Section 6. Gathering and Interpreting Ethnographic Information

• What is ethnographic information?

• Why might ethnographic information be important to evaluation?

• When might you want to collect ethnographic information?

• Who should collect and interpret ethnographic information?

• How do you gather ethnographic information?

• How do you interpret ethnographic information?

Someone watching a baseball game or cricket match for the first time may be puzzled by a series of actions that experienced players and fans immediately recognize. A batter might adjust equipment, step out of position, look toward a coach, or repeat a familiar routine before each pitch. Some actions may help the player focus, some may relate to strategy or communication, and others may simply be personal habits. Without understanding the context, an outside observer could easily misinterpret what is happening.

Understanding why people act as they do can be important when trying to understand a community, organization, or social group. Ethnographic researchers often spend extended time in the settings they are studying, listening, observing, participating when appropriate, and learning how people themselves understand their experiences. This approach can help reveal not only what happens in everyday life, but also the meanings, relationships, histories, values, institutions, and assumptions that shape people's actions.

Depending on the issue you are evaluating, looking only at individual behavior may provide an incomplete picture. Social exclusion, violence, health inequities, institutional trust, access to services, and many other community issues are shaped by relationships, policies, history, economic conditions, social expectations, and other contextual factors. These cannot always be understood through tests, surveys, or counts alone. Ethnographic methods can help evaluators understand how people experience these conditions and what those experiences mean in the context of their everyday lives.

What is ethnographic information?

Ethnographic information is qualitative information gathered through sustained engagement with members of a community, organization, or social group, with particular attention to how people themselves understand their experiences and surroundings. Its purpose is to describe and interpret social practices, relationships, values, expectations, and meanings from the perspectives of the people involved rather than imposing assumptions from outside.

Depending on the evaluation, ethnographic inquiry may examine community norms, health and well-being, systems of power, religion and spirituality, economic conditions, relationships, identity, institutions, and broader ways of understanding the world.

The terms “culture,” “group,” and “community” are used broadly in this section. A group may be connected by geography, language, religion, ethnicity, profession, school, organization, shared experience, interest, or another form of affiliation. No community or cultural group is completely homogeneous. People within the same group may differ substantially by age, gender, socioeconomic position, disability, immigration experience, political perspective, religion, generation, neighborhood, and many other characteristics. Ethnographic research should therefore look for both shared patterns and important differences rather than assuming that all members of a group think or behave alike.

Community norms. These include expectations and practices that influence everyday behavior and relationships. Areas to explore may include:

• Gender expectations and roles. What expectations exist around gender, caregiving, employment, leadership, family responsibilities, dress, communication, and relationships? How consistent are these expectations across generations and individuals, and how are they changing?
• Social structure and status. How are influence, respect, opportunity, and social status distributed? What institutions or relationships shape access to resources and decision-making? Who is more likely to be included or excluded, and how easily can people move between social or economic positions?
• Behavior and interaction. What forms of communication and behavior are considered respectful, appropriate, or inappropriate in different settings? How do expectations vary according to age, role, relationship, setting, or other factors? What formal or informal consequences exist when community expectations are violated?

Social norms can sometimes support health, safety, belonging, and cooperation, while other norms may contribute to harm, exclusion, discrimination, or unequal treatment. Evaluators should avoid assuming that harmful practices are inherent to a particular culture. Instead, examine how history, policy, institutions, social conditions, and community perspectives interact to shape what is considered normal or acceptable.

Understanding these dynamics can help explain how people perceive a program or initiative and what changes may be needed to make the work more relevant, respectful, and effective.

