Ethnography is a participant-observer qualitative research method which involves an integrative analysis of behaviors, values, and patterns of interaction within a specific culture-sharing group (Creswell, 2013). It is a method that stems from cultural anthropology and sociology, wherein the researcher spends extended periods of time as a participant in the group of study, interviewing, observing, and sharing their cultural experiences. According to Creswell (2013), the process of ethnography begins with questions related to problems of the group, followed by systematic observations, detailed descriptions, coding, and finally synthesizing the data with theoretical foundations, artifacts, journals, or other data, used to interpret meaning.
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As a value-laden critical ethnography, the researcher’s stance is introduced as the basis for the study. Participant-observers for the study were selected based upon similar culture-sharing groups and ethnicity. By representing themselves as researchers, yet diffusing power struggles by stressing the purpose of the study, Newman’s field researchers helped the group be better understood. Utilizing participant-observer methods, interviews, and meticulous documentation and analyses of multigenerational functioning patterns, Newman (2001) therefore illuminated the community's intricate and yet often overlooked strategies for survival, explaining their use of welfare as a group. Upon looking deeper into the behaviors and interactions and language of specific families in Harlem culture, for example, the study showed how forcing those whose children age out of welfare to work can actually increase unemployment and welfare system dependence by creating barriers to sustaining adult children's jobs. The concluding argument is that adult children rely upon parents to provide affordable childcare, so that they are able to
As a value-laden critical ethnography, the researcher’s stance is introduced as the basis for the study. Participant-observers for the study were selected based upon similar culture-sharing groups and ethnicity. By representing themselves as researchers, yet diffusing power struggles by stressing the purpose of the study, Newman’s field researchers helped the group be better understood. Utilizing participant-observer methods, interviews, and meticulous documentation and analyses of multigenerational functioning patterns, Newman (2001) therefore illuminated the community's intricate and yet often overlooked strategies for survival, explaining their use of welfare as a group. Upon looking deeper into the behaviors and interactions and language of specific families in Harlem culture, for example, the study showed how forcing those whose children age out of welfare to work can actually increase unemployment and welfare system dependence by creating barriers to sustaining adult children's jobs. The concluding argument is that adult children rely upon parents to provide affordable childcare, so that they are able to