Ethnography and Causal Inquiry in Social Work Research

A study published by FSU College of Social Work faculty member Dr. John Mathias and coauthors John Doering-White, Yvonne Smith and Melissa Hardesty in the journal Social Work Research explores how the research method of ethnography can contribute to current social work research.

Established as a research practice in the 1800s, ethnography allows anthropologists to study the culture and social dynamics of groups of people at a deeper level. Considered a qualitative research method, it allows a researcher to immerse themselves in a community or organization to directly observe and interact with the people they are studying.

With advantages like being flexible and offering rich, first-hand knowledge, ethnography is often cited as unable to contribute to causal inferences in social work research and other similar social sciences, but Mathias and his co-authors argue differently. Social work researchers tend to think that causal explanations belong exclusively to statistical research, explained Mathias.  

Examining the philosophical roots of causal reasoning, the research team demonstrated how the data from ethnography and other qualitative methods have the potential to aid causal inferences as much as quantitative methods. In the study, they remark on how sometimes ethnography and qualitative research are relegated to exploration and suggestion, whereas quantitative research is seen as able to predict and demonstrate.

They caution against seeing methods like ethnography as oversimplified “helper” methods. “Social work research is all about understanding complex systems and causal processes,” stressed Mathias. “Ethnography can expand the causal vocabulary of social work research, bringing depth and nuance to causal theories while also making these theories more amenable to uptake by practitioners.”

Rather than trying to replace statistical methods with qualitative research methods like ethnography, Mathias and his co-authors seek to establish the validity of qualitative methods as another vital tool for social work research and overlapping fields to creative positive change in social work practice and improve lives.

Contact Dr. John Mathias at jmathias@fsu.edu.