Recorded Participant Ethnography in Family Homes: Children, Social Class, and the Role of the Researcher

Abstract

Although ethnography has been a methodology used for years by anthropologists and sociologists, few researchers have entered the homes of children for extended periods of time in order to observe childhood and childrearing practices. The methodology discussed in this article notably permits the researcher to observe child socialization among family members first-hand. Based on seven-months of ethnographic observations among four families from differing social backgrounds in the Ile-de-France region of France, the article discusses how this recorded participant ethnography was set up. The article shows that the researcher held different roles in the families and that these roles varied according to social milieu. Through first analyzing the conditions of these observations among the families, the article provides empirical evidence of the social differentiation of children's daily lives.