Anais Marie Gomis Qualitative Research December 11, 2012 Socio 123 Section

Introduction

This paper is to interpret social behaviors by conducting a participant observation in a public setting. I chose a nearby public playground to observe people as I believed it would be an appropriate place to watch a variety of people for two hours while keeping myself entertained and while working! (I took the two boys I nanny to the park) Growing up, I absolutely loved going to the park and staying there for hours and making new friends. I know my mom enjoyed it as it was a way for her to get us out of the house and for her to relax while we played with others and parents talked amongst each other. Even when I was young, I knew that a playground was a special type of place where people from all backgrounds can come to. I was a private school kid for an amount of time and there I was able to make friends with kids from the local publics schools and such. As an adult I thought that a local playground would be a prime site to observe people from all walks of life. I specifically chose Civic Park Playground in Downtown Walnut Creek because it was always one of my favorite playgrounds growing up.

Literary Review

Ethnography is a method of collecting, describing and analyzing the ways in which human Beings categorize the meaning of their world. In other words, ethnography attempts to learn what knowledge people use to interpret experience and mould their behavior in the context of their culturally constituted environment. 1
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Lambert V, Glacken M, McCarron M

Ethnographic research is a valuable and useful research technique in social research. It provides visual data, captures behavior in different contexts, provides understanding behind the statistical data, and can even help identify discrepancies between what people say and do. 2 It is a first-hand observation that can provide extensive and in depth looks at human behavior. It can literally be used for a plethora of different types of research. Some main characteristics of ethnography are exploring, placing value in context, multiple perspectives, works with unstructured data, no purposively manipulated data, analytic induction and interpreting meanings of human action among other things.3 It allows the researcher a fully allotted free view of the subject matter and participants in an innocuous way. Ethnography re-present the world in a way that is generative to people and creates a story. 4

Prelim Questions Before I went to the park, I went in knowing that I wanted to observe the parents behavior specifically but I didnt know exactly what I was looking for. Afterwards, after writing up this paper I did find somethings that I could have looked into more. In an article about playground etiquette I found a lot of information. Rules such as assuming responsibility for your child, asking others for cooperation, letting everyone have a turn, and adhering to the age limit amongst other things, were things that I could have specifically looked for. As said by an article on The Stir Playgrounds aren't just a
place to let your kids run free -- they're also a place for your kid to learn. 5 Looking at how parents used situations at the park to teach their children manners could have been something to look at as well. Another specific topic I
2 3

Schrag, Brian. Winthereik, Brit Ross, and Helen Verran 4 Booker, Rhae-Ann Richardson.
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Hacksell, Christie.

could have looked at was the parenting styles of parents. In a blog called Metro dad, the blogger defines the eight types of playground parents. From the Hoverer to the Coach Dad 6 , there are multitudes of parenting styles at the park.

Observations I arrived with the boys I nanny, Luca and Milo, ages 5 and 7 at the Civic Park Playground in Walnut Creek at 12:30 pm. We walked over to the swings where the boys both took swings and there we stayed for fifteen to twenty minutes. Looking around there were probably about five different families with kids of different ages. On the swing set with us was one boy, age approx.810, and a younger boy aged three being pushed by a female. The older boys parent seemed to be a woman sitting on a nearby bench reading on her tablet. The woman who was pushing the little boy on the swing, smiled at me but no words were exchanged until I asked her if she could look at Milo while I took Luca a little bit over to get a drink from the water fountain. After there was bits of small talk about how these were my charges. She was a nanny herself and told me that she had moved from Southern California a few months earlier. She was around my age of 20 and currently a part time student at DVC. Around 12:55 pm, the boys began to become hungry and we decided to have our picnic on the grass. Sitting down for the next half hour, I was able to observe the playground from a little more afar. At this time, there were more people. There were probably more to 10-15 different families with multitudes of kids. The kids I saw often tended to join together and play tag and hide-and go seek. I noticed that those who had siblings were the ones who had instigated the games and it was kids who came alone, who would join in. Parents with younger children tended to stand and stay relatively near their children while those with older kids were sitting and not actively participating. There was a father (Caucasian) who had a 4 year old daughter
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MetroDad

who had her on the play structure and while he didnt com on the play structure due to the fact that he had two dogs on a leash, he still remained close to where she was and actively spoke to her and talked to her. There was another parent, a woman (Caucasian); she seemed to almost be hovering over her child who was around seven. Though it was a busy day, and quite crowded, most of the parents sitting tended to try and give enough space between each other as possible. While we were sitting on the grass, there were quite a few others who had thought of the same idea but we all tried to give a wide amount of berth between us. After the boys got up to go back to playing, I decided to go sit on a bench with a woman on the end. She looked to be in her late thirties and Caucasian. She had a baby in a stroller with her and appeared to have two other children who were playing in the sand. She was on her cell phone for the majority of the time I was sitting near her. From what I could hear, she was talking to family members and friends and catching up. I got up to round up the boys and to put the picnic supplies into the car and we returned to the park. The boys then started playing in the sand and I sat on a cement divider to watch. At this time it was around 1:40 pm. Talking a scan around the park, there were probably now about eight of us. There was an Indian woman with three small children. She was wearing traditional garb and was speaking to the children in her native tongue. She kept close tabs on them and followed them around the park, often yelling if they got too far away. There was an Asian woman in her late twenties pushing her toddler on the swing and next to her were two women in their early thirties pushing two kids on the swing, they appeared to know each other and were conversing with each other. After their kids, got off the swing, they retreated to a bench where they kept tabs on their children and drank coffee and talked. Analysis

