This course is an introduction to methods and practices of studying how we moderns organize health care. The aim is to ground you in the foundational ethnographic literature in these areas, focusing on the relationships between theory and data, and between researcher and researched. Because this course is a CURE (Course-based Undergraduate Research Experience), this aim will be met in the context of your ventures into field sites where you will be expected to make sense of the methods, often messy and accidental, that organize everyday practices intended to produce health.
The course covers the essentials of research: data access and gathering (i.e. interviewing and observation), data analysis, reliability, and writing. When we do field work, we make a number of ethical decisions, so you will learn and apply principles of ethical review, such as informed consent and granting anonymity of interviewed participants (among other things, by attaining training on research with human subjects (CITI). These essentials will be covered as you conduct original field research, share and critique each other’s field notes ona weekly basis, and produce a presentation and final report based on your ethnographies.
Health and Society (CHS 303) is a recommended course but not a prerequisite.
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