Re: Teaching ethnographic methods
Carolyn Ellis (cellis@chuma.cas.usf.edu)
Fri, 12 Jan 1996 11:14:24 -0500 (EST)
Hi, Ruth, I just taught under. qual. methods. It got off to a slow start,
and I wondered why I was doing this, but it ended with a bang. The
projects were mostly excellent. It's hard for some of them to figure out
how to get access to a research site. Especially since they need to do it
early in the semester, and at that point thay have so little knowledge
about what qual methods is all about. Many chose volunteer organizations,
but they often have training only at certain times of the year, so some
people didn't actually get into their sites until mid-semester. But it
ended up working anyway. And it was a good opportunity for students to
"try on a possible career". Have fun. I found it didn't matter so much if
they understood all the issues, innuendos, etc of fieldwork--that my
purpose was to give them experience in looking at the world with their
sociological imaginations.
On Fri, 12 Jan 1996 Ruth.Horowitz@MVS.UDEL.EDU wrote:
> Happily my semester does not start until february. During my many years of
> teaching, I have never before taught ethnographic methods to undergraduates. I
> could, if I don't scare them off, have as many as twenty-five. I plan to send
> them all out for a semester-long project. Any hints of problems that people
> have run into when they have done this that I can anticipate and hopefully
> avoid?
> thanks and Happy New Year, Ruth Horowitz
>