RESEARCH METHOD COHEN ok

PROCEDURES IN ELICITING, ANALYSING AND AUTHENTICATING ACCOUNTS: AN EXAMPLE 385
Box 17.1
Principles in the ethogenic approach
An explicit distinction is drawn between synchronic analysis, thatis,theanalysisofsocialpracticesandinstitutionsasthey
exist at any one time, and diachronic analysis, thestudyofthestagesandtheprocesses by which social practices and
institutions are created and abandoned, change and are changed. Neither type of analysis can be expected to lead
directly to the discovery of universal social psychological principles or laws.
In social interactions, it is assumed that action takes place through endowing intersubjective entities with meaning; the
ethogenic approach therefore concentrates upon the meaning system, thatis,thewholesequencebywhichasocialactis
achieved in an episode. Consider, for example, the action ofakissintheparticularepisodesofleavingafriend’s
house, the passing-out parade at St Cyr and the meeting in the garden of Gethsemane.
The ethogenic approach is concerned with speech which accompanies action. That speech is intended to make the
action intelligible and justifiable in occurring at the time and the place it did in the whole sequence of unfolding and
coordinated action. Such speech is accounting. In so far as accounts are socially meaningful, it is possible to derive
accounts of accounts.
The ethogenic approach is founded upon the belief that human beings tend to be the kind of person their language, their
traditions, their tacit and explicit knowledge tell them they are.
The skills that are employed in ethogenic studies therefore make use of commonsense understandings of the social
world. As such the activities of the poet and the playwright offer the ethogenic researcher a better model than those of
the physical scientist.
Chapter 17
Source:adaptedfromHarré1978
idea of an episode is a fairly general one. The
concept itself may be defined as any coherent
fragment of social life. Being a natural division
of life, an episode will often have a recognizable
beginning and end, and the sequence of actions
that constitute it will have some meaning for the
participants. Episodes may thus vary in duration
and reflect innumerable aspects of life. A student
entering primary school aged 7 and leaving at 11
would be an extended episode. A two-minute
television interview with a political celebrity
would be another. The contents of an episode
which interest the ethogenic researcher include
not only the perceived behaviour such as gesture
and speech, but also the thoughts, the feelings
and the intentions of those taking part. And
the ‘speech’ that accounts for those thoughts,
feelings and intentions must be conceived of
in the widest connotation of the word. Thus,
accounts may be personal records of the events
we experience in our day-to-day lives, our
conversations with neighbours, our letters to
friends, our entries in diaries. Accounts serve
to explain our past, present and future oriented
actions.
Providing that accounts are authentic, it is
argued, there is no reason why they should
not be used as scientific tools in explaining
people’s actions.
Procedures in eliciting, analysing and
authenticating accounts: an example
The account-gathering method proposed by
Brown and Sime (1977) is summarized in Box 17.2.
It involves attention to informants, the accountgathering
situation, the transformation of accounts
and researchers’ accounts, and sets out control
procedures for each of these elements.
Problems of eliciting, analysing and authenticating
accounts are further illustrated in the
following outlines of two educational studies. The
first is concerned with valuing among older boys
and girls; the second is to do with the activities of
pupils and teachers in using computers in primary
classrooms.
Kitwood (1977) developed an experiencesampling
method, that is, a qualitative technique
for gathering and analysing accounts based upon
tape-recorded interviews that were themselves