I noticed that while there was some variation between races, majority of people at the park seemed to be of Caucasian descent. The parents of the older children tended to have lax involvement in their childs play and often observed from afar and tended to remain to themselves. They occupied themselves by talking on the phone or bringing something to entertain them. The parents who had younger children had an active role in playing with their children and kept close. They also seemed to be friendlier it seemed as they were more willing to talk to the other kids and the other parents. They tended to be younger parents as well. The average of the people that I observed seemed to be of middle class primarily. The parents who were more active in playing and watching tended to speak to each other more. When I was playing with the boys and watching Luca go down the slide, I had two other parents being to talk to me and ask me about the kids and how I got to watching them and such. The times I had sat next to someone, they were already immersed in their phones or a book and we didnt speak. This study had its benefits with the biggest one being able to watch people in their natural state. With them unaware, I was able to watch them and their mannerisms in their truest forms. I was also able to paint a picture of the scene with the descriptions given so that one who hadnt been here could also understand and look at what I was looking at. One of the downsides to participant observation was that in this case, I didnt feel like it accurately depicted completely normal interaction at the park. From personal previous experience, I know that the adults sometimes tend more to speak to each other and hold conversations. This is only one park and one time occurrence. Also, it was pretty time consuming, while yes, I was working I felt that being there for two hours taking notes became monogamous. Also because I was immersed in playing with the kids and talking to some of the parents, I felt like I lost my objectivity and wasnt able to report as well.

Self Reflection

I grew up on playgrounds, they were always my favorite places to be growing up so coming back and looking at it from not only a adult perspective, but from a sociological perspective was interesting. Watching how the parents interacted with each other and the kids was quite interesting. Ive taken the boys to other parks and Ive felt that adult wise, its not a very social park as its spread out and theres a lot of areas for parents to sit. Other parks Ive been to have limited seating and I feel that the parents are more prone to interacting with each other. I understand that especially at this park with these older kids, free play is emphasized so that parents dont feel the need as much to be involved. Just observing all these little things like the structure of the park, the size and such makes such a difference.

I think the biggest thing I could have improved was preparation. I went into the park with a general idea of observing the parents but I didnt have any specific questions or such going in. Because I wasnt a 100% of what I was looking for I felt like I tended to generalize my observations rather than giving specific details on things and people. I feel if I had gone in with a more specific concept, it would have given a better generalization of my findings. Just from what I did observe though, I feel that as humans, especially where we live, there is a sort of distanced politeness that we all

give off. In todays day and age, we tend to keep our distance and expect others to do the same. Though remaining polite and possibly exchanging words we expect people to respect boundaries... I think my methodology, while not horrible, left a lot to be improved upon. It was my first time conducting this observation research and while I was able to get what I had gone there for, I feel like I could have gotten a lot more out of it. While writing up my report, I came across some interesting articles about playground etiquette and the different parent types at playgrounds and I probably could have emphasized that when looking for observations. Looking at more specific things such as that could be a good hypothesis for further research. I would suggest also looking at more than one park or more than one occurrence. Going to one specific park only once doesnt give an accurate representation of the people there and how they interact. What I observed in one day could have been a complete fluke. Also because I was actively participating in the setting, that may of influenced what I wanted myself to see. I think that also affected my interpretations.

Works Cited

Booker, Rhae-Ann Richardson. "Examining The Inclusion Of Quantitative Research In A MetaEthnographic Review." Journal Of Ethnographic & Qualitative Research 4.2 (2010): 5774. Academic Search Premier. Web. 11 Dec. 2012. Hacksell, Christie. "Moms Need to Know Playground Etiquette Too." The Stir. N.p., 6 July 2011. Web. 9 Dec. 2012. "MetroDad." 'MetroDad' N.p., 3 May 2007. Web. 11 Dec. 2012. Lambert, Veronica, Michele Glacken, and Mary McCarron. "Employing An Ethnographic Approach: Key Characteristics. (Cover Story)." Nurse Researcher 19.1 (2011): 17-24. Academic Search Premier. Web. 11 Dec. 2012.

Schrag, Brian. "Piercing The Veil: Ethical Issues In Ethnographic Research." Science & Engineering Ethics 15.2 (2009): 135-160. Academic Search Premier. Web. 11 Dec. 2012.

Winthereik, Brit Ross, and Helen Verran. "Ethnographic Stories As Generalizations That Intervene." Science Studies 25.1 (2012): 3751.Academic Search Premier. Web. 11 Dec. 2012.