AQA A Level Sociology Participant Observations
- Created by: harriet_docksey
- Created on: 14-01-21 10:43
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- Participant Observation
- 2 types of PO: Non-participant and Participant
- Structured non-participant observation: pre-determined list of behavioural types
- Overt: researcher reveals their true identity
- Covert: researcher conceals their true identity and purpose
- Practical Issues
- Insight: gives us a lot of it, verstehen
- Sometimes you can only access certain groups: due to suspicion
- Flexibility: can enter the research with an open mind
- Polsky and Whyte agree with this
- Limitations
- Time-consuming and may take years
- Researcher must be sociologically trained
- Requires observational and interpersonal skills
- Theoretical Issues
- Interpretivism
- Validity through involvement
- Glaser and Strauss (1968): grounded theory is when hypotheses are grounded in the observed realities, rather than imposed on the data by the researcher
- Positivism
- They aren't very representative as the group studied is small and often selected haphazardly
- They lack reliability as they aren't structured
- Lack of objectivity because the sociologist risks 'going native', becoming loyal to the group...
- Lack of validity as the findings are merely the biased subjective impressions of the observer
- Risk of the Hawthorne Effect
- Structure vs Action perspectives
- PO is normally associated with 'action' perspectives as they see society from the 'bottom up' (micro)
- Structural sociologists (marxism and functionalism): PO ignores the macro structural forces that shape behaviour
- Interpretivism
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