SOCIOLOGY 5221: ETHNOGRAPHIC ANALISIS
Fall, 2006
Kathleen Tierney Office Hours: Monday 2-5
Phone: (303) 492-6818
Cell: (302) 981-0259
COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course is designed to provide an introduction to qualitative data analysis techniques and to writing up the results of qualitative research. Special emphasis will be placed on the diversity of qualitative analytic techniques. The class will initially focus on improving your understanding of different qualitative research and analysis traditions. Various approaches to the analysis and presentation of qualitative data will be covered, including grounded theory techniques, narrative analysis, critical ethnographic analysis, and other analytic strategies. Course activities will also focus on issues of representation in qualitative research. One key objective in all activities this semester is to help you integrate what you do in this course with your ongoing work—a dissertation, conference paper, journal article, or related project.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS: For this course, you will undertake a semester-long project involving the analysis of qualitative data. The project can involve data collected through ethnographic field work, interview data, or textual/documentary material. Ideally, your project should lead to a paper that is suitable for publication or presentation at a conference.
A short (one-page) written proposal on what you intend to do for the course (and how you plan to do it) is due in class on September 18. At the end of the semester, you will be making a presentation in class approximately 20 minutes in length, discussing progress you have made with your analysis/writing project and presenting findings. You must provide other members of the class a copy of your paper draft by the morning of the Friday prior to your presentation. Following your presentation, you will revise your paper and again distribute it to members of the class.
During the semester, you will also be asked to work on short assignments involving qualitative coding and representation in qualitative research. These assignments are required, but will not be graded.
You are expected to complete all reading assignments by the scheduled meeting date and to be prepared to draw upon readings for class discussions.
Classes will employ a lecture/discussion format. I will present material on each week’s topic. That presentation will be followed by discussions, co-facilitated by students, centering on assigned readings, student projects, and coding and writing exercises.
Class attendance, readings, exercises and participation in weekly class discussions are all required for the course. The grade for the course will be based on (1) the quality of the final paper produced, demonstrating that you have developed qualitative data analysis and interpretation skills; and (2) the quality of your participation in class.
REQUIRED
You will receive a CD-ROM
containing all required course readings. You will, of course, also need to use
additional books and articles in your individual projects.
COURSE OUTLINE:
PART 1: Varieties of Qualitative Research
and Analysis
Week of August 28
Course Introduction. Discussion of course structure, requirements, and assignments. Discussion of student goals for the course and data that students will use. Ethnographic traditions: “classic” ethnographic realism and social constructionism
“Classic” ethnography and qualitative analysis: “It’s Not a Black Thing;” “Managing Emotions, Intimacy, and Relationships in a Volunteer Search and Rescue Group”
Constructivist analyses: Monahan, Marolla, and Bromley, “Constructing Coercion: The Organization of Sexual Assault;” Marvasti, “Constructing the Service-Worthy Homeless,” Tardy, “But I am a Good Mom”
Further reading: The Ethnographer’s Toolkit,”
7-volume set from Altamira Press; Maxwell, Qualitative Research Design: An
Interactive Approach; Emerson, Contemporary Field Research, 1st
ed (1983) and 2nd ed (2001); Fetterman, Ethnography: Step by Step;
Lofland and Lofland, Analyzing Social Settings; Denzin and Lincoln, Handbook
of Qualitative Research, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd
editions; Agar, The Professional Stranger; Miller and Tewksbury, Research
Methods: A Qualitative Reader; Marshall and Rossman, Designing
Qualitative Research 4th ed.; Seale, Gobo, Gubrium, and
Silverman (Eds.), Qualitative Research Practice
Journals: Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Qualitative
Sociology; Studies in Qualitative Methodology: A Research Annual; Qualitative
Inquiry; Qualitative Sociology; Visual Sociology, Symbolic
Interaction
Week of September 4:
No class—Labor Day
Week of September 11:
Ethnographic traditions: “classic” ethnography; interpretive and post-positivist approaches; critical theory and institutional ethnography
Critical and institutional ethnography: McCorkel, “Embodied Surveillance and the Gendering of Punishment;” Campbell, “Textual Accounts, Ruling Action;” Autoethnography: Ellis, “Shattered Lives”
Further reading: Clifford and Marcus, Writing Culture;
Behar and Gordon, Women Writing Culture; Hesse-Biber and Leavy, The
Practice of Qualitative Research; Burawoy, et al., Ethnography Unbound:
Power and Resistance in the Modern Metropolis; Brown and Strega (eds.), Research
as Resistance: Critical, Indigenous, and Anti-Oppressive Approaches; Smith,
The Conceptual Practices of Power and Writing the Social: Critique,
Theory, and Investigations; Weis and Fine, Working Method: Research and
Social Justice; Hesse-Biber and
Leavy, Emergent Methods in Social Research; Tolman and Brydon-Miller
(Eds.) From Subjects to Subjectivities: Handbook of Interpretive and
Participatory Methods
Week of September 18:
Ethnographic traditions: discourse analysis and semiotics. Raw materials: Sources and types of qualitative data: field notes, transcripts, documents, records, other texts, visual data
Further reading: Saukko, Doing Research in Cultural
Studies: An Introduction to Classical and New Methodological Approaches; Prasad,
Crafting Qualitative Research: Working in the Postpositivist Traditions;
Chandler, Semiotics: The Basics; Sturken and Cartwright, Practices of
Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture; Pink: Doing Visual
Ethnography; Emmison and Smith, Researching the Visual; Emerson,
Fretz, and Shaw, Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes; Prior, Using
Documents in Social Research; Plummer, Documents of Life
One-page description of your proposed project/paper topic is due in class September 18.
Week of September 25:
Qualitative coding: Basic strategies
Further reading: Silverman, Interpreting Qualitative Data;
Auerbach and Silverstein, Qualitative Data: An Introduction to Coding and
Analysis
PART 2: Qualitative Analytic Strategies
Week of October 2:
Organizing and analyzing qualitative data: grounded theory approaches and related analytic methods. Introduction to coding exercise
Further reading: Glaser and
Strauss, The Discovery of Grounded Theory; Strauss and Corbin, Basics of Qualitative
Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory, 1st
and 2nd Eds.; Strauss, Qualitative Analysis for Social
Scientists, Dey, Grounding Grounded Theory: Guidelines for Qualitative
Inquiry
Week of October 9:
More on coding. Presentation of results of coding exercise
Week of October 16:
Organizing and analyzing qualitative data: Narrative and discourse analysis
Further reading: Hinchman and
Hinchman (Eds.) Memory, Identity, Community: The Idea of Narrative in the
Human Sciences; Josselson and Lieblich, Making Meaning of Narratives;
Reissman, Narrative Analysis
Week of October 23:
Organizing and analyzing qualitative data: Insights from feminism, postmodernism, and related perspectives
Further reading: Collins, Black
Feminist Thought; Reinharz and Davidman, Feminist Methods in Qualitative
Research; Fine, Disruptive Voices: The Possibilities of Feminist
Research; Fonow and Cook, Beyond Methodology: Feminist Scholarship as
Lived Experience
Week of October 30:
Organizing and analyzing qualitative data: Mixed methods; quantitative analyses from qualitative data
Week of November 6:
Writing up qualitative data: The interplay between data and theory; description, analysis, and interpretation. Making sense of data: how do authors do it? Discussion of qualitative publications.
Wolcott, “Getting Going;” Marvasti, “Writing;” Holliday, “Writing up Qualitative Data”
Further reading: Woods, Successful
Writing for Qualitative Researchers; Meloy, Writing the Qualitative
Dissertation: Understanding by Doing; Holliday, Doing and Writing
Qualitative Research; Wolcott, Writing Up Qualitative Research
PART 3: Writing and Representation
Week of November 13:
Writing up qualitative data:
Further discussion of qualitative publications.
Week of November 20:
No class—fall break
Week of November 27 and
December 4:
Send papers by e-mail by Tuesday morning before your presentation
Student presentations, critique,
and discussion
Week of December 11:
Send revised papers by e-mail by morning of Friday, December 8
Review and discussion of revised drafts
Final papers due by