Sociological Research Methods

Introduction

Ethnography is the study of people and groups, firsthand, over a period of time, using participant observation and interviews to uncover social behavior. Ethnographic research seeks to reveal meanings that underpin social action, is done through the direct involvement of the researcher in the interactions that constitute social reality for the study group. A sociologist who is conducting ethnographic research may work or live with the group, organization or community over a period of months or even years, often taking an active role in the daily activities of these people, watching what happens and asking for explanations, or seeking insights decisions, actions and behaviors (Galloway, 2011).

An ethnographer can not simply be present in a community. It should explain and justify their presence to their members. Must gain the cooperation of the community and keep it for a while if you want to get some advantageous result. This process of being accepted can be time consuming and difficult, but with time, ethnographers often fail to develop trusting relationships with members of the group. There are cases in which the researcher essentially becomes a member of the community, in others it may be accepted as a researcher, but continues to be considered an outsider.

Discussion

For a long time, it was common to exclude reports of risks or problems that need to be overcome in based on participant observation research recently, but the publication of memoirs and diaries of people who develop fieldwork has had a greater openness to these themes. Often, it is necessary to face the feeling of loneliness - not easy to fit in a social context or in a community to which you do not really belong. The researcher may feel constantly frustrated on the refusal of the group members to speak frankly about themselves; direct questions can be received well in some contexts, but is faced with a hostile silence in others. Some types of fieldwork may even offer physical danger, for example, a researcher who is studying a gang of delinquents can be seen as a police informant, or engage involuntarily in conflicts with rival gangs (Ito, Horst, Bittanti, Boyd, Herr-Stephenson, Lange, & Robinson, 2008).

The traditional work of ethnography reports showed that many contained no information about the observer. This was because it was believed that an ethnographer could present frameworks goals than he studied. Even researcher Hochschild, writing in the early 1980s, brings little information about the author or the nature of their connection with the people he studied. Recently, ethnographers began to talk about themselves and about the nature of their connection with the people studied. Sometimes it can be a matter of trying to assess how race class or gender affect a person's work, or as differences in terms of power, between the observer and the observed distort the dialogue they establish (King, 2011).

Advantages and limitations of ethnography

When successful, ethnography offers a greater wealth of information about social life than most other research methods. Observing how things are from within ...