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Participant observation: A guide for educators and social
practitioners
Participant observation: A guide for educators and social practitioners. In this piece
we examine the nature of participant observation, the various social roles that
researchers can take; and some classic problems of participant observation
especially around questions of access and ethics.
Contents: introduction what is participant observation? participant observation the question of roles access and
field relations participant observation questions of ethics conclusion further reading and references how to cite
this article.See, also: research for practice.
All social research, say Hammersley and Atkinson, takes the form of participant observation:
[I]t involves participating in the social world, in whatever role, and reflecting on the products of that
participation. Irrespective of the method employed, it is not fundamentally different from other forms of
practical everyday activity, though of course it is closer in character to some that to others. As
participants in the social world we are still able, at least in anticipation or retrospect, to observe our
activities from outside as objects in the world (1983: 16-17; 2004)
In what Martyn Hammersley and Paul Atkinson say we can see the close relationship between what is approached
here as a research methodology and our activities as informal educators. We, too, engage in participant
observation. We involve ourselves in everyday (and not so everyday) situations, we look at, and listen to, what is
happening the encounter. We try to make sense of what is going on, so that we may act. However, participant
observation isnt something restricted to researchers and informal educators we all do it to some degree.
Fairly frequently I used to go to a local cafe to have a curry. As a regular certain privileges were accorded me. I was
offered a paper, specials were recommended, and other regulars became less guarded in their topics of conversation
e.g. around various deals etc. that they have going on. Now I can talk about these things because I have engaged with
the situation as a participant observer. I suppose the significant question here is the extent to which we conscious of,
and have a care for, such matters. As researchers and educators it is through the way we participate and observe that
our work is done. In short, what we are concerned with here is our basic orientation to the world as practitioners.
What is participant observation?
As Mac an Ghaill (1994) has argued, the participant observer collects data by participating in the daily life of those he
or she is studying. The approach is close to everyday interaction, involving conversations to discover participants
interpretations of situations they are involved in (Becker 1958, p. 652). The aim of participant observation is to
produce a thick description of social interaction within natural settings. At the same time informants are encouraged
to use their own language and everyday concepts to describe what is going on in their lives. Hopefully, in the process
a more adequate picture emerges of the research setting as a social system described from a number of participants
perspectives (Geertz, 1973; Burgess, 1984). In other words, we are seeking to find meaning in the encounters and
situations.
McCall and Simmons (1969: 1) describe the variety of methods involved in the participant observer role. They maintain
that:
.participant observation is not a single method but rather a characteristic style of research which
makes use of a number of methods and techniques observation, informant interviewing, document
analysis, respondent interviewing and participation with self-analysis.
Hargreaves (1967: 193) describes the advantages of participant observation as a research method for those carrying
out studies in institutions in which they work.
The method of participant observation leads the investigator to accept a role within the social situation
he studies: he participates as a member of the group while observing it. In theory, this direct
participation in the group life permits an easy entrance into the social situation by reducing the
resistance of the group members; decreases the extent to which the investigator disturbs the natural
situation, and permits the investigator to experience and observe the groups norms, values, conflicts
and pressures, which (over a long period) cannot be hidden from someone playing an in-group role.
Again, as Mairtin Mac an Ghaill points out it is important to recognize that in participant observation, we are the main
research instrument of our studies. An immediate task is to make unfamiliar the research arena, with which we may be
very familiar. Most events in our own society and especially settings with which we are familiar seem natural and
obvious. We have already learned the culture and we find few things problematic. (Hammersley and Atkinson, 1983:
128; 2004).
Many ethnographers will use interviews to supplement the material gained by participating in the usual round of social
encounters and experiences, William Foote Whyte did relatively little formal interviewing. I sought to show this
interested acceptance of the people and the community in my everyday participation (ibid: 302). He went on, As I sat
and listened, I learned answers to questions that I would not even have the sense to ask if I had been getting my
information solely on an interview basis (ibid: 303).
Participant observation the question of roles
There are various ways of describing or characterising the roles that researchers take in situations. Here I want to look
at one such model suggested by Junkers (1960) and Gold (1958) (reported in Hammersley and Atkinson 1983: 93).
They distinguish between the:
complete participant;
participant as observer
observer as participant; and the
complete observer.
In the first role, as a complete participant, our activities as researchers and educators may be wholly concealed (or we
may seek to conceal them). Like the detached workers in Mary Morses book The Unattached we may pretend that we
are something quite different. As researchers we may join a group a church or political party and pose as ordinary
members but have the purpose of doing research. Alternatively, we may already be part of a situation for example,
me in the cafe, and then take up the life of the cafe as a research topic. In some cases it may be necessary to take up
this role as we would not otherwise gain access to a situation. However, the strategy can end up being very limiting.
The depth and nature of the material we gather can be very restricted.
