Criticisms Of Ethnographic Research Psychology Essay

“Ethnographic research has little to offer psychologist: it is impossible to generalise in any way from such small scale studies”. What do you make of such criticisms?

Ethnography is derived from the words ‘ethno’ meaning ‘folk’ and ‘graph’ meaning to ‘write’. So ethnography is considered to be the social scientific writing about particular folk (Denzin and Lincoln, 1994). The student feels that ethnographic research has a lot to offer not only psychology but any social science. It is true that generalisation is not possible from ethnographic studies. It is not possible to generalise an observation seen in a particular group to all possible concepts. But a theoretical generalisation is possible. Ethnographic studies are more precise and better understood. In depth first hand knowledge helps us to make generalizations based on data collected by the investigator. The researcher initially identifies a problem, then directly experiences it first hand and finally draws ideas out of it. The researcher can do observations covertly or overtly. This means that the researcher can directly observe the population under study (overt), or the investigator does indirect observations (covert).

A detailed study done in one particular area brings out empirical and theoretical inferences which can be applied to other instances. The information offered by ethnographic studies are not mere physical descriptions but interpretations of meanings of actions encountered in contexts. Since these are real life, natural encounters observed over a long period, they are more valuable. This information gathered helps in hypotheses generation. Triangulation or looking at things form different view points is essential during analysis. If there are many interpretations directing to the same concept it will substantiate subjective interpretations. Thus ethnographic studies are not mere descriptions of observations, but descriptions shaped by theories.

At the same time, like all research ethnographic research has to be critically approached. The reader has to make sure that the study raises questions, presents observations in a new light that stimulates theories, and allows the validity of the theory to be explored. The study should make transferability of insights possible. The framework of concepts used should be novel and not used in previous studies. The theories made should be credible. Ethnographic studies are often longitudinal. A common criticism of longitudinal studies is that subjects under study know what the investigator expects and starts to answer accordingly.

Another drawback of such studies is that the researcher can construct a personal view of the situation than represent the actual situation. However, the reader can judge the clarity of an ethnographic study by ensuring that the focus of research is clear, the data collected is well documented and the claims made based on this data are well explained in a reasonable manner. Moreover, the way generalisations are made to a wider context must be theoretically sound.

But in spite of this ethnographic studies are not the solution to all research questions. Ethnographic studies are small scale studies and are not representations of the entire population under study, manipulation of variables such as in experimental studies; hypothesis testing and replications of the studies are not possible. Also ethnographic studies are time consuming and expensive to carry out. Ethical issues like covert observation of subjects under study have to be dealt with. The data collected has to be recorded in a systematic way. And due to the enormous amount of data available, collection has to be limited by focussing on theoretical questions and limit to data related to such questions.

Thus we see that ethnographic studies achieve what large scale experimental studies cannot achieve. Ethnographic studies help in carrying out detailed research about a particular issue. The significant observations of these studies can be generalised to other concepts. This is not done randomly but, through a testable theoretical framework. While large scale studies generalise facts based on experimental and statistical means ethnographic study is based on selection of theoretical insights that are a result of in-depth study of one area of focus.

In conclusion, no method of research is perfect. Different methods of study contribute differently to our scientific understanding about a phenomenon. Ethnographic study gives its own contribution to socials science. Detailed and in depth study, even if it is on a small scale helps in drawing theoretically sound conclusions.

Compare and contrast the logic and practise of grounded theory with that of content analysis.

Content analysis and Grounded theory are two qualitative methods of social science. They are both methods which involve different approaches to the analysis of data collected. Content Analysis can be defined as a quantitatively oriented technique by which standardized measurements are applied to metrically defined units and these are used to contrast and compare documents (Denzin, & Lincoln, 1994).Grounded theory can be defined as developing or discovering a theory inductively by close examination of the data. This approach was introduced by Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss in 1967 (cited in, Lyons, & Coyle, 2007). Content analysis begins with preset categories which are mutually exclusive before data analysis. In Grounded theory categories emerge after thorough analysis of the data, this leads to development of a theory which is grounded in data. The theory emerges during actual research process and this is done through constant comparative interplay between analysis and data collection. Content analysis is more oriented on evaluating the content of communication. The aim is to use an objective method which is oriented on quantitative data. Unlike grounded theory, the aim of this approach is to remove subjectivity of analysis and to include simplification of trends. In grounded theory literature review is done after data collection. This is quite a criticized approach as the researcher knows little about current trends of study in the area of research and it is almost as the researcher stumbles on to a finding.