Health and well-being. Ethnographic inquiry can help explain how people understand health, what resources they use, what barriers they encounter, and what practices support well-being. Areas to explore might include:

• Experiences and practices related to prenatal, infant, child, and family health
• Community experiences with alcohol, tobacco, other substances, substance use disorders, prevention, treatment, and recovery
• Awareness and experience of chronic health conditions, environmental risks, and protective factors
• Access to nutritious food, opportunities for physical activity, and the economic, environmental, and social conditions that influence those opportunities
• Access to and experiences with vaccinations, screenings, preventive care, and other health services
• Relationships with health care providers and levels of trust in health systems
• Access to affordable, culturally responsive, accessible, and timely health care

In communities with limited infrastructure or health resources, relevant questions might include: Do people have reliable access to safe drinking water, sanitation, medications, transportation, and health services? What barriers affect access to care? What local knowledge, practices, community health workers, mutual-aid networks, or other resources already support health and well-being?

Power and political realities. Who has formal and informal influence? Who participates in decisions, and whose perspectives are often excluded? How are laws, policies, and institutional practices experienced by different groups? Which organizations, leaders, networks, or community members are trusted? How do people advocate for change? These questions can help reveal the distribution of decision-making power and the ways policies and institutions affect daily life.

Religion and spirituality. Religion and spirituality may play a central role in some communities and a limited role in others. Relevant questions might include:

• What religious, spiritual, or nonreligious traditions are represented in the community?
• What roles do faith-based organizations or spiritual leaders play in social support, community life, advocacy, education, health, or civic engagement?
• How do community institutions respond to religious diversity and to people with no religious affiliation?
• Which values, traditions, practices, or ethical principles are especially important to community members?
• How do religious or spiritual beliefs influence people's decisions, relationships, health practices, or participation in community life?
• How do religious institutions interact with public institutions, government, schools, health systems, and other community organizations?

Economics. What economic conditions shape everyday life in the community?

• What are local patterns of employment, unemployment, underemployment, wages, and job security?
• Is the local economy heavily dependent on particular employers, industries, occupations, or seasonal work?
• Are there inequities or discrimination in hiring, pay, promotion, or access to economic opportunity?
• How accessible are education, training, transportation, childcare, technology, and other resources connected to economic opportunity?
• What kinds of work, caregiving, informal labor, and other contributions are valued or overlooked?
• What opportunities and barriers affect economic mobility?
• Is safe, stable, accessible, and affordable housing available?
• To what extent do households experience economic hardship, housing instability, food insecurity, or difficulty meeting basic needs?

What constitutes a basic need can vary according to geography, infrastructure, climate, household circumstances, local costs, and social conditions. Rather than assuming a universal standard based on one society's expectations, ask community members what resources they consider necessary for health, safety, dignity, participation, and well-being, and examine whether people have equitable access to those resources.

• How are income, wealth, resources, and economic opportunities distributed, and which groups experience the greatest barriers or disparities?

Worldview and shared understandings. This overlaps with many of the categories above and refers to the ways people understand themselves, their communities, institutions, relationships, and possibilities for change. Relevant dimensions may include:

• Views of authority and institutions. Which people or institutions are considered trustworthy or legitimate, and why? How have historical and current experiences with government, schools, law enforcement, employers, health systems, religious institutions, and community organizations influenced those views? People may trust different sources of authority depending on relationships, experience, accountability, expertise, and whether institutions are seen as acting fairly and in the community's interests.
• Sense of agency and influence. To what extent do people feel able to influence decisions affecting their lives and communities? What strengthens or limits that sense of agency? How do institutional practices, economic conditions, discrimination, legal status, age, access to resources, and community relationships shape people's opportunities to participate in change?

People may locate decision-making power in themselves, their families, community networks, employers, government institutions, legal systems, religious traditions, civic organizations, or other sources. These perceptions often reflect both personal experience and broader social conditions, and they may vary considerably within the same community.

• Relationships and trust. How is trust built and maintained? Which relationships provide support, belonging, caregiving, information, or resources? How are family relationships, friendships, partnerships, intergenerational relationships, and community networks understood? Where do conflict, exclusion, or unequal power appear?
• Responsibilities and rights. What responsibilities do people feel toward family, neighbors, community organizations, or the broader society? What rights and opportunities do people expect to have? Do community members experience those rights equally in practice?

