Knowing children - Gary Alan Fine

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 childrens 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 with children.

Gary Alan Fine is James E. Johnson Professor of Sociology at Northwestern University. He is a social psychologist, who has conducted a series of microsociological ethnographies of work sites and cultural scenes. His work focuses on the role of group cultures in shaping interaction orders and social structures. He is the author of Tiny Publics: A Theory of Group Action and Culture.