Content analysis and grounded theory use similar methods of data collection like interviews, observations, magazines and other media materials. However, the data used in grounded theory can be quantitative or qualitative and is transcribed from the researchers and participant’s speech. The extra linguistic, paralinguistic and prosody features of the communication is not transcribed for analysis. On the other hand data used in content analysis is taken directly from the available sources such as magazines and direct transcription is not required. Grounded theory uses purposive sampling as opposed to convenience sampling. Theoretical sampling is practised in grounded theory; this is the collection of data in the light of categories that have emerged from earlier stages of data analysis. In grounded theory the data analysed can be under many units at the same time. While in content analysis data analysed is put under one preset category. The categories in content analysis can be as much as required but it is desirable that the categories are all of the same size. Once the categories are set they are not revised and reset during data analysis. But this is allowed in grounded theory. The categories used on grounded theory are analytical rather than descriptive like in content analysis. Grounded theory is used when little is known about a topic area, or there are no theories to explain effectively the area under investigation, or when exiting theory needs to be challenged. Analysis done in grounded theory should be directly from the spoken word. Software can be used to analyse data in both methods. A clear audit trail showing how the data was analysed and categories were reached have to be maintained to bring out the quality of the research in grounded theory. Coding is done after careful and repeated readings of the material. Meaningful units are identified, highlighted and labelled. The units may be words, phrases or longer segments of text. These labels are called categories. Straus and Corbin (1990, cited in, Lyons, & Coyle, 2007) calls this open coding. The researcher aims to understand the data better and give depth and density to theory. The researcher then tries to identify sub categories from these larger categories. Axial coding is then done to establish codes that are refined and reduced. Selective coding is the final stage in which fine categories that cannot be further subdivided are establishes. A core category leads to emergent theory. Negative analysis which removes data that does not fit in any category is removed in grounded theory. This is not practised in content analysis.

Thus both content analysis and grounded theory are methods used to analyse data. Both make there own contributions to social science. One substantiates a theory while the other develops theories from existing data.

People ‘do’ things with words. What are the implications of this for how psychologists could conduct and analyse interviews?

Sociology is the study of interacting and interviews are basically interactions between the interviewer and interviewee. Interviews are a good way of trying to understand fellow human beings and are an important method in psychology. Silverman, (2006) describes three main approaches to interviews namely positivist, emotionalist and constructionist. The Positivist approach is based on the idea that people say what they think. This approach views talk as a direct link to cognitive processes taking place in the interviewee’s brain. The approach heavily relies on structured interviews and thus all that is required is the valid and reliable data coming from the speaker mouth. The interviewer is neutral and asks fixed questions and the interviewer’s contributions are not given importance. Emotionalist interview is an approach that gives importance to the interviewee’s real feelings. The interviewer is expected to build rapport with the subject and can even tell stories to emphasize points and to elicit information. Intimacy and empathy is the key to such interviews. The interaction of two people reveals important data. This approach does not give importance to the interviewer’s contributions and an unstructured interview is used.