Expectations about mutual support, individual responsibility, collective responsibility, and civic participation differ both within and across communities. These differences should be explored through people's experiences rather than inferred from whether a community is rural or urban, wealthy or economically constrained, or located in a particular part of the world.

Likewise, legal rights may exist formally while access to those rights differs in practice. Ethnographic inquiry can help reveal how people experience voting, property, employment, education, health care, public services, legal protections, and other rights in their everyday lives.

• Inclusion and belonging. Who is welcomed, included, or represented in community life? Who experiences exclusion, stigma, discrimination, or barriers to participation? How do institutions and informal community practices respond to differences in race, ethnicity, disability, language, gender, sexual orientation, immigration experience, socioeconomic position, religion, age, or other characteristics?
• Identity and affiliation. How do people describe themselves, and which relationships or communities are especially important to their sense of identity and belonging? These might include family, neighborhood, cultural or ethnic identity, profession, faith, generation, peer networks, civic organizations, sports, or other communities.

You may not need to study every aspect of a community. In most evaluations, ethnographic inquiry focuses on the specific cultural, institutional, or social factors most relevant to the issue. For example, an evaluation related to school engagement might explore how students experience school, what supports or barriers affect attendance and belonging, how families view the school system, and how institutional practices influence participation.

Several key principles characterize ethnographic information:

• Ethnographic information comes primarily from people who participate in or directly experience the community or setting being studied. Depending on the evaluation, this might include program participants, residents, students, workers, caregivers, community leaders, people from particular age groups, language communities, or others whose experiences are relevant.
• Ethnographic information is generally gathered in natural settings where people normally live, work, learn, gather, or participate. This helps evaluators understand experiences beyond the formal program environment.
• Ethnographic inquiry seeks to understand experiences from the perspectives of the people involved.
• Ethnographic description should aim to understand before judging. Researchers should document perspectives, practices, relationships, and context accurately while remaining attentive to power, harm, inequality, and the researcher's own assumptions. The goal is not to treat every practice as acceptable, but to understand the meanings and conditions surrounding it well enough to support thoughtful and effective action.

Why might ethnographic information be important to evaluation?

Ethnographic information can help explain why programs work differently across people, settings, and circumstances in ways that numerical information alone may not.

For example, ethnographic research has been used to understand why some households and communities are more likely to be missed in population counts. Interviews and observation may identify problems such as inaccurate address records, complex or changing household arrangements, concerns about how information will be used, limited language access, accessibility barriers, distrust based on previous experiences with institutions, or difficulty understanding forms and procedures.

Findings like these can lead agencies to improve outreach, simplify materials, provide information in multiple languages and accessible formats, work with trusted community organizations, and revise data-collection procedures so that more people are represented accurately.

Ethnographic information provides insight into how participants actually experience programs and initiatives. Staff may believe that a service is accessible and welcoming while participants experience long waits, confusing procedures, transportation barriers, disrespectful treatment, language barriers, or requirements that conflict with work and caregiving responsibilities. Ethnographic inquiry can reveal these differences.

Ethnographic information can help identify what should change for an approach to be more useful and responsive. Understanding participants' experiences can help organizations adjust communication, scheduling, staffing, services, policies, physical spaces, or other aspects of the program.

Ethnographic information can clarify how people understand an issue and how important it is in their lives. Community members may define an issue differently from program staff or researchers. Understanding those perspectives can improve how problems and goals are framed.

Ethnographic information can deepen your understanding of community context. This can strengthen future planning, relationships, advocacy, implementation, and evaluation while reducing the risk that programs rely on stereotypes or assumptions.

When might you want to collect ethnographic information?

Ethnographic research can provide valuable insight, but it also requires time, trust, skill, and sustained engagement. You may not need an extensive ethnographic study for every evaluation.