The participant will, by definition, be implicated in existing social practices and expectations in a far
more rigid manner than the known researcher. The research activity will therefore be hedged round by
these pre-existing social routines and realities. It will prove hard for the field-worker to arrange his or
her actions in order to optimize data collection possibilities. (Hammersley and Atkinson 1983: 94)
On the other extreme we have the complete observer. This person has no contact with those she or he is observing.
A classic example of this sort of approach is covert observation of behaviour perhaps in the street or public place.
Many of the same problems apply here are with the complete participant. In both cases we are not able to engage with
people as researchers. There is not opportunity to explore with people in any depth what meanings they are placing
on the situation.
As might be expected most research and practice falls between these to poles. Again, as Atkinson and Hammersley
point out, whether there is any significant distinction between the participant as observer and observer as participant is
a moot point. However, consideration of the model does bring out some important considerations.
The first concerns secrecy and deception and whether these are ever acceptable in research. I will return to this
question a little later. A second set of questions surrounds the taking on of existing roles. In secret research we have
little option but to take up one of the roles that is acceptable in the situation or exclude ourselves from interaction.
Where we are out as researchers or educators we do have some choice about the matter. We have to weigh up the
pros and cons. Would taking on a familiar or known role in the situation provide us with the opportunity to gain useful
material or could it act to limit the usefulness of material. For example, some researchers in schools have chosen to
take on the role of teacher. In so doing they can gain access to encounters (especially in the staffroom) but they may
correspondingly cut themselves off from access to particular elements of student interaction.
A third set of questions arises around questions of experience and distance. As a complete participant we may get
some better sense of how insiders experience situations but at the same time there is the danger that we simply
become part of the situation, that get too close. By joining in we may not be able to see the wood for the trees. As
practitioners we have learnt to stand back from situations, to try to keep some distance between ourselves and those
we work with. That distance is necessary so that we have space to think about the situation. Yet, at the same time, if
that distance is experienced as being too great we can prejudice our ability to act. Hammersley and Atkinson put it well
with respect to research:
There must always remain some part held back, some social and intellectual distance. For it is in the
space created by this distance that the analytical work of the ethnographer gets done. Without that
distance, without such analytical space, the ethnography can be little more than the autobiographical
account of a personal conversation. (1983: 103)
Access and field relations and participant observation
I now want to turn to the work of William Foote Whyte, and in particular Street Corner Society, his seminal study of an
Italian neighbourhood in an eastern city in the USA (which he calls Cornerville). The book is subtitled the social
structure of an Italian slum. The first section of the book concentrates on the experiences of two contrasting groups:
Doc and his corner-boy gang, and Chick and his college-boy club. From this he seeks to explore the different careers
of individual members. These two case studies are then taken to be representative of a large part of local society
they are all little guys Cornerville (Whyte 1955: xix). He then turns to the activities of the big shots the politicians
and racketeers. If we can get to know these people intimately and understand the relations between little guy and little
guy, big shot and little guy, and big shot and big shot says Whyte (1955: xx), then we know how Cornerville society is
organized. On the basis of that knowledge it becomes possible to explain peoples loyalties and the significance of
political and racket activities.
The resulting book is full of wonderful descriptions of situations and encounters, analyses of group structures and
process; the social role of the settlement house and social workers; and discussions of loyalty and social mobility.
Subsequent chapters bring out the relationship of the gangs and social clubs with racketeering; and politics and the
social structure, The book is a classic in its own right. From these small-scale studies Whyte is able to make
connections and generalize. Through his writing, crucially, he is able communicate something of the feeling of the
place and the relationships. However, probably what has cemented the book in the canon of sociological texts is his
extensive discussion of the methodology. It tells the story of his 3 years in Cornerville and how his research became
fundamentally reshaped by the experience.
Whyte began his study with very little background in community studies of this kind or of participant observation.
However, what he did have was the sort of curiosity that drove him to explore different ways of conducting research
with his peers; and a preparedness to join in with local ways of life much like anthropologists in more distant places.
He began by trying to work his way into the local community by hanging round hotels and bars etc. This was met with
great success. He then got to know social workers in local settlement houses and while they had a great deal of
knowledge gained to some extent from the outside Whyte was still not getting the sort of picture he wanted. One
of the workers suggested he talked to Doc.
Doc first became a key informant, then a friend and, in all essences, a co-worker. What Doc was able to do was to
both provide Whyte with data about people and the neighbourhood, and to sponsor Whyte into various groups that he
would have had considerable difficulties in entering. Other gatekeepers sponsored his search for a place to live and so
on. In this way he gained access to key networks. However, he also had to engage in a crash course in participant
observation and to learn ways of working that are very familiar to us.
As I began hanging about Cornerville, I found that I needed an explanation for myself and for my study.
