Participant observation involves taking on an existing role in a setting, or creating a new one, as a means of observing what goes on and talking to people informally for the purposes of scientific inquiry.
The rationale for participant observation is that it often allows the researcher to get ‘closer to the action’ than would generally be possible otherwise. This provides access to more detailed and reliable information, including perhaps the researcher getting a sense of what it feels like to be a participant in the situation. It is also argued that more illuminating answers may be gained when researchers can ask people questions in an informal way within contexts with which they are familiar, rather than in a separate interview situation. It may also be easier to understand what they say if the researcher has some familiarity with their lives through participant observation. Participant observation may also have less effect on the processes being observed than someone simply watching as a spectator, not least because the participant observer is not usually simply a short-term visitor but is present in the setting for a relatively long time. This means that a more reliable sense of what normally happens in the setting can be obtained, as opposed to what occurs when people are self-conscious about being observed.
At the same time, there are methodological constraints and ethical issues associated with participant observation. It is not usually possible to be a participant observer in all aspects of people’s lives. Moreover, the particular role adopted will significantly influence what can be observed and what information can be obtained. For example, taking on the role of teacher can affect one’s relationships with pupils (see Lacey, 1976). More fundamentally, it is important not to assume that participant observation enables one to become a member of a group and thereby automatically to see the world in the way that members view it. Nor will it always provide the opportunities for asking those questions to which it is important to get answers. And while, over time, participant observation usually minimises disruption, there are occasions when it can prompt significant changes in a setting, not least for example when a researcher studying a gang becomes its leader (Venkatesh, 2008)! Furthermore, in some circumstances participant observation may involve considerable personal risks. Chapter 7 mentioned Anna Laerke’s research experience, which seems to have had a severe effect on her subsequent life.
ETHICS
There are also important ethical issues that can arise in participant observation. In some cases this kind of work has been done covertly, in other words without the participants being aware that research was taking place. Here there are questions about whether people’s privacy has been invaded, and whether there has been insufficient respect for their autonomy since they could not opt out of the research. But even where participant observation is overt these issues remain relevant, since much of the methodological strength of the approach lies in encouraging participants to forget that they are being researched, so that ‘normal’ behaviour takes place and ‘inside information’ is provided.
There are also ethical issues about the obligations incurred through participation in a setting: if one is seen as a friend, how should exit from the field be managed, and do personal relations with people in the field place constraints on what should and should not be included in research accounts (for example, descriptions of illicit activity)?
These methodological and ethical issues take on distinctive forms in research with children and young people. As already noted, there are always questions to be asked about how far it is possible for a researcher to become a ‘participant’ in a setting, and to understand the perspectives of participants. And in the case of young children, especially, there are doubts about how far this
In addition, there are distinctive ethical problems. To the extent that children are judged to be vulnerable, and therefore in need of protection, the ethical issues commonly associated with participant observation are heightened. As noted in Chapter 7, there are questions about how to judge whether children understand what is involved in the research and freely consent to it, and about how far they can separate the role of researcher from that of friend, teacher, social worker, health practitioner, etc. Moreover, the ethical issues relate not just to the effects of being researched, but also to how far the researcher is responsible for protecting the children from other potential harm (from dangerous activities in which they may engage, from bullying, from inappropriate or abusive treatment by adults, and so on). There can also be ethical concerns relating to actions that the participant observer comes under pressure to engage in, e.g. with a group of young people who shoplift or use illegal drugs. Even witnessing these activities may raise questions about whether the researcher should intervene or report what has happened to the relevant authorities.