• When you are working with a community or social group whose experiences and context are unfamiliar to your organization. Ethnographic inquiry can help challenge assumptions and identify issues that outside observers might otherwise overlook.
• When you are working with a group that has developed shared norms or practices. A school classroom, faith community, workplace, neighborhood organization, sports team, peer network, or other group may develop its own expectations and relationships that influence how a program is experienced.
• When understanding community context is fundamental to the issue. Issues such as racism, discrimination, violence, institutional trust, health inequities, or social exclusion cannot be fully understood without examining history, relationships, policies, power, opportunities, and people's lived experiences.
• When your evaluation focuses on a particular population, setting, or experience. Understanding how people experience a job-training program, health initiative, school program, public service, or other intervention can help explain what is working, what creates barriers, and why.

Who should collect ethnographic information?

Who collects ethnographic information depends on the purpose of the evaluation, available time and resources, existing community relationships, and the level of trust required. Trained evaluators or researchers may conduct the work, but community members, peer researchers, program participants, or other people with relevant lived experience can also play central roles.

In many situations, involving community members as research partners can improve trust, interpretation, cultural responsiveness, and access to perspectives that might otherwise be missed. Community researchers should receive appropriate training, compensation, support, and decision-making authority rather than being used only as sources of access or information.

How do you gather ethnographic information?

Begin by deciding what you need to understand. Then identify appropriate methods, build relationships and trust, develop an ethical fieldwork plan, and carry out the research in collaboration with the people and communities involved.

1. Decide what kinds of information you need. You may be interested in a broad understanding of a community or in a specific question connected to your evaluation. Most evaluation-focused ethnographic research examines particular aspects of culture, institutions, relationships, or daily experience rather than attempting to describe an entire culture.

Define the topic clearly enough to guide observation and conversation. Useful questions might include: How do participants experience the program? Which parts feel relevant or useful? What creates barriers? Are organizational goals aligned with participants' goals? How do staff-participant relationships influence participation? Are language, accessibility, scheduling, institutional practices, or prior experiences affecting engagement?

Suppose, for example, you want to understand how students experience an English-language learning program. The focus would be the learning environment and students' experiences rather than assumptions about any particular ethnic or national culture.

Questions might include:

• What goals do students have for learning English, and how does the program support those goals?
• How do students experience relationships with instructors and other students?
• Which teaching and learning approaches help students participate, practice, and build confidence?
• What supports or barriers outside the classroom—such as work schedules, transportation, childcare, technology, or prior educational experiences—affect participation?
• Which topics, examples, learning activities, and teaching approaches do students find relevant and useful?
• What do students discuss among themselves about the class and their learning experiences?
• Are there language, identity, power, accessibility, or interpersonal dynamics that affect participation and belonging?

Findings might suggest changes to class schedules, instructional materials, language supports, teaching methods, group activities, staffing, technology access, childcare support, or other aspects of the learning environment. Adjustments should be based on what students report and experience rather than assumptions about their cultural backgrounds.

Knowing which questions you want to answer will help determine whom to engage, what settings to observe, how much time will be needed, and which methods are appropriate.

2. Determine what you have the resources to do. An evaluation-focused ethnographic study does not need to involve years of immersion. A community organization may gain more useful information by spending sustained time in participants' neighborhoods, workplaces, schools, community spaces, or program settings than by attempting a broad study of an entire national or ethnic culture.

3. Build trust and relationships with the community. Trust is not simply a means of obtaining information; it is an ethical foundation of community-based research. Explain who you are, why the research is being conducted, what will happen with the information, and how community members can influence the process.

Organizations with established community relationships may already have a foundation of trust. When that is not the case, working with trusted community organizations, peer researchers, neighborhood leaders, faith leaders, cultural organizations, advocates, or other respected community members may help establish relationships.

Avoid treating any individual as a spokesperson for an entire community. Trusted partners can help with introductions and context, but the research should still include a range of perspectives.

When engaging people in community settings, choose spaces and methods that are appropriate, accessible, and comfortable for participants. Respect people's privacy and avoid approaching individuals in ways that feel intrusive or coercive.

4. Plan your field study. Ethnographic fieldwork takes place in the settings where people normally live, work, learn, gather, or participate. Depending on the evaluation, this might include classrooms, community centers, workplaces, public spaces, meetings, homes when invited, online communities, or other relevant environments.

