Ethnographic Research

Definition and Background

Ethnographic research is a type of qualitative research that focuses on an entire cultural group. Groups that can be qualified under this are those that possess shared patterns of behavior, beliefs, and language. This is usually conducted within an extended period with the ethnographer immersing themself in the natural environment of the cultural group they are studying.

Ethnography is appropriate when it is necessary to describe how a cultural group functions and to investigate beliefs, language, behaviors, and issues such as power, resistance, and dominance.

types of ethnographies

There are many forms of ethnography. In this report, two popular forms of ethnography will be discussed: realist ethnography and critical ethnography.

Realist Ethnography

A realist approach to ethnographic research would mean that the ethnographer would have to analyze a group of individuals from an objective lens, devoid of personal biases, political goals, and judgments.

This approach is typically used by cultural anthropologists and is usually written from the third-person point of view.

Critical Ethnography

With this approach, the ethnographer brings to light many modern societal issues involving power, prestige, privilege, and authority, and how they serve as a means to marginalize people based on their class, race, and gender.

In contrast to realist ethnography, critical ethnography is driven by the researcher's personal goal to bring awareness to sociocultural issues through their research.

procedure

Determine if ethnography is the most appropriate design to use to study the research problem.
Identify and locate a culture-sharing group to study. The chosen participants of the study must share a language, patterns of behavior, and attitudes that have merged into a discernable pattern. Acquiring a gatekeeper or key informants is usually necessary for gaining entrance to the group.
Select cultural themes or issues to study about the group. The themes may include enculturation, socialization, learning, cognition, domination, inequality, or child and adult development.
To study cultural concepts, determine which type of ethnography to use.
Gather information about where the group works and lives. Field issues of respect, reciprocity, deciding who owns the data, and others are central to ethnography.
Forge a working set of rules or patterns as the final product of this analysis. The final product is a holistic cultural portrait of the group that incorporates the views of the participants and the researcher. It might also advocate for the needs of the group or suggest changes in society to address the needs of the group.

challenges

The researcher must identify his or her case.
The case study researcher must decide which bounded system to study.
The researcher must consider whether to study a single case or multiple cases.
The researcher must establish a rationale for his or her purposeful sampling strategy for selecting the case and for gathering information about the case.
Deciding the "boundaries" of a case — how it might be constrained in terms of time, events, and processes — may be challenging.

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