SOC 201 Chapter Notes - Chapter 6: Rogers Commission Report, Christa Mcauliffe, Richard Shweder
Document Summary
Frequently, ethnographers will be dealing with number (quantitative data) as well. Gaining an understanding of the world from someone else"s point of view requires, to an extent, becoming an insider in their neighborhood, families, and work groups. As you can imagine, this process can involve negotiating such delicate issues as gaining access to the groups and building trust with people (often, with people who have reason to distrust outsiders). Ethnography is labor intensive, but the rewards are impressive. Unlike nonqualitative research methods, the goal is not proving a theory or testing a hypothesis; the goal is surprise. Skillful ethnography is about making some room for the creative imagination and some disciplined intuition. Consider, for example, the events that led up to the tragedy that befell the astronauts on the u. s. space shuttle challenger in january 1986: Seventy-three seconds into the flight, the shuttle began to disintegrate; a fuel tank exploded and all seven astronauts were killed.