By this point, you have already completed some of the planning. Additional steps include:

• Decide on your questions. Ethnographic questions should help explain participants' experiences, relationships, and context in ways that inform the broader evaluation.
• Determine which methods you will use. Possible approaches include:
  • Individual or group interviews, ranging from informal conversation to structured or semi-structured interviews
  • Participant or non-participant observation
  • Informal conversations and relationship-building
  • Participation in community activities, meetings, celebrations, work, or other relevant settings when invited and appropriate
  • Open-ended surveys or questionnaires
  • Interviews with people who have relevant knowledge or experience
  • Documents and cultural materials, such as organizational communications, policies, websites, social media, artwork, meeting records, educational materials, media, or other sources relevant to the group
  • Demographic, administrative, and public data used carefully alongside community perspectives
  • For more detail on several of these approaches, see Chapter 3, Section 15, Qualitative Methods to Assess Community Issues.
• Decide whom you need to engage and how. Seek a range of perspectives rather than relying only on formal leaders or the people easiest to reach. Recruitment methods should respect privacy, voluntary participation, language access, accessibility, and people's right to decline.

Ethical considerations: Your first responsibility is to the people and communities participating in the research. Explain the purpose of the study, what participation involves, how information will be recorded and used, possible risks and benefits, and how privacy and confidentiality will be protected. Obtain appropriate informed consent and make clear that participation is voluntary.

Consider who owns or controls the information collected, who will have access to it, how long it will be retained, whether participants or community partners will be able to review findings, and how results will be shared back with the community. Researchers should avoid extractive practices in which communities provide knowledge but have little influence over interpretation or use of the findings.

Ethnographic research also requires reflexivity—ongoing attention to how researchers' identities, relationships, assumptions, institutional roles, and power can influence what they observe and how they interpret it. Accuracy does not come from pretending that researchers have no perspective, but from documenting and critically examining how that perspective may affect the work.

5. Carry out your fieldwork and keep fieldnotes. Fieldwork means spending time in relevant settings, developing relationships, observing, listening, participating appropriately, and gathering information using the methods you planned.

Your methods may change as you learn more. Ethnographic inquiry is often iterative: early observations lead to new questions, which guide later conversations and observations. Document those changes and why you made them.

Fieldnotes are records of observations, conversations, context, questions, interpretations, and researcher reflections. They should be written during or as soon as practical after fieldwork while details are still fresh. Audio, photographs, or video may also be useful when appropriate, but only with clear permission and suitable privacy protections.

Useful elements of fieldnotes may include:

• Date, time, setting, and relevant context
• Specific observations and details about what occurred
• Relevant sensory and environmental observations
• Reflections on how the researcher's presence may have influenced the setting
• Important words, phrases, terminology, and summaries of conversations
• Questions or issues for future investigation
• A consistent system for organizing notes and linking them to dates, settings, participants, or themes

Fieldnotes can include several distinct types of material:

• Jottings are brief notes made during fieldwork to help the researcher remember details that can be expanded later.
• Description records what happened, who was involved, relevant context, and other details of the setting or experience.
• Preliminary analysis records emerging patterns, questions, interpretations, and possible connections while making clear that these ideas may change as more information is gathered.
• Researcher reflection documents reactions, assumptions, uncertainties, relationships, comfort or discomfort, and ways the researcher's position may influence what they observe or how others respond.

Reflexive notes can help evaluators identify assumptions and recognize when a program may conflict with participants' priorities or experiences. The goal is not to label community perspectives as incorrect or deficient, but to understand where differences exist and how programs can respond respectfully while still addressing safety, equity, or other important goals.

Timely, detailed, accurate, and ethically maintained fieldnotes are central to strong ethnographic research.

How do you interpret ethnographic information?

Ethnographic information becomes useful when it helps explain the relationships, experiences, conditions, and meanings connected to your program and evaluation. Begin by organizing fieldnotes and other materials systematically.

