ARTICLE: The Scientific Research Potential of Virtual Worlds

Online virtual worlds have great potential as sites for research in the social, behavioral, and economic sciences, as well as in human-centered computer science... more»

ARTICLE: Anthropologists Go Native in the Corporate Village

There is a growing trend for anthropologists to be hired to work to understand the cultural workings of corporations. Intel has been hiring ethnographers for years to influence product design. "Adding an anthropologist to a research team is like moving from black-and-white TV to color...we're able to observe shades of color that others can't see. Anthropologists understand complexity and can help devise answers that reflect that complexity." article» more»

QUOTE: Jerome Bruner on Design Research in Education

"Rather, the master question from which the mission of education research is derived: What should be taught to whom, and with what pedagogical object in mind? That master question is threefold: what, to whom, and how? Education research, under such a dispensation, becomes an adjunct of educational planning and design. It becomes design research in the sense that it explores possible ways in which educational objectives can be formulated and carried out in the light of cultural objectives and values in the broad." - Jerome Bruner from Issues in Educational Research (1999)

RESOURCE: How to Educate Your IRB [about ethnography]

Through the use of repeated boilerplate language across proposals, it may be possible to keep university IRB committees somewhat informed about the variety of methodological techniques and assumptions that underlie the logic of inquiry associated with ethnography... more»

BOOK: The Norton History of the Human Sciences

A comprehensive history of the human sciences--psychology, sociology, anthropology, economics, and political science--from their precursors in early human culture to the present... more»

BOOK: Doing Team Ethnography: Warnings and Advice

Lone wolf ethnography has its place, but it also has significant scientific limitations. Team ethnography is a viable alternative, but it comes with numerous practical challenges... more»

Each piece of knowledge that either member of the team acquires speeds up the learning of the other or others. If this is accepted enthusiastically, without rivalry, then any team of whatever composition, but especially one contrasted in sex or age, will be able to do, not twice, but four or five times as much work as one person working alone. However, differential self-esteem and competitiveness are very likely to accompany any field work. (Margaret Mead, 1970, p. 326)