Abstract
Community studies has a long history of employing participant observation strategies in the study of social issues. This chapter opens with an accounting of that history and then provides practical guidance on the use of participant observation as a data collection strategy. Relative advantages and challenges of participant observation are considered. Approaches for planning participant observation, for data collection in the field and for the analysis of participant observation data are detailed. The aim is not to suggest that every study of a social issue be a participant observation study, but rather to provide a road map of how the integration of participant observation might benefit the study of social issues.
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Janesick, V. J. (2015). Stretching exercises for qualitative researchers (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
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MacTavish, K.A. (2018). Social Issues as a Focus of Community Studies. In: Cnaan, R., Milofsky, C. (eds) Handbook of Community Movements and Local Organizations in the 21st Century . Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77416-9_31
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