Social Research Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches

FIELD RESEARCH AND FOCUS GROUP RESEARCH

a believer. You need both views as well as an abil-
ity to swiftly switch between them.^28
The attitude of strangeness also encourages
you to reconsider your own social world. Immersion
in a different setting breaks old habits of thought
and action. You will find reflection and introspec-
tion easier and more intense when encountering the
unfamiliar, whether it is a different culture or a
familiar one seen through a stranger’s eyes.

Notice Social Breakdowns.A social breakdown

occurs when two cultural traditions or social assump-

tions fail to mesh. It highlights social meanings

because hidden routine expectations and assump-

tions become explicit in the breakdown. Such

expectations appear as misunderstandings or con-

fusion over which of several implicit social rules to

apply. For example, I go to a restaurant and sit

down. I wait for a server to appear. Ten minutes

later, having gotten no service, I become angry.

I look around and notice that I have not seen any

servers. I see customers enter from a doorway car-

rying their own food and realize my misunder-

standing. My implicit expectation was that the

restaurant had table service; in fact, it is one where

patrons must go to a counter, order, and pick up

their own food. Once I recognize which rules to

apply in the context, I can resolve the breakdown.

Social breakdowns produce embarrassment

because the mismatch of cultural meanings often

causes a person to look foolish, ignorant, or unin-

formed. For example, you are invited to a party that

begins at 8:00 P.M. You show up in your usual attire,

old jeans and a wrinkled sweater, and arrive at your

usual time for an 8:00 party—8:30. The door opens

and you enter. Shocked, you see that everyone else

is formally dressed and sitting at a formal dinner,

which the host served about 30 minutes ago. People

stare at you, and you feel out of place. Your cultural

expectation (this is an informal student party with

loud music, dancing, beer, and informal dress) does

not match the setting (this is a formal dinner party,

at which people expect to eat, engage in polite con-

versation, and act professionally). The breakdown

makes explicit the unspoken social rules that

“everyone knows” or assumes.

Social breakdowns can be unexpected or you

can purposefully create them to test working

hypotheses. As with an ethnomethodologist’s

breaching experiments, you may violate social rules

to expose the existence of tacit rules and their impor-

tance. You can observe unplanned breakdowns or

create mini-social breakdowns and then watch reac-

tions to pinpoint implicit social expectations.

Cope with Stress.Fieldwork can be highly reward-

ing, exciting, and fulfilling, but it also can be difficult:

It must certainly rank with the more disagreeable

activities that humanity has fashioned for itself. It is

usually inconvenient, to say the least, sometimes phys-

ically uncomfortable, frequently embarrassing, and,

to a degree, always tense (Shaffir et al., 1980:3).

New researchers face embarrassment, experi-

ence discomfort, and are overwhelmed by the

details in the field. For example, in her study of

U.S. relocation camps for Japanese Americans dur-

ing World War II, respected field researcher Wax

(1971) reported that she endured the discomfort

of 120-degree Fahrenheit temperatures, filthy and

dilapidated living conditions, dysentery, and mos-

quitoes. She felt isolated, she cried a lot, and she

gained 30 pounds from compulsive eating. After

months in the field, she thought she was a total fail-

ure; she was distrusted by members and got into

fights with the camp administration.

Maintaining a “marginal” status is stressful;

it is difficult to be an outsider who is not fully

involved, especially when studying settings full

of intense feelings (e.g., political campaigns, re-

ligious conversions). The loneliness and isola-

tion of fieldwork may combine with the desire

to develop rapport and empathy to cause over-

involvement. You may go nativeand abandon

the professional researcher’s role to become a

full member of the group being studied. Or you

may feel guilt about learning intimate details as

Go native Action in which a field researcher becomes

overly involved with the people being studied and

loses all distance or objectivity and becomes joined

with them.

Social breakdown The failure of social rules and

patterns of behavior in a field site to operate as

expected, revealing a great deal about social mean-

ings and relationships.