10.6: Field Research Paradigms

Learning Objectives

• Identify and differentiate among the four major field research paradigms.

• Describe the primary goals of ethnography, institutional ethnography, case studies, and grounded theory.

Paradigms Overview

Paradigms allow researchers to approach field research differently. This section explores four different paradigms: ethnography, institutional ethnography, case studies, and grounded theory. Different paradigms allow scholars to frame their questions and observations through distinct methodological lenses.

1. Ethnography

Ethnography is the extended observation of the social perspective and cultural values of an entire social setting. Ethnographies involve the objective observation of a complete community. British anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski, who studied the Trobriand Islanders near Papua New Guinea during World War I, was one of the first anthropologists to engage directly with the communities being studied. He became known for this methodological contribution, which differed greatly from the detached observations that previously took place from a distance, a practice often referred to as "on the verandas" or "armchair anthropology."

Although anthropologists had been conducting ethnographic research for a longer period, sociologists began utilizing ethnographic methods in the twentieth century, particularly within what became known as The Chicago School at the University of Chicago. William Foote Whyte’s Street Corner Society: The Social Structure of an Italian Slum (1943) is a seminal work of urban ethnography and remains a classic sociological text.

The heart of an ethnographic study focuses on how subjects view their own social standing and how they understand themselves in relation to a community. An ethnographic study might observe, for example, a small United States fishing town, an Inuit community, a village in Thailand, a Buddhist monastery, a private boarding school, or an amusement park. These places all have borders. People live, work, study, or vacation within those boundaries. Because individuals are there for a specific reason, they behave in certain ways and respect established cultural norms. An ethnographer commits to spending a predetermined amount of time studying every aspect of the chosen place, taking in as much detail as possible.

For instance, a sociologist studying an isolated indigenous tribe in the Amazon might watch the way villagers go about their daily lives and then write a comprehensive analysis of those routines. To observe a spiritual retreat center, an ethnographer might attend as a guest for an extended stay, observe and record data, and collate the material into qualitative results.

Here is a classic example, Middletown: A Study in Modern American Culture (1929). In 1924 a young married couple named Robert and Helen Lynd undertook an unprecedented ethnography. Their goal was to apply sociological methods to the study of one United States city in order to discover what "ordinary" people did and believed. Choosing Muncie, Indiana (with a population of about 30,000) as their subject, they moved to the small town and lived there for eighteen months.

Before this project, ethnographers had been examining other cultures for decades. These studies typically focused on groups considered to be minorities or outsiders, such as gangs, immigrants, and the poor. No researcher had previously studied the so-called average American.

By recording interviews and using surveys to gather data, the Lynds did not sugarcoat or idealize life in the United States. They objectively stated what they observed. Through researching existing sources, they compared Muncie in 1890 to the Muncie they observed in 1924. They found that most adult residents had grown up on farms but now lived in homes inside the city. From that discovery, the Lynds focused their study on the impact of industrialization and urbanization.

The researchers observed that the workers of Muncie were divided into business-class and working-class groups. They defined the business class as dealing with abstract concepts and symbols, while working-class people used tools to create concrete objects. The two classes led different lives with different goals and hopes. However, the Lynds observed that mass production offered both classes the same amenities. Like wealthy families, the working class was now able to own radios, cars, washing machines, telephones, vacuum cleaners, and refrigerators. This represented a newly emerging economic and material reality of the 1920s.

A classroom in Muncie, Indiana, in 1917, five years before Robert and Helen Lynd began researching this "typical" U.S. community. (Photo courtesy of Don O’Brien/Flickr)

As the Lynds worked, they divided their manuscript into six sections: Getting a Living, Making a Home, Training the Young, Using Leisure, Engaging in Religious Practices, and Engaging in Community Activities. Each chapter included subsections, such as "The Long Arm of the Job" and "Why Do They Work So Hard?" within the "Getting a Living" chapter.

When the study was completed, the Lynds encountered a significant problem. The Rockefeller Foundation, which had commissioned the book, claimed it was useless and refused to publish it. The Lynds asked if they could seek a publisher themselves.

As it turned out, Middletown: A Study in Modern American Culture was not only published in 1929, but it also became an instant bestseller, a status unheard of for a sociological study at the time. The book sold out six printings in its first year of publication and has never gone out of print.

Nothing like it had ever been done before. Middletown was reviewed on the front page of the New York Times. Readers in the 1920s and 1930s identified with the citizens of Muncie, Indiana, but they were equally fascinated by the sociological methods and the use of scientific data to define ordinary people in the United States. The book served as definitive proof that social data were important, and interesting, to the general public.

2. Institutional Ethnography

Institutional ethnography is an extension of basic ethnographic research principles that focuses intentionally on everyday concrete social relationships. Developed originally by Canadian sociologist Dorothy E. Smith, institutional ethnography is often considered a feminist-inspired approach to social analysis. It primarily considers how individuals' everyday experiences are shaped by larger institutional power structures. Smith founded this subdiscipline to address the exclusion of women's lived realities in traditional sociological research, challenging methodologies that objectified subjects from a detached, often male-dominated perspective.

In modern research, institutional ethnography goes beyond merely observing local experiences; it seeks to make visible the ruling relations and coordinated sequences of social organization that govern everyday life. Contemporary scholars, such as Smith and Alison Griffith in Simply Institutional Ethnography (2022), emphasize key concepts like discourse, work, and texts to understand how institutional circuits dictate human behavior.

3. Case Study

A case study is an intensive investigation of a single unit, which could be an individual, a group, a community, an event, or an organization. Rather than aiming to generalize findings across a massive population, case study research seeks to provide a deep, contextualized understanding of the specific case in question.

Modern case study methodology requires rigorous design and analysis techniques. Robert K. Yin's extensively updated work, Case Study Research and Applications: Design and Methods (2018), outlines how case studies can be used for exploratory, descriptive, or explanatory research. This paradigm emphasizes the use of multiple sources of evidence, such as interviews, document analysis, and direct observation, to build a comprehensive picture of the case being studied. It is particularly useful for examining complex phenomena within their real-world context, such as how new organizational practices become routine or how community coalitions campaign for change.

4. Grounded Theory

Grounded theory is a systematic methodology in the social sciences involving the construction of theories through methodical gathering and analysis of data. Unlike other research paradigms that begin with a hypothesis to be tested, grounded theory begins with the data itself.

Researchers collect data and review it to identify repeating ideas, concepts, or elements, which are then coded into categories. As more data is collected and reviewed, these codes are grouped into concepts and concepts into broader categories, ultimately forming a new theory. Kathy Charmaz, a leading theorist in the field, modernized this approach with Constructing Grounded Theory (2024), which moves the paradigm away from its rigid positivist origins and incorporates constructivist perspectives. Charmaz emphasizes a reflexive practice where the researcher's interactions and interpretations actively shape the emergent theory, ensuring the analysis remains deeply grounded in the lived realities of the participants.

Key Takeaways

• Ethnography: Involves extended observation of the social perspective and cultural values of an entire social setting.

• Institutional Ethnography: Focuses on everyday concrete social relationships and how they are coordinated by ruling institutional structures.

• Case Study: Provides a complete portal to the world of a specific bounded unit, utilizing multiple sources of evidence for in-depth understanding.

• Grounded Theory: A method for constructing a theory directly from gathered data, often utilizing a constructivist and reflexive approach to social inquiry.