Developing Field Notes

1. Developing Field Notes Guiding Data Collection

2. Theory Guiding the Research Purpose and Questions • Theoretical perspectives are interrelated sets of assumptions, concepts, and propositions that explain the world. • Social theorists, like others, lean on disciplinary perspectives that constitute their intellectual cultures dictating the research direction. Educators, social scientists, community counselors are examples of this intellectual cultures.

3. Ethnographic Design • Structural functionalism • Symbolic interactionism • Social exchange theory • Conflict Theory

4. Functionalism • Assumptions • All social systems are composed of identifiable, interconnected components • These components are structures and institutions. • Each social system must carry out certain functions to survive • The components or each social system carry out these survival functions • Each component thus contributes to the overall health and order of the system. • Homeostasis is normal; disorder and deviance are pathological.

5. Interactionism • Assumptions • Meaning is constructed through social interaction. • Individuals act on the basis of meaning they perceive. • Meanings change in the course of interaction because of different perceptions held by the actors. • Thus, reality is not a prior given; it is based upon interpretations and it is constructed during interaction between and among individual actors. • Reality is not fixed, but changes according to the actors and the context.

6. Exchange Theory • Assumptions • While humans are not totally rational and do not always maximize their profits, they do seek some reward in their social transactions. • They calculate these rewards in terms of costs and benefits. • Even though they do not have perfect access to information, they usually are aware of some alternatives regarding their decisions. • The alternatives have varying costs and benefits. • Humans make decisions balancing those costs and benefits. • They compete wit one another to make profits in their decision making

7. Conflict Theory • Assumptions • All social systems are composed to identifiable and interconnected structures. • Economic organization, especially the ownership of property, determines the organization of the rest of society • While the basic categories and analysis of functionalism are accepted, traditional functionalism fails to explain the dynamism of social systems. • Inherent in social organizations are contradictions which cause their opposite. Hence, conflict is inherent. • Systems are not necessarily at their healthiest in a static equilibrium.

8. Theoretical Influences: At-Risk students

9. Collecting and Analyzing Field Notes • Interactive Methods • Non Interactive Methods • Artifact and Physical Trace Collection

10. Interactive Field Notes • Key-informant interviewing • Career histories

11. Non Interactive Frameworks: What to Look and Listen For • Who is in the group or scene? • How many people are there, and what are their kinds, identities, and relevant characteristics? • How is membership in the group or scene acquired?

12. Non Interactive Frameworks: What to Look and Listen For • What is happening here? • What are the people in the group or scene doing and saying to one another? • What behaviors are repetitive, and which occur irregularly? In what events, activities, or routines are participants engaged? • What resources are used in these activities, and how are they allocated? • How are activities organized, labeled, explained, and justified? • What differing social contexts can be identified?

13. Non Interactive Frameworks: What to Look and Listen For • What is happening here? • How do the people in the group behave toward one another? • What is the nature of this participation and interaction? • How are the people connected or related to one another? • What statuses and roles are evident in this interaction? • Who makes what decisions for whom? • How do the people organize themselves for interactions?

14. Non Interactive Frameworks: What to Look and Listen For • What is happening here? • What is the content of participant’s conversations? • What subjects are common, and which are rare? • What stories, anecdotes, and homilies do they exchange? • What verbal and nonverbal languages do they use to communicate? • What beliefs do the content of their conversations demonstrate? • What formats do the conversations follow? • What processes do they reflect? • Who talks and who listens?

15. Non Interactive Frameworks: What to Look and Listen For • Where is the group or scene located? • What physical settings and environments form their contexts? • What natural resources are evident, and what technologies are created or used? • How does the group allocate and use space and physical objects? • What is consumed, and is produced? • What sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and textures are found in the contexts that the group uses?

16. Non Interactive Frameworks: What to Look and Listen For • When does the group meet and interact? • How often are these meetings, and how lengthy are they? • How does the group conceptualize, use, and distribute time? • How do participants view the past, present, and future?

17. Non Interactive Frameworks: What to Look and Listen For • How are the identified elements connected or interrelated, either from the participants’ point of view or from the researcher’s perspective? • How is stability maintained? How does change originate, and how is it managed? • How are the identified elements organized? • What rules, norms, or mores govern this social organization? • How is power conceptualized and dsistributed? • How is this group related to other groups, organizations, or institutions?

18. Non Interactive Frameworks: What to Look and Listen For • Why does the group operate as it does? • What meanings do participants attribute to what they do? • What is the group’s history? • What goals are articulated in the group? • What symbols, traditions, values and world views can be found in the group?

19. Artifact Collections • Artifacts obtained from archives and demographic and archival data banks • Artifacts obtained by following connections among non symbolic materials, physical trace collection.

20. Demographic and Archival Data Bases • Records of minutes • Collection of teacher guides and textbooks (discrepancies between stated objectives and what is taught or social and philosophical biases) • Attendance records • Community news papers • Health and employment data

21. Physical Trace Collection • Physical trace collecting looks for the erosion and accretion • Questions might include what equipment is used the most—thus requires the most repair---according to records? What equipment is ignored? • What materials remain in closets covered with dust? • Who has access to equipment? • The garbage dump approach to collecting data

22. Field Notes • Inscription • Transcription • Description

23. Inscription • Scratch notes • Scratch notes thus produce field notes proper, usually produced in a chronological order. These are rendered completely as possible. • Journals that record the researcher’s thinking and reflection on events recorded on the field notes. Sometimes this gets ignored but journaling captures thinking that can be archived and pulled out later and avoids memory loss. • Audio tapes and video tapes which can be transcripted

24. Transcription • Return to theory and examine field notes through that lens. Allow theory to develop through your field notes. This is where the researcher builds understanding from notes, interviews, and artifacts. • Compare, contrast, aggregate and order your notes. • What is narrative, germane to the story being told, and what is just talk? • What function does the non narrative “just talk” perform?

25. The Day Begins—Excerpt from Field Notes R = Rule T = Time/Schedule W= Work/Tasks