As long as I was with Doc and vouched for by him, no one asked me who I was or what I was doing.
When I circulated in other groups or even among the Nortons without him, it was obvious that they
were curious about me.
I began with a rather elaborate explanation I gave the explanation on only two occasions, and each
time, when I had finished, there was an awkward silence. No one, myself included, knew what to say.
I soon found that people were developing their own explanation about me: I was writing a book about
Cornerville. This might seem entirely too vague an explanation, and yet it sufficed. I found that my
acceptance in the district depended on the personal relationships I developed far more than any
explanations I might give. (Whyte 1955: 300)
Getting in, staying in and getting out are key moments in a participant observation study. Getting in is what Whyte
here is referring to. Staying in refers to the quality of the relationships that we develop with the research participants.
As Mac an Ghaill (1996) writes:
For me these included being one of the youngest members of staff, living in the local black community
and being able to cope with and contribute to the students sense of humour. The most unexpected
aspect of the fieldwork was that the students identified with my Irish nationality. This had major
implications for my research that none of the text books on social science methodology had prepared
me for. For example, on a number of occasions outside of school, when the students friends objected
to my presence among them, it was pointed out that I was Irish not white and this seemed to satisfy
their objections.
Getting out involves us in leaving the research site, or abandoning our role as researcher, hopefully with the
participants feeling positive about their involvement in the study.
Participant observation questions of ethics
Lincoln Williams (1988, p.136) warns us of the possible paternalism entailed in participant observation, and the
arrogance of the researcher invading another groups world to get information in order to relay it to the outside world.
Williams is referring here to the question of power relations within the research arena. Wolpe (1988, p.160) notes in
her study of schooling and sexuality that the type of information boys would give a female researcher is likely to differ
from that given to a male researcher. In his study of white girls, Meyenn (1979, quoted in Wolpe) found that private
areas of their lives were not discussed with him. More importantly, as feminist and black writers argue, in the past
researchers have reified the research process with truth claims based on appeals to scientific objectivity and technical
expertise, which serve to make invisible the complex internal sets of power relations in operation (Griffin, 1986; and
Bhavnani, 1991). Mac an Ghaill comments that is his own work:
I hoped that by adopting a theoretical position that located racism and sexism as the major barriers to
the schooling of black youth, I became more sensitive to the question of how social location in a
stratified society, including differential power relations, influences ones perspective, and that this in
turn helped to shape my qualitative studies. Nevertheless, a problem that remained throughout the
research was the feeling of ripping off the students. This raises the issue of what participants are
getting out of taking part in our research.
Becker (1967) has addressed another key aspect of the power relations operating within the research arena. He asked
whose side are we on?. He answered by suggesting that the researcher must choose between the subordinates and
the superiors perspectives. In the polarised environment of schools Mac an Ghaill s main problem was not on whose
side he was, but rather whose side he appeared to be on. He found that while observing and participating with both
teachers and students created tensions of identifying with groups who were hostile to each other, nevertheless, it was
productive for an understanding of what was really going on in the classroom. Equally productive was the conflict of the
teacher-researcher role.
A further important ethical issue concerns the question of working covertly. Whatever its advantages, as Schatzman
and Strauss (1973, p. 62) argue, participant observation with a hidden identity does raise ethical problems that are not
easily resolved. It may be argued that if in adopting this research tactic we gain new insights; that the end justifies the
means. However, the ethical problem of recording individuals without their knowledge remains. The moral dilemma is
not necessarily overcome by making known ones presence as a researcher to those who are the subjects of the
study. As Hargreaves (1967) points out, a certain amount of deception is inevitable in participant observation; it was
when the teachers appeared to treat him as a friend rather than a researcher that the most significant things were
said.
In conclusion
Participant observation takes time and commitment. It offers the chance to generate new understandings and to build
theories. Yet with it comes various problems of ethics, of power, of interpretation. It may be, as we have already
noted, that it is part and parcel of social life but this doesnt make it any easier.
Further reading and references
Atkinson, P., Coffey, A., and Delamont, S. (2003) Key Themes in Qualitative Research: Continuities and Changes,
AltaMira Press. 272 pages. An exploration of qualitative methodology and research by three writers who have made a
significant contribution to the literature. Interestingly, the book is structured around classic texts. As the blurb says, the
authors examine key premises in these texts, such as intimacy, advocacy and validity and how they may be
supported, redesigned or made problematic in todays field.,
Coffey, A. (1999) The Ethnographic Self: Fieldwork and the Representation of Identity, Thousand Oaks, Ca.: Sage.
