people behave. Information technology is less useful, however, for understanding why they acquit that style. You tin't actually narrow downwards cause and effect when in that location are and so many variables floating around in a natural environment.

Much of the data gathered in field enquiry are based not on cause and outcome only on correlation. And while field enquiry looks for correlation, its small sample size does non allow for establishing a causal relationship betwixt two variables.

Parrotheads as Sociological Subjects

Business suits for the day chore are replaced by leis and T-shirts for a Jimmy Buffett concert. (Photo courtesy of Sam Howzitt/flickr)

Some sociologists study small groups of people who share an identity in one attribute of their lives. Almost everyone belongs to a group of like-minded people who share an interest or hobby. Scientologists, folk dancers, or members of Mensa (an organization for people with exceptionally loftier IQs) express a specific part of their identity through their affiliation with a group. Those groups are often of great interest to sociologists.

Jimmy Buffett, an American musician who built a career from his single top-ten song "Margaritaville," has a post-obit of devoted groupies called Parrotheads. Some of them have taken fandom to the farthermost, making Parrothead culture a lifestyle. In 2005, Parrotheads and their subculture caught the attention of researchers John Mihelich and John Papineau. The ii saw the way Jimmy Buffett fans collectively created an artificial reality. They wanted to know how fan groups shape civilization.

What Mihelich and Papineau found was that Parrotheads, for the most function, do not seek to challenge or fifty-fifty change society, every bit many sub-groups do. In fact, most Parrotheads live successfully within social club, holding upper-level jobs in the corporate world. What they seek is escape from the stress of daily life.

At Jimmy Buffett concerts, Parrotheads engage in a form of office play. They paint their faces and wearing apparel for the torrid zone in grass skirts, Hawaiian leis, and Parrot hats. These fans don't more often than not play the part of Parrotheads outside of these concerts; you are non probable to see a lone Parrothead in a bank or library. In that sense, Parrothead civilisation is less well-nigh individualism and more about conformity. Being a Parrothead ways sharing a specific identity. Parrotheads feel connected to each other: it'southward a group identity, not an individual one.

In their written report, Mihelich and Papineau quote from a recent volume by sociologist Richard Butsch, who writes, "united nations-self-conscious acts, if done by many people together, tin can produce change, even though the change may be unintended" (2000). Many Parrothead fan groups accept performed good works in the name of Jimmy Buffett culture, donating to charities and volunteering their services.

However, the authors suggest that what really drives Parrothead culture is capitalism. Jimmy Buffett'southward popularity was dying out in the 1980s until being reinvigorated subsequently he signed a sponsorship deal with a beer company. These days, his concert tours alone generate near $30 million a yr. Buffett made a lucrative career for himself past partnering with product companies and marketing Margaritaville in the form of T-shirts, restaurants, casinos, and an expansive line of products. Some fans accuse Buffett of selling out, while others adore his fiscal success. Buffett makes no hugger-mugger of his commercial exploitations; from the stage, he'south been known to tell his fans, "Merely call up, I am spending your money foolishly."

Mihelich and Papineau gathered much of their information online. Referring to their study every bit a "Web ethnography," they collected extensive narrative material from fans who joined Parrothead clubs and posted their experiences on websites. "We practise not merits to have conducted a complete ethnography of Parrothead fans, or even of the Parrothead Web activity," state the authors, "but we focused on particular aspects of Parrothead practice as revealed through Web research" (2005). Fan narratives gave them insight into how individuals identify with Buffett's world and how fans used popular music to cultivate personal and collective meaning.

In conducting studies nigh pockets of culture, most sociologists seek to notice a universal entreatment. Mihelich and Papineau stated, "Although Parrotheads are a relative minority of the contemporary US population, an in-depth look at their practice and weather condition illuminate [sic] cultural practices and conditions many of united states feel and participate in" (2005).

Here, we volition expect at three types of field inquiry: participant ascertainment, ethnography, and the example written report.

