Ethnography
Introduction
Ethnography tells about a culture and the members that comprise this culture. A definition is the scientific description of the customs and individual people of a culture. The process of doing this assignment allowed me to explore another aspect of a cultural group. I was able to learn extensively about interactions between individuals and how see them as a culture. The group that comprises my ethnography is a cultural group very common to Utah. The culture I focused on was the LDS culture, to be more specific I studied a sub-culture of this group. My subculture was a group of 12 year old adolescents that are a Sunday school class in this culture.
First we must have an understanding of the background of the
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The lessons all come from a manual and focus on the LDS doctrine just simplified for 12 year olds to understand more fully.
I chose this particular cultural group because I have always wanted to study and look more deeply into the LDS culture and I enjoy seeing how teenagers work and grow. This gave me the opportunity to accomplish both, study the culture and an age group of interest. I expected that everyday would be pretty similar with this class and I was totally wrong in that aspect. I also felt a bit overwhelmed with the class members because I haven’t been in a room full of wild teenagers for a while and it was a little crazy to say the least. The biggest shock was the change of calm to crazy in the matter of seconds between the members, I have gotten used to being around well behaved adults and it was a different world in that class room. How the class ran every Sunday depended greatly on the members of this group and their behavior for that day and other factors associated among them.
Behavior/Background
This class is made up of 8-12 students, all depending on how many show up. The class roster has a total of 12 but the average class size is 8-9 students. Of these students 90% are male. This means that one a normal day there are 7 or 8 boys and only 1 girl. On occasion there is another female but more males to maintain that 90% male dominance. The group is a male dominant group,
Ethnography is the systematic study of people and cultures, it is designed to explore cultural phenomena where the researcher observes society from the point of view of the subject of the study. It is the best qualitative method for collecting data often used in the social and behavioral sciences. Data are collected through observations and interviews, which are then used to draw conclusions about how societies and individuals function
Answer: Ethnographic research is different from other social science approaches to research because it goes more in depth. With an ethnographic research you are required to eat, sleep, and breath what is being studied. In order to get a better understanding you will need to incorporate such living (as that of the culture being studied) into your life. It’s more of a research to gain the knowledge of a current situation as oppose to something that has happened in the past. For example Sterk was researching prostitution. She followed the lives of many
Ethnographic research is the scientific description of specific human cultures, foreign to the ethnographer. Each ethnographer has his or her own way of conducting research and all of these different ideas can be transmitted and understood in a number of different ways. Because there is no one set idea of how an ethnographer should go about his or her research, conflicts arise. In Reflections on Fieldwork in Morocco, Paul Rabinow uses a story like process to discuss his experiences during his research in Morocco. This makes it easier for the reader to understand his ideas then just having a technical book about the many different aspects of Moroccan life that he may have discovered. In Writing Culture: the Poetics and Politics of
James P. Spradley (1979) described the insider approach to understanding culture as "a quiet revolution" among the social sciences (p. iii). Cultural anthropologists, however, have long emphasized the importance of the ethnographic method, an approach to understanding a different culture through participation, observation, the use of key informants, and interviews. Cultural anthropologists have employed the ethnographic method in an attempt to surmount several formidable cultural questions: How can one understand another's culture? How can culture be qualitatively and quantitatively assessed? What aspects of a culture make it unique and which connect it to other cultures? If
Ethnography is a qualitative method of research in which the researcher takes part in the activities of a group such that they are able to complete their observations over a period of time in a natural, real-life environment.
The Mormon service I visited, had a few similarities but also a few distinct differences from the Catholic service that I am used to. Before this particular Sunday, I had never attended a Mormon service, nor had I spoken to anyone who believed in Mormonism or the “Latter Day Saints.” With that being said, I was welcomed much more openly than I had originally thought. Before entering, I was approached by two members of the church; two young women (sisters) between the ages of roughly 19 to 22. I arrived about an hour before service, that way I could ask a few people some questions, but the two girls beat me to the punch. They initially asked me if I had visited before and I responded saying that it was my first time, and I was attending as a student observer, with no intention of converting, but would love to learn about the faith. They nodded and proceeded to explain to me the reasons as to why they believed so strongly, and also a bit of background information on the faith. One of the girls, explained to me that there has been a lot of skepticism about Mormonism due in part to the fact that Joseph Smith Jr, was so young and how his explanation of “Moroni” (An angel no one had ever heard of), and his entire religion and the scripture used, “Book of Mormon,” could have just been a part of his imagination. The other girl told me how she was beginning to lose faith a couple years back, but she then regained it, after she experienced her own tests, and was able to get passed her
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As we begin to go on an excursion through literature, it is important to understand the concept of what an ethnography is. Ethnography is known to be a descriptive type of work that analyzes culture and customs of individual people. James Clifford has implemented this work into his studies and has influenced many others to do the same. I saw through the books I have read, ethnography makes these books become vivacious for a reader.
This is my first time that I come to New York, so I am curious about many things in this new place, such as the famous resorts, and the people here. As we know, the Times Square is very famous in New York. When I was in China, I hope I can visit Times Square, because I saw Times Square was very great in some of the opening of American series. Now, I am in New York, and I have enough chances to visit Times Square whenever I want. In there, it gives me a new horizon to understand the culture that is different from China.
Anthropology is defined, in the most basic terms, as the study of other cultures. This field can subsequently be divided into more specific sects, and contain more precise defining characteristics, but this definition is essentially all that is needed. Anthropology is a science that attempts to look at other cultures and draw conclusions to questions that are raised while studying. An anthropologist is someone who accepts what is presented before them and is driven by an urge to understand each presentation as thoroughly as possible. Once the concept of anthropology is accepted, one must identify the means of reaching the goal of this field. In the sect of social anthropology, this vehicle is known as
This class is very diverse and they are often talked about as being one of the worst classes in the school. They are disrespectful, fight with each other, stir up trouble, and get into a lot of trouble. What I concluded from this class did not surprise me after hearing what teachers and other staff members thought about them. Only one male student said please and thank you during the class time. While only two females said please and thank you. When it came to helping each other by passing something a student needed when they were asked, only two females did so. These results surprised me on one hand because I expected this class, as tenth grades, to be respectful of each other and of me as a teacher. On the other hand though, I knew how the other teachers talked about this class, but I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt. All the other teachers were correct when saying the class was one of the worst
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