Readable exploration of the ethnographic presence in the research field and the implications of this in and beyond
fieldwork
Denzin, N. K. (1997) Interpretative Ethnography. Ethnographic practices for the 21st century, Thousand Oaks, Ca.:
Sage. 288 pages. Examines the prospects, problems and forms of ethnographic interpretative writing. Argues for
postmodern ethnography and new forms of experimental texts. Sections on reading the crisis; experimental texts;
whose truth?
de Walt, K, M. and de Walt, B. R. (2002) Participant Observation, AltaMira Press. Basic Guide.
Ellen, R. F. (ed.) (1984) Ethnographic Research. A guide to general conduct , New York: Academic Press. Guide to
fieldwork methods with useful material around ethics, entry to field etc.
Hammersley, M. (1992) Whats Wrong With Ethnography? Methodological explorations, London; Routledge. 230 + x
pages. Some love him, some hate him. Explores ethnographys ambivalent status it is accepted as a form of social
research, but at same time there has been a considerable diversification of approach. For example, to what extent can
ethnographic accounts represent social reality; and to can ethnography really contribute to practice?
Hammersley, M. and Atkinson, P. (1983; 2004) Ethnography. Principles in practice, London: Routledge. 274 + x pages.
Standard UK text that examines the nature of ethnography; research design; field relations; insider accounts;
documents; recording and analysing data; the process of analysis; and writing ethnographies.
Jorgenson, D. (1989, 2002) Participant Observation. A methodology for human sciences, Newbury Park: Sage.
Another of the short, readable, Sage guides that provides an overview of the subject.
Lofland, J. and Lofland, L. (1984) Analyzing Social Settings. A guide to qualitative observation and analysis 2e,
Belmont Ca.: Wadsworth. 193 pages. Reworking of popular text that first appeared in 1971. Plenty of discussion of the
nitty gritty of research plus good treatment of methodological questions.
McCall, G. J. and Simmons, J. L. (eds.) (1969) Issues in Participant Observation, Reading, Mass.: Addison Wesley.
359 pages. Classic collection with sections on the nature of participant observation; field relations; data collection and
recording; data quality; generating hypotheses; evaluating hypotheses; publication; and on comparing methods.
Marcus, G. E. and Fischer, M. M. J. (1986) Anthropology as Cultural Critique. An experimental moment in the human
sciences, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 205 + xiii pages. Explores the then current state of anthropology and
the state of ethnography.
Whyte, W. F. (1984) Learning from the Field. A guide from experience. London: Sage. 295 pages. Uses case studies
and examples to explore the nature of field work with particular emphasis on participant observation and the semi-
structured interview. Chapters on participant observation; planning; field relations; observation; interviewing; recording
and evaluating interview data; team research; using history; types of social research; ethics; focusing the study and
analysing data; developing conceptual schemes.
Woods, P. (1996) Researching the Art of Teaching. Ethnography for educational use, London: Routledge. 198 + viii
pages. Reviews the position of ethnography in educational research. Chapters on the art and science of teaching; the
promise of symbolic interactionalism; seeing into the life of things; living and researching a school inspection;
collaborating in historical ethnography; the ethnographers self; and the politics of dissemination.
References
Becker, H, (1966, 1997) Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance, New York: Free Press.
Becker, H. et al (1961) Boys in white; student culture in medical school, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Bhavnani, K-K. (1991) Talking politics : a psychological framing for views from youth in Britain, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Burgess, R. G. (1984) In the Field. An introduction to field research, London: George Allen & Unwin.
Geertz, C. (1973) The Interpretation of Cultures, London: Hutchinson.
Geertz, C. (1983) Local Knowledge. Further essays in interpretive anthropology, New York: Basic Books.
Griffin, C. (1985) Typical girls? : young women from school to the full-time job market, London: Routledge.
Hargreaves, D. H. (1967) Social Relations in a secondary school, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Mac an Ghaill, M. (1996) Understanding masculinities : social relations and cultural arenas, Buckingham: Open
University Press.
Morse, M. (1965; 1966) The unattached : a report of the three-year project carried out by the National Association of
Youth Clubs, Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Schatzman, L. and Strauss, A. L. (1973) Field research: strategies for a natural sociology, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:
Prentice-Hall.
Williams, L. (1988) Partial surrender : race and resistance in the youth service, London: Falmer.
Wolpe, A. M. (1988) Within school walls : the role of discipline, sexuality and the curriculum, London: Routledge.
Whyte, W. F. (1955) Street corner society : the social structure of an Italian slum, Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
Acknowledgement: The picture First try at participant observation is by Jonaton Zinger. Sourced fro Flickr and
reproduced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
licence. http://www.flickr.com/photos/cachifotos/467557839/
How to cite this article: Smith, Mark K. (1997) Participant observation. A guide for educators and social
practitioners, the encyclopaedia of informal education. [http://infed.org/mobi/participant-observation-a-guide-for-
educators-and-social-practitioners/. Retrieved: insert date].
Mark K. Smith 1997