Participant Observation

In 2000, a comic writer named Rodney Rothman wanted an insider's view of white-collar work. He slipped into the sterile, high-rise offices of a New York "dot com" bureau. Every day for ii weeks, he pretended to work there. His master purpose was simply to see whether anyone would notice him or claiming his presence. No one did. The receptionist greeted him. The employees smiled and said adept morning. Rothman was accepted as part of the team. He fifty-fifty went so far every bit to merits a desk, inform the receptionist of his whereabouts, and attend a meeting. He published an article about his experience in The New Yorker called "My Fake Job" (2000). Later, he was discredited for allegedly fabricating some details of the story and The New Yorker issued an apology. However, Rothman'due south entertaining article all the same offered fascinating descriptions of the within workings of a "dot com" company and exemplified the lengths to which a sociologist will become to uncover material.

Rothman had conducted a grade of study called participant observation, in which researchers bring together people and participate in a grouping's routine activities for the purpose of observing them within that context. This method lets researchers experience a specific attribute of social life. A researcher might go to great lengths to get a firsthand look into a trend, institution, or behavior. Researchers temporarily put themselves into roles and record their observations. A researcher might work as a waitress in a diner, live as a homeless person for several weeks, or ride along with police force officers as they patrol their regular beat. Often, these researchers try to blend in seamlessly with the population they report, and they may not disclose their truthful identity or purpose if they feel it would compromise the results of their research.

Is she a working waitress or a sociologist conducting a study using participant observation? (Photo courtesy of zoetnet/flickr)

At the beginning of a field report, researchers might accept a question: "What really goes on in the kitchen of the most popular diner on campus?" or "What is it like to be homeless?" Participant observation is a useful method if the researcher wants to explore a certain environment from the inside.

Field researchers merely desire to observe and learn. In such a setting, the researcher volition be alert and open minded to whatever happens, recording all observations accurately. Soon, equally patterns emerge, questions volition become more specific, observations volition atomic number 82 to hypotheses, and hypotheses will guide the researcher in shaping data into results.

In a study of modest towns in the Usa conducted past sociological researchers John S. Lynd and Helen Merrell Lynd, the team altered their purpose equally they gathered information. They initially planned to focus their study on the role of religion in U.Due south. towns. As they gathered observations, they realized that the effect of industrialization and urbanization was the more relevant topic of this social group. The Lynds did non alter their methods, merely they revised their purpose. This shaped the structure of Middletown: A Written report in Modern American Civilization, their published results (Lynd and Lynd 1959).

The Lynds were upfront about their mission. The townspeople of Muncie, Indiana, knew why the researchers were in their midst. Just some sociologists adopt not to alert people to their presence. The chief advantage of covert participant observation is that it allows the researcher access to authentic, natural behaviors of a group's members. The challenge, however, is gaining access to a setting without disrupting the pattern of others' behavior. Becoming an within fellow member of a grouping, organization, or subculture takes time and endeavour. Researchers must pretend to exist something they are not. The procedure could involve role playing, making contacts, networking, or applying for a task.

One time inside a group, some researchers spend months or even years pretending to be one of the people they are observing. However, as observers, they cannot get too involved. They must go on their purpose in heed and apply the sociological perspective. That way, they illuminate social patterns that are frequently unrecognized. Because information gathered during participant ascertainment is mostly qualitative, rather than quantitative, the stop results are often descriptive or interpretive. The researcher might nowadays findings in an article or volume and describe what he or she witnessed and experienced.

This type of research is what journalist Barbara Ehrenreich conducted for her volume Nickel and Dimed. I mean solar day over tiffin with her editor, as the story goes, Ehrenreich mentioned an idea. How tin people exist on minimum-wage work? How do low-income workers get by? she wondered. Someone should practise a study. To her surprise, her editor responded, Why don't you do it?

That's how Ehrenreich found herself joining the ranks of the working form. For several months, she left her comfy home and lived and worked amidst people who lacked, for the well-nigh part, higher education and marketable job skills. Undercover, she applied for and worked minimum wage jobs as a waitress, a cleaning adult female, a nursing abode aide, and a retail chain employee. During her participant observation, she used only her income from those jobs to pay for food, wearable, transportation, and shelter.