Organize the final version of your notes. You might categorize information by theme, setting, time period, type of interaction, participant role, or other dimensions relevant to your questions. Demographic characteristics may also be useful when they are relevant, but avoid assuming that differences are caused by identity alone. Patterns may instead reflect differences in access, treatment, opportunity, exposure, institutional practices, or other contextual factors.

Develop a description of the setting or community from participants' perspectives. Depending on the evaluation, this may be broad or narrowly focused on a particular program, service, policy, or experience.

Look for connections among relationships, institutions, history, resources, identities, practices, and other contextual factors. The goal is not to reduce a community to a single “culture,” but to understand how different factors shape people's experiences and participation.

Consider an English-language learning program in which some students participate actively in certain activities but speak less in others. Rather than assuming that their behavior reflects a fixed cultural trait, the instructor could explore multiple explanations: comfort with the language, previous educational experiences, confidence, classroom power dynamics, fear of making mistakes, teaching methods, relationships among students, accessibility, or expectations about participation.

Students themselves might suggest solutions such as smaller discussion groups, additional practice time, peer support, different participation formats, more relevant lesson topics, or opportunities to contribute without being called on unexpectedly. Ethnographic inquiry helps the instructor understand the actual reasons behind participation patterns before deciding how to respond.

Reexamine your initial interpretations. What did you learn about participants' experiences, expectations, relationships, and context? Which early assumptions were supported, challenged, or complicated by later information? Revise your interpretations as your understanding develops.

Try to understand your original question from the perspectives of the people involved.

• Do community members define the issue in the same way you do?
• Are there contextual factors you were previously unaware of?
• Are participants interpreting program activities or conditions differently from what you expected?
• How important is the issue to participants, and what other priorities compete for their time and attention?
• Do participants and the organization share the same goals? If so, do they agree on how those goals should be pursued?
• Are program practices, institutional expectations, or community conditions creating barriers to participation or success?
• What community strengths, relationships, practices, or resources support participation and positive outcomes?
• Are there unintended or unexpected effects related to context, identity, relationships, or institutional practices?

In a language-learning class, for example, participation patterns might be influenced by differences in language proficiency, prior educational experience, age, confidence, classroom relationships, learning preferences, responsibilities outside class, or expectations about speaking in groups. Rather than assuming the reason, ask students and observe how these factors interact.

Translate what you have learned into information that helps answer your evaluation questions. Consider:

• How do community context, relationships, institutions, norms, and lived experiences influence program effectiveness?
• Are program methods culturally responsive, accessible, and appropriate to participants' goals and circumstances?
• Are any activities, policies, or requirements unintentionally creating barriers?
• What changes could make participation more accessible, respectful, useful, and rewarding?
• Which parts of the program appear most useful, and what does the ethnographic information suggest about why?

Continue gathering ethnographic information when it remains useful. Communities, institutions, programs, and relationships change over time. Continued listening and engagement can help organizations recognize those changes and adapt their work accordingly.

In Summary

Ethnography is an approach to understanding people's experiences, practices, relationships, and social context from their own perspectives. In evaluation, ethnographic information can help explain why participants experience programs differently, why particular strategies work well or create barriers, and how history, institutions, culture, relationships, and community conditions influence outcomes.

The group or setting being studied might be a classroom, neighborhood, workplace, organization, faith community, professional network, or broader social or cultural community. Whatever the setting, ethnographic inquiry requires time, relationship-building, careful observation, listening, ethical practice, and continued attention to diversity within groups.

Planning an ethnographic study involves identifying what you need to understand, determining what resources are available, building trust, choosing appropriate research questions and methods, engaging a range of participants, and documenting observations and conversations carefully. Ethical practice requires informed consent, privacy protection, transparency, attention to power, and meaningful community involvement in how information is interpreted and used.

Organizing and interpreting ethnographic information can deepen your understanding of evaluation findings and help you improve programs in ways that are more responsive to the people and communities involved. Continued engagement can help ensure that your understanding evolves as community priorities, relationships, and conditions change.

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