Note: These resources are intended to supplement class
lectures. If you do not attend the lectures on working with
Census data, creating PowerPoint presentations, etc., the information
on this page may not be very useful.
City of Portland's Office of Neighborhood Involvement's
Searchable Directory (leading to links and other information for each
neighborhood): http://www.portlandonline.com/oni/search/
PSU Millar Library; do a KEYWORD search for portland neighborhood history,
at http://vikat.pdx.edu/
As that information indicates, your ethnography
should
be a maximum of five typed
double-spaced pages (not including cover page and Works
Cited), formatted in MLA
style that provides
information about:
Team and/or Individual Info
Your name
Names of the members of your team (if applicable)
Neighborhood you studied (a map is always helpful!)
Date(s) and time(s) of your field study
Method(s) of field study you
employed
Method(s) of field study employed by others in your
team (if applicable)
Your general conclusions about the various
perceptions of your team or others in your mentor session regarding
your cluster: Did everyone observe the same sorts of
phenomena, or did the observations appear to vary according to
methodology, specific location, time of day, or personality of the
observer? Are there commonalities that all observers shared
regarding the neighborhood? What were the primary
differences, and how would you account for them?
How did you feel, ethically, doing this
assignment?
Independent Research
Other qualitative method(s) you employed, including
your sources
Quantitative method(s) you employed, including the
types of questions you asked and the data sources you used
What else did you learn about your neighborhood cluster
from your supplementary qualitative analysis (e.g., historical records,
newspaper articles, online blogs)? Did you find information that sheds
further light on your cluster's "personality"?
What types of questions did you ask that you answered
through quantitative analysis? Present one or two graphs (your report
should not be page after page of graphs) that really "make your point."
How did your quantitative analysis relate to the
qualitative part of the project? What types of information did it
provide that you could not get from quantitative analysis alone? And,
alternatively, what kinds of information did the qualitative research
provide that could not have come from mere number crunching?
Were you surprised by anything you learned?
Did this assignment help you "see" or "experience" the city in a way
you hadn't before? If so, how?
How Much Is the Assignment Worth?
Here is what you should get from this assignment:
Some experience, practice, and familiarity with
ethnography as a research method
working with census and other quantitative demographic data
combining quantitative and qualitative research approaches to answer research questions
working in a team (optional)
getting to know urban neighborhoods (i.e., communities) with which you are not familiar
making a succinct and effective oral presentation before an audience, using visual aids
Everything in this assignment other
than ethnography research methodology (field observation), getting to
know a Portland neighborhood, and working with census data should be
review; as sophomores and above, you should have already be familiar with these skills, and this project should be an opportunity for you to practice what you already know. If you do not have these skills yet, then this is an opportunity for you to learn them before you need to use them again.
So, beyond knowledge, experience, practice, and the value of learning in and of itself, the presentation is worth 50 points, and the paper is worth 150 points, which are divided roughly as follows:
