Course Description
The purpose of this course is to introduce graduate students and advanced undergraduates to a range of methods that are used for collecting qualitative social scientific data in a systematic manner.  Each meeting will include a brief lecture and discussion to clarify readings, followed by hands-on exercises designed to provide students with applied experience in the usage of various methods.

The introductory section of the course is devoted to a critical discussion of the strengths and weaknesses associated with positivist and humanist approaches to social scientific inquiry.  The intent is to build a foundation for understanding basic epistemological questions regarding the nature of evidence and explanations.  Afterwards we investigate the importance of language usage by emphasizing how the social relationship between researcher and research subject shapes inter-personal communications.  Participant observation, long considered the trademark method in cultural anthropology, is then dealt with not so much as a formal method but as a way to gather contextual information that can help in the recognition of topics for investigation, to help identify potential informants for subsequent interviewing, and to build rapport in the fieldwork setting.  The middle section of the course is devoted to developing interviewing proficiency, an essential skill considering that the majority of ethnographic data is generated through both formal and informal conversations.  A range of interviewing strategies are introduced and critically assessed, including unstructured interviewing (informal encounters and conversations), semi-structured interviewing (person-centered, life story, focus groups), and structured interviewing (cultural domain analysis and formal survey questionnaires).  Technical aspects of interviewing such as recording and transcribing are dealt with as well.  Afterwards we discuss some basic statistical methods with the intent of building quantitative literacy and exploring the ways that qualitative and quantitative approaches can complement each other.  The final section of the course is devoted to a discussion of strategies for analyzing qualitative data, and includes an introduction to software packages designed for organizing and accessing non-numerical data.  
 
Assignments and Grading
You will be assigned four projects during the course of the semester.  The following project descriptions are general guidelines that are subject to change.  Late assignments will be marked down one full grade.  Assignments turned in more than one week late will not be accepted.  See attached course schedule for due dates.  

Participant Observation (20 points)
Paper Length: Graduates – 5 pages; Undergraduates – 3 pages
Details are forthcoming.

Sampling Paper (20 points)
(Length: Graduates 5 pages, Undergraduates 3 pages).  Given your research topic, describe how you will go about selecting informants for the study.  Make sure to include both quantitative and qualitative dimensions, in which case you need to address issues of sampling and to specify how you will go about finding key informants.

Interviewing Project (30 points)
Conduct an interview with a person on a topic of your choice. Record the interview and transcribe a 10 minute segment.  Write an essay detailing why you chose this particular person to be your informant (i.e., discuss your sampling strategy), what type of interviewing strategy you used, and what you learned through the interview about the topic.  Be sure to include some reflective criticism about your interviewing strengths, weaknesses, and what you may have done differently to get better results.  Your final project should include (1) the essay (Graduates – 7-8 pages; Undergraduates – 5 pages); (2) the recorded interview; and (3) the transcript of a 10 minute segment of the interview.

Cultural Domain Project (30 points)
Paper Length: Graduates – 7-8 pages; Undergraduates – 5 pages

State a research topic or hypothesis that can be investigated through cultural domain analysis.  Select a pool of informants and ask them to free list a cultural domain.  Perform some basic statistical analysis (e.g., matrix, frequencies) on the answers.  In your essay state your topic and justify why the chosen method is appropriate; justify the selection of your informants; and then analyze the results of the interviews.  Include some reflexive criticism in your final analysis.

Narrative Analysis (20 points)
Paper Length: Graduates – 5 pages; Undergraduates – 3 pages
Details are forthcoming.