Constructionist interviews are different form positivist and emotionalist interviews. These interviews focus on how the interviewees construct their speech to bring out versions of events and people they are talking about. Language has an action-orientation. People can achieve or “do” things with words. This approach to interviews realise that people can say things with a definite intention. Thus the construction, functions and consequences of sentences are given importance. The above statements imply that such interviews need to be conducted and analysed in a specific way. These interviews must give importance to contributions of the interviewer and interviewee. Interviews are usually unstructured, so the person gets freedom to construct his thoughts without limiting to a framework. This interview approach is good because it depends on our knowledge of everyday social structures. The interview is narrow in its out look because it focuses on the conversational skill of the speaker, than what he actually says. The sample size of the data under study can be quite large or small based on the variety of the interviewee’s constructions. Theoretical sampling may be done in most instances. This is because statistical representation is not the focus in these studies. The investigator can specifically focus on finding a variety of ways in which certain issues are constructed. While doing a constructionist analysis the interviewer must be clear about the perspective employed. A combination of positivist, emotionalist ad constructionist approach is not encouraged. Mainstream psychological work has benefited form interview research. This is because constructive dimensions to language enrich studies on stereotypes and can highlight some problems in traditional theories. Interviews highlight experience and the different views that people can hold on a particular topic. For example stereotyping is a normal and natural process that occurs according to social theory. People tend to classify people into categories. But this can lead to problems such as racism and or taking for granted or making pre-conceived notions of people. This is seen in the article by Hopkins and Reicher (1997). A police officer who has been accused of racism is interviewed by the author. The policeman through his construct of talk has achieved a constructed version of the people. He backs it up with authoritative examples that he makes of them. Hence constructing a stereotype of the people talked about. This construction tries to bring fault off the shoulders of the police and tries to rationalize racism. Thus, constructive interviews bring out how people construct versions and neutralise claims. This brings insights into how constructions are assembled and the consequences it brings. It also brings out the significance of everyday talk as data. Questionnaires and other tool of data collection cannot bring out the diversity and ambivalence of experiences. Interviews show variety in the data collected but to make them quantitative content analysis which incorporates making pre-set categories can be used.

Hence, the above discussion reveals that constructionist interviews have numerous implications for social psychology. The analysis of talk brings out many valuable insights.

Explain the concept if interpretative repertoire as developed by Potter and Wetherell (1987). Why may this concept be useful to psychologists?

Potter and Wetherell (1987) defined interpretative repertoires as a systematically related set of terms that are often used with a stylistic and grammatical coherence, organized around one or more central metaphor. Interpretive repertoire was initially a concept used in discourse analysis. Early research using discourse analysis attempted to identify broad discourses which participants used to define their identities and moral status. Potter and Wetherell (1987) preferred interpretative repertoire to discourses because, they applied flexibility in the ways in which linguistic components of the repertoire can be put together. These interpretative repertoires are regarded as linguistic phenomena which have coherence in terms of their content and style.

A study using interpretative repertoire was carried out by Wetherell and Potter. The study focussed on the opinion of New Zealanders about Maoris. Maoris are the native people of New Zealand. The analysis of these talks revealed deferent ways of talking about the Maoris, these were called interpretative repertoires. The different interpretative repertoires used were ‘Culture-as-heritage’ and ‘Culture-as-therapy’. The ‘Culture-as-heritage’ repertoire described Maoris as an ancient heritage which must be preserved and respected. This was more like the Maoris being considered as a species of animals or ancient art form which should be preserved so that it does not undergo extinction. ‘Culture-as-therapy’ repertoire describes Maori culture as psychological need. The Maoris have to be in touch with their culture to become complete. ‘Culture-as- heritage’ repertoire tries to explain that the protest of Maoris as being isolated or marginalised as not suiting their cultural heritage. The ‘culture-as-therapy’ repertoire tries to explain that the Maori discontent towards the rest of the community is because they are not in proper contact with their original culture.

The discourse analysis helps the researcher to look into the pragmatic use of language. Thus it gives us insights into how different individuals use language in different contexts. The speaker is trying to explain why the Maoris and New Zealanders have cultural tension between themselves. This is done by trying to mitigate the blame on the New Zealanders by constructing versions of them in a convincing way. These versions are arranged in a particular order following certain rules. This is often described as a sequenced dance of an ice skater. Just like it is necessary to know the steps and rules of ice skating to appreciate the systematic arrangement of the dance. It is necessary that the researcher understands the context and the focus of research. This will help the researcher to appreciate the various interpretative repertoires arranged in the argument.

