The emphasis placed on prolonged engagement, fieldwork, and participant observation has prevented wide-scale use of ethnography in counseling psychology. This article provides a discussion of ethnography in terms of definition, process, and potential ethical dilemmas. The authors propose that ethnographically informed methods can enhance counseling psychology research conducted with multicultural communities and provide better avenues toward a contextual understanding of diversity as it relates to professional inquiry.
Qualitative research methods have continued to grow in popularity in the social sciences over the past century. Denzin and Lincoln (2000) and Wertz (2011) have described a methodological qualitative revolution that occurred in the social sciences as researchers gained an appreciation of qualitative approaches to research. Anthropologists have led this charge given the emphasis placed on understanding indigenous cultures-typically framed as the "other"-within their respective contexts. The use of ethnography as method and process, for instance, has since been widely adopted, especially in the late 20th century, with different emphases and outcomes. Other academic disciplines, such as psychology, are relative newcomers given the scientific emphasis placed on quantitative methods and identification as a natural science (Wertz, 2011). Wertz (2011) noted that despite early work of a qualitative nature by seminal researchers (e.g., Freud, Piaget), "these methods have been consistently devalued and marginalized" in mainstream psychology (p. 77).As the importance of multiple methods has been established, a burgeoning interest in qualitative methods is also reflected in special issues of seminal journals (e.g.,
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