Who ever thought that the smallest change in behavior could make someone feel so uncomfortable. Ethnomethodology simply means the study of the ways in which people make sense of their social world. American sociologist harold garfinkel was the founder of this theory in the early 1960s. Garfinkel assumed that the social world is essentially orderly, that is that pattern of behavior and interactions in society are regular and systematic and he was correct.

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We all have certain behavioral norms that we take for granted, and we usually don't realize these norms until they are violated. As garfinkel had his students go out and upset a situation, вќ we did the same. I was always taught when i was younger to look at the person who is talking to me or it was rude.

Or you will sometimes hear an upset parent tell their child sternly to look at them when they are speaking to them. So what melissa, jackie and i decided to do was just the opposite, we wanted to know how people would react when we wouldn't look at them when talking to them. Instead of making eye contact with the people we talked to we would look at their forehead, look at something in the corner of our eye, or look down, just not directly at them.

By watching the reactions of the people, you could tell this made them feel really uncomfortable. Either they would stop talking because they thought we were being rude, keep on touching their forehead making sure nothing was on it or wave their hand in front of our faces to get our full attention. They were real uneasy when they spoke, as if they were really confused or nervous. I was expecting her to say something about it right away, kids being very blunt about things. I also noticed she as an opening to this project, i have to mention how uneasy i was with having to invade my own personal space in order to complete this assignment. My stomach was actually turning flips just thinking about having to get too close to anybody, but i did manage to get close enough to complete the assignment.

Ethnomethodology would be the only way to be able to do a study of personal space, because once you take someone out of their normal surroundings or situations, the rules change. I chose to get close to my mom age 55 , my sister age 21 , my niece age 3 , a co worker age 34 , and a doctor age 57 that i work for. With my mom, i got to about 6 inches away from her before she started moving back and asking me what was wrong with me.

I believe i was able to get closer to her than most, because she is my mother and it’s just natural for a mother to be ok with her children invading her personal space, no matter how old they may be. My sister, on the other hand, only let me get about a foot away from her before she started scooting away from me. That surprised me, i guess i thought that because we were sisters that she wouldn’t be quite so squeamish. I decided to try this on my three year old niece to see if children would have a different reaction. I was able to get within a distance of about 4 5 inches, before she bent down to play with something. She was noticeably uncomfortable when i got right in her face, despite the fact that we have an extremely close relationship.

Although we stand touching each other, side by side, while reviewing charts or talking over a situation, the acceptable distance while standing face to face was about 2 3 feet. In general, i believe that the accepted distance to stand away from each other, when face to face, is about an arm’s length 2 3 feet , but it doesn’t seem to apply when you are standing/sitting side by side. Below is an essay on ethnomethodology from anti essays, your source for research papers, essays, and term paper examples. Ethnomethodology introduction sociologist harold garnfinkel developed ethnomethodology in the 1960s. Ethnomethodology studies the way people make sense of their everyday surrounding macionis 2011.

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Basically, it is the study of how people understand reality and how they interact in their society. Ethnomethodology deals with common social concepts and norms that are widely understood in society. In my experiments, i question the unspoken societal norms that when broken, may be interpreted as rude or lead to awkwardness. I was curious to observe the way that people would react if someone where to ‘unintentionally’ interrupt a private conversation between two people. I predicted that if one was to disrupt a conversation by walking through a ‘talk line’ unintentionally, that the reaction would subtle, maybe a short pause as the person passed by. I also wanted to see how people would react to an honest answer when asked a question out of mere politeness. I predicted that people would react in a puzzled manner and maybe act a bit more distant.

I work as a hostess at the cheesecake factory, and used my constant interaction with strangers to my advantage. Because people, namely strangers, walk in and out at almost a constant rate, the restaurant proved to be a perfect place to test my ethnomethodology hypothesis. I was in the middle of talking with one of the servers in our restaurant, when a guest walked directly in between our talk line abruptly interrupting our conversation.

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As a hostess, part of my job requires me to be kind and respectful to our guests. ethnomethodology as an opening to this project, i have to mention how uneasy i was with having to invade my own personal space in order to complete this assignment. My stomach was actually turning flips just thinking about having to get too close to anybody, but i did manage to get close enough to. The possibility of a phenomenological sociology has been partially realized in two current sociological traditions: social constructionism and ethnomethodology.