Thus the researcher gains understandings abut how individuals use language to construct themselves and others around them. And what is achieved or what is the objective of such constructions. For example in the interview about Maoris the investigator finds out how the speaker succeeds in removing the blame of being ‘racist’ from off his shoulders.

Interpretative repertoires are pre-eminent ways of understanding the content of discourse and how this content is organized. The style and grammars are sometimes closely associated with the organization. The analytical focus is not linguistics; it is more concerned with language use, what is achieved by that use, and the nature of the interpretative resources that allow that achievement. The analysis focuses on what the talk was being used to achieve, who was being blamed, how versions of the society were put together and how the speaker tried to show his separation from categorisation of people.

Interpretative repertoire requires a lot of practise. Novice researchers cannot readily do this analysis without a systematic and methodological approach to interpret, organize and code data. The reader is expected to look into the different ways in which discursive object is constructed in the data. If research topic is not decided in advance coding of the data becomes more difficult. It is difficult to make clear and consistent judgements concerning the boundaries of particular repertoires out side constrained institutional settings. They often fail to bring our more basic conversational rules to which participants are attending. Such observations are looked into more in conversational analysis. The language user has to select form his vast collection of words in order to construct a version of events. Interpretative repertoires do not look into the social constructionist approach of language usage.

Thus interpretative repertoire is a form of analysis focussing on the way in which arguments are organized and achieved. It is a useful tool in qualitative research.

Critically evaluate Kitzinger and Frith’s use of Conversational Analysis in their attempt to develop a feminist analysis of sexual refusal.

Kitzinger and Frith (1999) have attempted to develop a feminist perspective in sexual refusal using conversational analysis. A critical analysis of their research warrants a brief explanation of conversation analysis. Conversational analysis is a qualitative method which emerged out of Howard Garfinkel’s programme for ethnomethodology. The approach looks into the various methods employed by individuals for producing orderly social interaction. The practical application of this approach is to look into how different interactions are achieved.

The background of the study is the feminist attempts to teach refusal skills to avoid date rapes. Feminist believe that date rape is caused because females do not say ‘no’ effectively. The authors attempted to analyse this using conversational analysis. Data was collected from 58 female school and university students. All the discussions revealed that females found it difficult to just say ‘no’ to unwanted sex. A lot of explanations for this are given these include lack of assertiveness, low self esteem, the need to satisfy gender roles, the need to protect partners feelings and the general difficulty to discuss topics relating to sex. Numerous therapists and management books and work environment trainings focus on this inability of females to say ‘no’ and try to give advice on this regard. But the investigators have used conversational analysis of everyday conversations which decline or accept invitations to look into the dynamics of this. They found that acceptance is indicated by an immediate and direct reply. But rejections are made by pauses or hesitations, prefaces, palliatives and accounts. A pause less than four-tenth of a second, during normal conversation is readily acknowledged by the communication partner. Prefaces like ‘uh’ or ‘well’ before responding indicate that a rejection will follow. Palliatives are used to minimise the awkwardness of declining an offer by using a compliment or an alternate acceptance. Reasons or accounts as to why the person is making a rejection are socially desirable. All these conversational cues are like unwritten rules that are expected in everyday communication.

The authors have brought out the impracticality and inappropriateness of the feminist approach to blindly saying ‘no’ to an invitation. Females fear the consequences of such a conversational act. Sexual refusal is considered like any everyday decline of an invitation. Declining an invitation in such a manner would be more difficult when the communication partner is not a stranger. This would be socially inappropriate. Many females feel they would be labelled as ‘cold’ or as a lesbian. So they fear the consequences of following feminist advice. Females also try to use palliatives or accounts to place the blame away form themselves. All these accounts unravel the unfeasibility of ‘just saying no.’

Another very interesting aspect that conversation analysis brings to light is the fact that verbally saying ‘no’ is not necessary while conversing. All the conversational cues like pauses, palliatives, accounts and even extra-linguistic features and non verbal communication indicate rejection. And these cues are immediately comprehended by the communication partner. Thus conversational analysis reveals that it is not necessary to verbally say ‘no’ to decline a sexual invitation.