She discovered the obvious, that it'south almost incommunicable to get by on minimum wage piece of work. She also experienced and observed attitudes many eye and upper-course people never think virtually. She witnessed firsthand the handling of working grade employees. She saw the extreme measures people take to brand ends encounter and to survive. She described fellow employees who held two or 3 jobs, worked seven days a calendar week, lived in cars, could non pay to treat chronic health atmospheric condition, got randomly fired, submitted to drug tests, and moved in and out of homeless shelters. She brought aspects of that life to low-cal, describing difficult working weather condition and the poor handling that low-wage workers suffer.

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, the book she wrote upon her return to her real life as a well-paid writer, has been widely read and used in many college classrooms.

Field research happens in real locations. What type of environment practice work spaces foster? What would a sociologist discover after blending in? (Photo courtesy of drewzhrodague/flickr)

Ethnography

Ethnography is the extended observation of the social perspective and cultural values of an unabridged social setting. Ethnographies involve objective observation of an entire customs.

The center of an ethnographic report focuses on how subjects view their own social standing and how they understand themselves in relation to a customs. An ethnographic study might observe, for example, a small U.S. fishing town, an Inuit community, a hamlet in Thailand, a Buddhist monastery, a individual boarding schoolhouse, or an amusement park. These places all have borders. People live, work, study, or vacation within those borders. People are there for a sure reason and therefore comport in sure ways and respect certain cultural norms. An ethnographer would commit to spending a determined amount of time studying every attribute of the called place, taking in every bit much as possible.

A sociologist studying a tribe in the Amazon might watch the fashion villagers go about their daily lives and so write a paper most it. To observe a spiritual retreat center, an ethnographer might sign upwardly for a retreat and attend as a guest for an extended stay, find and record data, and collate the material into results.

Institutional Ethnography

Institutional ethnography is an extension of basic ethnographic enquiry principles that focuses intentionally on everyday concrete social relationships. Developed by Canadian sociologist Dorothy E. Smith, institutional ethnography is oft considered a feminist-inspired approach to social analysis and primarily considers women'south experiences within male-dominated societies and power structures. Smith'south piece of work is seen to challenge sociology's exclusion of women, both academically and in the study of women'due south lives (Fenstermaker, n.d.).

Historically, social science inquiry tended to objectify women and ignore their experiences except every bit viewed from the male perspective. Mod feminists notation that describing women, and other marginalized groups, equally subordinates helps those in authority maintain their own dominant positions (Social Sciences and Humanities Inquiry Quango of Canada, n.d.). Smith's three major works explored what she called "the conceptual practices of power" (1990; cited in Fensternmaker, n.d.) and are withal considered seminal works in feminist theory and ethnography.

The Making of Middletown: A Study in Modern U.S. Civilisation

In 1924, a immature married couple named Robert and Helen Lynd undertook an unprecedented ethnography: to apply sociological methods to the study of 1 U.Due south. metropolis in order to notice what "ordinary" people in the United States did and believed. Choosing Muncie, Indiana (population about xxx,000), equally their field of study, they moved to the minor boondocks and lived there for eighteen months.

Ethnographers had been examining other cultures for decades—groups considered minority or outsider—similar gangs, immigrants, and the poor. But no one had studied the then-called average American.

Recording interviews and using surveys to assemble data, the Lynds did non sugarcoat or idealize U.S. life (PBS). They objectively stated what they observed. Researching existing sources, they compared Muncie in 1890 to the Muncie they observed in 1924. Most Muncie adults, they found, had grown up on farms simply now lived in homes within the metropolis. From that discovery, the Lynds focused their study on the touch on of industrialization and urbanization.

They observed that Muncie was divided into business organization course and working class groups. They defined business class equally dealing with abstract concepts and symbols, while working class people used tools to create concrete objects. The 2 classes led different lives with different goals and hopes. However, the Lynds observed, mass production offered both classes the aforementioned amenities. Similar wealthy families, the working class was now able to ain radios, cars, washing machines, telephones, vacuum cleaners, and refrigerators. This was an emerging material new reality of the 1920s.

