Look at a study based on participant observation. Sociologist Annette Lareau and a team of research assistants shadowed twelve white and Black families, of different socioeconomic classes, in the 1990s. They spent hours with the families at home, and joined them for outside activities, events, and appointments. Lareau and her team wanted to find out how parent-child interactions differed by race and class; and, as this 10-minute video interview with Lareau explains, they concluded that class has a much bigger impact on parenting strategies and childhood experiences than does race:
Do parenting strategies affect the long term outcomes for children? Watch the Annette Lareau interview in the above video clip.
Here’s another, written interview with Lareau, in which she reflects more upon the method of participant observation or ethnography, and also on the second edition of Unequal Childhoods, the second book based on her research.
https://thesocietypages.org/specials/lareau/
After carefully viewing the first interview and carefully reading the second, please answer the following questions:
a. How critical was participant observation to Lareau’s study — to what extent could she have achieved the same results and insights using some other research method?
b. At the beginning of the second edition of Unequal Childhoods, Lareau writes: “When we introduced ourselves to each family, we said that, following a famous study [Arlie Hochschild’s The Second Shift, 1989, 1997] we wanted to be treated like ‘the family dog.’ We wanted parents to step over and ignore us, but allow us to hang out with them. In reality, our presence had a more active character. Still, after some initial chatter, we often slipped into the background, letting the children and their parents set the pace” (p. 9).
Based on this description, as well as the interviews with Lareau, would you say that Lareau and her research team conducted mostly complete observation, mixed participation/observation, or complete participation? Why? And do you think this was the best kind of participant observation for this study? Explain.
c. Compare and contrast Michael Apted’s qualitative research for the “Seven Up!” documentary series (assigned for the Week 2 discussion) and Lareau’s qualitative research for Unequal Childhoods.
Source:
Chapter 10 in Earl Babbie, The Basics of Social Research, 6th ed. Wadsworth, 2014. ISBN 113359414X