Knowing Children: Participant Observation with Minors

by Gary Alan Fine, Kent L. Sandstrom

To help the researcher understand why and how children react to adults who are doing ethnographic research, Fine and Sandstrom explore the methodological and ethical problems of qualitative research with minors. They correct numerous fallacies held by researchers that children think like adults and that they cannot hide their thoughts and feelings from adults, especially strangers. Recognizing that age is an important determinant of children′s response, they discuss problems and present strategies for conducting research with three age groups of children: preschool children (4 to 6 year olds), preadolescents (10 to 12) and middle adolescents (14 to 16). This is the first major methodological statement on doing participant observation work w

88 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1988

About the author

Gary Alan Fine is Professor of Sociology at Northwestern University. He is the author of Morel Tales: The Culture of Mushrooming, Kitchens: The Culture of Restaurant Work, and With the Boys: Little League Baseball and Preadolescent Culture.