A classroom in Muncie, Indiana, in 1917, five years before John and Helen Lynd began researching this "typical" U.S. customs. (Photo courtesy of Don O'Brien/flickr)

As the Lynds worked, they divided their manuscript into six sections: Getting a Living, Making a Abode, Training the Young, Using Leisure, Engaging in Religious Practices, and Engaging in Community Activities. Each chapter included subsections such as "The Long Arm of the Chore" and "Why Do They Work So Difficult?" in the "Getting a Living" affiliate.

When the study was completed, the Lynds encountered a big problem. The Rockefeller Foundation, which had deputed the book, claimed it was useless and refused to publish information technology. The Lynds asked if they could seek a publisher themselves.

Middletown: A Study in Modern American Civilisation was not just published in 1929 but also became an instant bestseller, a status unheard of for a sociological report. The volume sold out six printings in its beginning twelvemonth of publication, and has never gone out of print (PBS).

Cypher like it had e'er been done before. Middletown was reviewed on the forepart folio of the New York Times. Readers in the 1920s and 1930s identified with the citizens of Muncie, Indiana, simply they were as fascinated by the sociological methods and the use of scientific data to define ordinary people in the Usa. The book was proof that social data was important—and interesting—to the U.Due south. public.

Example Report

Sometimes a researcher wants to study one specific person or event. A case study is an in-depth analysis of a single effect, situation, or individual. To acquit a case report, a researcher examines existing sources like documents and archival records, conducts interviews, engages in direct observation and even participant observation, if possible.Researchers might use this method to report a single case of, for example, a foster kid, drug lord, cancer patient, criminal, or rape victim. Yet, a major criticism of the case written report as a method is that a developed study of a single instance, while offering depth on a topic, does non provide enough evidence to form a generalized conclusion. In other words, information technology is difficult to make universal claims based on simply 1 person, since one person does not verify a pattern. This is why about sociologists practice non use case studies every bit a primary inquiry method.However, case studies are useful when the single case is unique. In these instances, a unmarried case study tin can add together tremendous knowledge to a certain subject. For example, a feral child, also called "wild child," is one who grows up isolated from man beings. Feral children grow up without social contact and language, which are elements crucial to a "civilized" child's development. These children mimic the behaviors and movements of animals, and often invent their ain linguistic communication. In that location are only about ane hundred cases of "feral children" in the earth.As y'all may imagine, a feral child is a subject of great interest to researchers. Feral children provide unique data nigh child development because they have grown up outside of the parameters of "normal" child development. And since there are very few feral children, the case study is the almost advisable method for researchers to apply in studying the subject field. At age three, a Ukranian girl named Oxana Malaya suffered severe parental neglect. She lived in a shed with dogs, and she ate raw meat and scraps. Five years later, a neighbor called authorities and reported seeing a girl who ran on all fours, barking. Officials brought Oxana into social club, where she was cared for and taught some human behaviors, just she never became fully socialized. She has been designated as unable to back up herself and now lives in a mental establishment (Grice 2011). Case studies like this offer a way for sociologists to collect data that may not be collectable by whatsoever other method.

Think It Over

Imagine you are most to do field research in a specific identify for a set fourth dimension. Instead of thinking about the topic of study itself, consider how you, equally the researcher, will accept to ready for the written report. What personal, social, and concrete sacrifices will you have to make? How will you manage your personal effects? What organizational equipment and systems will yous need to collect the data?

Practise

1. What research method did John S. Lynd and Helen Merrell Lynd mainly apply in theirMiddletown study?

1. Secondary data
2. Survey
3. Participant observation
4. Experiment

2. The main divergence between ethnography and other types of participant ascertainment is:

1. ethnography isn't based on hypothesis testing
2. ethnography subjects are unaware they're beingness studied
3. ethnographic studies always involve minority ethnic groups
4. ethnography focuses on how subjects view themselves in relationship to the customs

iii. Which best describes the results of a case study?

1. It produces more reliable results than other methods considering of its depth
2. Its results are not generally applicative
3. It relies solely on secondary data assay
4. All of the above

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Source: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/alamo-sociology/chapter/research-methods-field-research-and-secondary-data-analysis/

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