Across our combined 15 years of experience as methodologists and research methodology instructors, we have found that the concept of 'failure' is only a small portion of methodological literature and is similarly missing from scholarship on teaching and learning social science research methodology. We define failure in terms of our inability as…

Relationships are central to the profession of social work; relationships with allied disciplines, among professional social work organizations, and between classroom and field education. However, embedded within these relationships are historical tensions, and contemporary opportunities that can advance both the science of social work and the…

The ways in which the social scientist approaches field work and ethnographic research have consequences for the final results of the investigation. (ST)

The state of the art of randomized social field experiments is discussed. Topics discussed include disciplines of primary actors involved in such research, scientific value of experimentation, the nation's capacity to conduct field experiments, and society's willingness to permit such experiments. (TJH)

Although field studies in human geography have some advantages over restricted classroom and laboratory studies, special methodological and ethical concerns arise. For example, field studies are able to take into account the complexity of events in natural settings as opposed to the controlled setting of a laboratory, particularly when subjects…

Three general approaches are available to help discipline the use of qualitative methods in educational research without sacrificing subjective understanding, according to this paper. The most private, least confirmable, yet richest approach is the intuitive, which depends on the researcher's thorough immersion in the field setting and…

Participant experience is a research method dialogically based on respect for the child. Researchers step inside the landscape of the child to share a life-form. Through an engaged body-presence they experience the atmosphere and meanings from within as they are perceived in a common horizon. (Author/LHW)

Noting the increasing interest in qualitative research in general and ethnographic research in particular, the authors of this report clarify the place of the latter within the former. The authors present six criteria for an ethnographic approach to education, illustrated with examples, and discuss ethnography's advantages and disadvantages. The…

Anthropological fieldwork is characterized as the most human methodology of the social sciences. Fieldwork brings the researcher into intimate relationships with the host people and facilitates perception of the unexpected activity of general social processes and understanding the initially perplexing conduct of the hosts. Fieldwork also has…

Describes how the matrilineal social structure of central Malawi, Africa, affects, to a considerable degree, the mode of transmission and content of oral tradition. Researchers should understand the way the matrilineal structure functions and, in particular, the bearing it has on the historical consciousness of informants. (RM)

Examines problems of field research conducted by female researchers in policy settings. Proposes ways to manage role, entree and access, data gathering, reciprocity, and reporting. Raises issue of male-female dynamics in field research, and suggests appropriate roles for female researchers in policy settings. (Author/KH)

Discusses the importance of field methods in education and social research. Highlights include the argument against antinaturalism; scientific realism and social science; challenges to the validity of inferences from field studies; and threats to the validity of field research. (Contains 52 references.) (LRW)

Introduces the concept of state-forbidden research terrains and examines one such terrain in detail: post-revolutionary Cuba. Examines how U.S. decision makers create and maintain forbidden research terrain and explores the consequences of Cuba's closure to social science investigation. Suggests actions that social scientists might take to open up…

Reviews the "risks" and "benefits" inherent in the field-oriented urban anthropology courses described in the preceding articles and recommends the development of more long-term large-scale research projects within such courses. (CJM)

Notes that one-semester field methods courses in sociology often lack adequate time for students to learn appropriate techniques and still collect and report their data. Describes how undergraduate students bypass this problem by using multiple observations of a single event to quickly form a corpus of ethnographic data. (JDH)