Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
A holistic orientation demands a great deal of time in the field to gather the
many kinds of data that together create a picture of the social whole. It also
requires multiple methods and multiple hypotheses to ensure that the
researcher covers all angles. Ideally, this orientation can help the fieldworker
discover the interrelationships among the various systems and subsystems in a
community or program under study—generally through an emphasis on the
contextualization of data.
CONTEXTUALIZATION
Contextualizing data involves placing observations into a larger perspective.
For example, in my Career Intern Program (CIP) study (see Chapter 1) of an
alternative high school for dropouts, I observed that very little was happening
in one of the four dropout programs. Students spent time hanging around out-
side the school building. Some teachers were absent for days at a time. The
program lacked the studious atmosphere present in other sites. A description
that merely recounted events on the classroom or school level would have
depicted a failed program unable to motivate its teachers or students. When I
asked students why they were not in class, however, they said that the program
had no class materials to work on—“not even no paper.” I then began to track
down the cause of the shortage by interviewing the teachers. They indicated
that they were receiving no funds for classroom materials. After probing one
administrative level after another, I finally traced the problem to an argument
between the program's federal sponsor and its federal monitor, or managing
agency. The managing agency said that the sponsor owed the agency money
and told the sponsor that it would not disperse funds for the dropout program
until the money was paid. The fallout from this interagency rivalry reached the
classroom and brought the program to a virtual halt. This information provided
the broader context necessary to produce a classroom description from a pol-
icy perspective.
In another example drawn from this study, policymakers were contemplating
terminating one dropout program because of its low attendance—approximately
60% to 70%. My reminder that the baseline with which to compare 60% to
70% attendance was zero attendance—these were students who systematically
skipped school—helped the policymakers make a more informed decision
about the program. In this case, contextualizing ensured that the program
would continue serving former dropouts (Fetterman, 1987a).
In the same study, it was important to describe the inner-city environment in
which schools were located—an impoverished neighborhood in which pimping,
