Social Research Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches

FIELD RESEARCH AND FOCUS GROUP RESEARCH

cultural knowledge and drawing on clues in spe-
cific social contexts.
By examining ordinary social interaction in
great detail, ethnomethodologists seek to identify
the rules for constructing social reality and common
sense. They want to document how we apply micro-
level social rules and create new rules “on the fly.”
For example, a positivist, quantitative researcher
sees standardizing tests or formal survey interviews
as producing objective facts about a person while
the ethnomethodologist sees them as demonstrat-
ing the person’s ability to pick up implicit clues and
apply commonsense cultural knowledge.
One technique used by ethnomethodologists is
the breaching experiment, a method to make visi-
ble and to demonstrate the power of simple tacit rules
that we rely on to create a sense of reality in every-
day life. In the “experiment,” the ethnomethodolo-
gist purposefully violates a tacit social norm. The
breach usually elicits a powerful social response
(e.g., people become anxious and confused, laugh
nervously, or express irritation and anger). The
response both verifies the rule’s existence and
demonstrates that such tacit rules are an essential
feature of the flow of ordinary social life. The
breach also shows the fragility of social reality. In a
famous breaching experiment, Harold Garfinkel
(1917– ) sent his students to nearby stores. He told
them to “mistake” other customers for salesclerks.
At first, the customers became confused and stam-
mered explanations, but as the students persisted in
the misinterpretation, many bewildered customers
reluctantly accepted the new definition of the situ-
ation and awkwardly tried to fill the salesclerk role.
Others “blew up” and “lost their cool,” violating the
larger social norm of maintaining polite disinter-
ested interactions with other customers. Such a
social breach illustrates how we greatly depend on
tacit knowledge for the ongoing operation of social
life (e.g., distinguishing salesclerks from other cus-
tomers). Filmmakers have used similar social situ-
ations for comic effect. They have people from a
different culture who do not share the same tacit,
unspoken rules of proper behavior violate social
norms.^7 This is humorous because a capable adult
violating a common everyday tacit norm disrupts
the flow of everyday social reality and generates

social tension that we release through laughter. If a

very young child or person who is cognitively

impaired were to violate the tacit norm, few see it

as humorous but perhaps as “cute” or “sad.” Mental

health practitioners use a person’s ability to recog-

nize and apply everyday tacit cultural knowledge as

an indicator of the person’s mental competence.

The Logic of Field Research

Field research is an orientation toward doing social

research more than a specific research technique.

Field researchers draw on an wide array of specific

techniques.^8 As Schatzman and Strauss (1973:14)

said, “Field method is more like an umbrella of activ-

ity beneath which any technique may be used for

gaining the desired knowledge, and for processes of

thinking about this information.” A field researcher

is a resourceful, talented individual with ingenuity

and an ability to think on her or his feet while in the

field. The field research involves bricolage, which is

more than combining diverse pieces of information.

It connects what the researcher studies to the con-

texts in which it appears, links the researcher with

people studied, and integrates meaning with experi-

ence (Kincheloe, 2005).

Field research rests on the principle of natu-

ralism. It applies to the study phenomena such

as oceans, animals, plants. Naturalism tells us to

observe ordinary events in natural settings, not in con-

trived, invented, or researcher-created settings. The

best way for us to learn is to capture events as they

occur in authentic reality, so we must conduct our

research in “the field,” leaving the predictable, safe

settings such as an office, laboratory, or classroom.

Another principle of field research is that on-

going social life contains numerous perspectives that

people use in natural social settings. To understand

Naturalism The principle that researchers should

examine events as they occur in natural, everyday,

ongoing social settings.

Breaching experiment Research technique by which

a field researcher intentionally breaks social rules and

patterns of behavior to reveal aspects about social

meanings and relationships.