Ethnomethodology - Introduction to Social Research Methods - Lecture Slides, Slides of Research Methodology

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Methods in Ethnomethodology

The Problem of Order: How is Society

Done?

• Parson’s solution: Impose a theoretical foundation to organize what appears to be disorganized.
• Garfinkel’s solution: Examine how social activity is already organized.
• Garfinkel named his enterprise ETHNOMETHODOLOGY, the “study of member’s methods.

Some Basic Concepts in

Ethnomethodology

• Whatever we understand “society” to be, it is the outcome of concerted reality-making work on all our parts.
• As such, EM does not presumptively impose theoretical, non-empirically-observable working concepts as interpretive tools.
• EM is rigidly inductive and empirical.
• EM (in all its variants) concerns the study of the “seen but unnoticed” aspects of social life.

The Methods of Ethnomethodology:

Breaching “Experiments”

• What “breaching” is intended to accomplish
• The Tic-Tac-Toe experiment
• The “boarder” experiment
• The “what do you mean” experiment
• The telephone answering experiment

Micro-Ethnographic Studies of Work

• Focus on “reality” as collaborative accomplishment
• Require “unique adequacy” to report from insiders’ perspectives
• Have examined (eg) science environments to expose how scientific discoveries are socially constructed phenomena by examining scientific work in minute detail.

Conversation Analysis

• Harvey Sacks sought a “natural observational” sociology
• Technology permitted the microscopic study of one aspect of social life
• CA entails
  • minutely transcribed conversational materials
  • recurrent listening/viewing
  • the search for sequential patterns, such as turn-taking and question- answer formats
  • rigid attention to speech fragments and their roles in social interaction
  • the “bracketing” of interpretations, including sociological theories
  • Have been used in both “casual” and institutional settings, including survey labs.