The study has thus brought out the gaping holes in the feminist accusation of inadequate communication. Even though females communicate decline using many different strategies men fail to acknowledge this. They dislike female decline in any form and especially resent the encouragement to females to say ‘no.’ Thus the authors have used conversational analysis to reveals the impracticality of saying ‘no’, and how like any other everyday refusal, declining sex is also abiding to conversational norms. So the blame of inadequate communication is an accusation totally out of place. As long as men refuse to acknowledge female decline, female attempts to communicate disinterest are futile. The saying ‘you can wake sleeping people, but how do you wake people pretending to sleep?’ is quite suiting this context. Thus the study brings out a different approach to feminist view of this psychological topic and makes the reader think of all the different factors that can influence this scenario.

Below is an extract from an interview with a Police Officer. In the interview he discusses the charge that the police are racist towards black people. When doing so he explained that black people often resented the police because of ‘their chips on their shoulders’ When asked to expand on this he said the following:

” Well, they are, I mean, it’s, I think you have to understand West Indian culture really to understand the background to a lot of this. You see the West Indian very much believe you sort of don’t involve other people when you are sorting out your problems. Part of their way of life is you very much sort your own troubles. Now over there, they would not dream of involving the police in any sort of problems and they resent very much the role the police have over here’.

If you were a qualitative researcher subscribing to the logic of Discourse Analysis what aspects of this extract would be of interest and what would you want to say about them?

Discourse Analysis is the heterogeneous range of social science research based on analysis of interviews and text as well as recorded talk (Silverman, 2006). As a qualitative researcher the student would focus on the forms and functions of constructive role of language in the social interaction used by the police man. The interviewee is doing things with his words, he is working up his version of the people he is talking about and allocating blame. Potter and Wethrell, (1987) describes three types of constructions achieved in contexts. These include constructing casual stories, making factual claims and using words which have remedial motive intentions. For example, he says that “You see the West Indian very much believe you sort of don’t involve other people when you are sorting out your problems”. Now this is a version that he made up himself. There is no proof for this claim. The interviewee is basically making a believable causal story with his words. Mainly because these people referred to are not West Indians but British citizens and the policeman has no way of generalising them with another culture. And the statement “You have to understand West Indian culture really to understand the background to a lot of this” shows that it is the interviewer who does not know this that it is his ignorance that causes all the trouble. It shows that the policeman is trying to make factual claims giving him authority to comment on the topic. The policeman also tries to conceal his constructible work by using remedial motive sentences like “Well, they are, I mean, it’s, I think you have to”. Now in this sentence you see the policeman trying to begin by saying “they” which clearly shows he is seeing the blacks as a separate group or outsiders and not as part of the community, but repairs the sentence or neutralises it. The policeman continues the sentence by saying that the interviewer does not know about the people he is talking about, he, claims that it is the behaviour of these West Indian people that are at fault and it is because of this nature that black people here do not like the police, this is a factual claim evident in the policeman’s sentences “now over there, they would not dream of involving the police in any sort of problems and they resent very much the role the police have over here”. The policeman uses the word “you” five times in his conversation. This is an example of the concept of ‘stake’ use in discourse analysis, the word ‘you’ is trying to bring out the fact that it is the fault of other people that they do not understand this culture the way the policeman does. It is used either to put blame on the interviewer for not understanding this people the way the policeman does or to make a factual claim “you sort of don’t involve other people when you are sorting out your problems”. The policeman uses “they” and “their” two times to claim facts about the people he is talking about. He uses these words in sentences with factual claims about the black people and tries to warrant authority to speak about them “they resent very much the role the police have over here”. The policeman has described the West Indian culture and stereotypes black British citizens in the same category. ‘ The sentence beginning with ‘I think you have to understand’ is a script arranged in a way to emphasize that people tend to assume things because they do not understand West Indian culture, which cannot be helped. The implications of the policeman’s talk is to shift the blame form the police or from him as an individual and to place it on the nature of West Indian culture that leads to the friction between the two groups.

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