HIST 430 - Ethnography and Oral History

Units: 4
Applying ethnographic methods and oral interviews to answer historical and/or contemporary research questions. Creating surveys, conducting interviews, and engaging in participant observation according to recognized research standards. Practice analyzing, visualizing, and interpreting findings in a final project.

Possible Instructional Methods: On-ground, or Hybrid, or Online-Asynchronous, or Online-Synchronous.
Grading: A-F or CR/NC (student choice)
Cross-listed: ANTH 430
Course Typically Offered: Variable Intermittently

Student Learning Outcomes - Upon successful completion of this course students will be able to:

Generate research questions appropriate to ethnographic methods and identify relevant communities for their projects;
Describe ethical issues surrounding human subjects research;
Demonstrate knowledge of survey methodologies and participant observation;
Practice qualitative and quantitative methods of ethnographic and oral history data collection and analysis, including identifying themes, utilizing coding, crafting assertions, and understanding outliers;
Use valid methods of identifying oral history subjects and preparing for interviews in accordance with the Oral History Association’s Best Practices;
Analyze oral histories and interviews by critiquing each other’s data using Oral History Association principles such as respect for narrators, nuanced approaches to subjectivity, and critical contextualization;
Analyze and share the findings of their surveys, oral histories, and participant observations in ways that attract attention to their research questions, and integrate theoretical analyses, in the form of a report or multimedia presentation.