Participant Observations

1. Participant Observations

2. What people say they believe and say that they do are often contradicted by their behavior.

3. What is participant observation? • Traditional ethnographic research to help learn the perspectives held by those you are studying.

4. What can we learn from participant observation? • Gain an understanding of the physical, social, cultural, and economic contexts where the participants live. • Relationships among and between people, contexts, ideas, norms, and events • People’s behaviors and activities

5. Disadvantages of participation observation: • Time Consuming • Difficulty of documenting the data • Difficulty of filtering out personal Bias

6. What to observe: • Clothes and appearance • Verbal behaviors and interactions • Physical behaviors and gestures • Personal space • Human traffic • People who stand out

7. 5 things I learned One: I tend to be Direct with my speaking, yet speak with a high context, face although important I lean more towards Face less important, and The person. • Two: what the people in that country think of as normal, natural, right, or good, and that it is from this perspective that they will be judging and interpreting the behavior of others.

8. Three: • Some social situations require body contact between members of the same sex. This entails being held by the elbow, kissing on both cheeks, being kissed on the hand, talking at unnaturally close range, or occasionally holding little fingers. • PCV Afghanistan

9. Four: I am Polychronic • More time is always available, and you are never too busy. • People often have to do several things simultaneously, as required by circumstances. It’s not necessary to finish one thing before starting another, nor to finish your business with one person before starting in with another.

10. Five: Every country has its own way of saying things. The important thing is that which lies behind people’s words. • Freya Stark, The Journey’s Echo

11. 5 Observations • The first month or two in class I was always saying, “Look at me when I talk to you,” and the kids simply wouldn’t do it. They would always look at their hands, or the blackboard, or anywhere except looking me in the face. And finally one of the other teachers told me it was a cultural thing. They should warn us about things like that. • Tony HillermanSkinwalkers • I plan to observe if the children look at me when they speak.

12. Observations: • Two: I’d like to observe if Jamaica comes across more as a high uncertainty avoidance country or as a low uncertainty avoidance. I feel as though the United states is more high, considering all the laws we have, and the need to keep children from being exposed to many things. • Three: Achieved Vs. Ascribed status. I feel as though it is mixed here in the US, Celebrities have the ascribed more or less. I’d like to see how it is there.

13. Observations: • Four: I want to observe, not necessarily how the children react when I enter the room since I hope to be in a preschool, but more so how the parents react upon meeting me and seeing me with there children. That is to say if the parents come into the classroom. Being that I am from a different country and a stranger more or less to them, I wonder what level of respect and authority I will hold.

14. Observations: • Five: I want to take note of the Personal vs. professional aspect of work. I know for me at the daycare everyone is very close. Ever since the first day I started we share personal lives, as well as keeping it professional when the boss is around. I’d like to see the relationships between people at work there.

15. Curriculum Areas: • One: Music, how music is incorporated into the school system at a variety of ages. Music is very important and a huge part of my life, so I will be eager to learn about there music and listen to it.

16. Curriculum Areas: • Reading, What level they are at as opposed to how children here read and learn.

17. Curriculum Areas: • Languages. Here in the U.S although we do have to learn a different language in middle school and high school, it is not looked upon as a necessity. I’d love to see if they think learning other languages is helpful in life. I wish we took it more seriously here, I would love to be bilingual or more but it is so difficult for me to pick up on any other languages.

18. Curriculum Areas: • Food and Nutrition. For that to be even mentioned in the article as a subject interests me. I took a health class every couple of years, but nutrition and food was something that my school at least did not put a lot of focus on. I think it will be interesting to see if the find it important.

19. Curriculum Areas: • Clothing and Textiles. As a subject this one is of much interest to me. I think clothing is a very important part of someone's culture and the way the portray themselves. I wish we had a subject like that here so I would love to observe this area in Jamaica.

20. Resources • Culture Matters (n.d.). Chapter 3 styles of communication. Retrieved from http://wws.peacecorps.gov/wws/publications/culture/pdf/chapter3.pdf • Culture Matters. (n.d.). Chapter 4 culture in the workplace. Retrieved from http://wws.peacecorps.gov/wws/publications/culture/pdf/chapter4.pdf • Mack , N. (n.d.). Module 2 participant observation. Retrieved from http://www.fhi360.org/NR/rdonlyres/emgox4xpcoyrysqspsgy5ww6mq7v4e44etd6toiejyxalhbmk5sdnef7fqlr3q6hlwa2ttj5524xbn/datacollectorguideenrh.pdf • Simmons, D. (n.d.). Education in jamaica. Retrieved from http://www.my-island-jamaica.com/education_in_jamaica.html