Essay on Participant Observation Understanding Society

Participant Observation as the Most Effective Method of Understanding Society All case studies require either overt or covert observation to collect the information necessary to complete the study. Both covert and overt have their advantages and disadvantages; they both add different but similar ideas and theories to a study. These two methods have been used in a variety of case studies but the ones that I am going to focus on are James Patrick’s study of Glasgow gang’s, Laud Humphreys study of the tea room trade in America and Ann Oakley’s study of first time pregnancy with women in the UK. I am going to look at how participant observation was used in these three studies and whether the researcher†¦show more content†¦So overall in using the covert observation technique to protect not only the people that he was studying but also himself the research was a success. The second study that I will look at is James Patrick’s study of the Glasgow gangs again this researcher used covert observation as some of the gangs activities were extremely violent so James Patrick didn’t want himself to be in danger of the people that he was researching to become â€Å"outed† again the researchers involvement in this study was both illegal and morally and ethically wrong but again this level of involvement was needed to make the piece of research a success, James Patrick was actually invited in to the gang by a pupil a the school where he worked so to some degree it was overt but as the rest of the gang didn’t know what he was doing then it was covert. If the gang had of been arrested during the piece of research then the researcher could have been facing a the police as well because to tell them that he was taking part in a piece of research would of resulted in him being compromised which he almost was quite a few times. Overall t his piece of research was a success and the researcher gained a deeper understanding of the people that he was researching. The third and last piece of research that I am going to look at isShow MoreRelatedSocial Anthropology : Bronislaw Malinowski1554 Words   |  7 Pagespersonally, participating in their activities, and conducting his research in the field has since become known as ‘participant observation’. Malinowski’s most prominent contribution to ethnography and fieldwork was his method of research - participant observation, his own form of conducting fieldwork. 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