Jane Adams went about her research by diving into people’s
lives and really getting to know them. Instead of observing or studying a
subject, she developed a relationship with the subject in order to gather real,
sufficient data. I really like her approach because I think it’s a great way to
get genuine responses. I don’t think surveys or questionnaires give can give
you too much insight into an individual’s personal life. By forming a
relationship with the subject, you will gain a sense of their true emotions,
personality, and perceptions.
I think her approach was very successful because Jane Adams
worked a lot with minority groups and her approach helps avoid ethnocentrism,
which we talked a little about in class. Ethnocentrism is the idea of judging
another culture based on your own standard. Jane Adams had to set aside her
cultural beliefs and values to look at different cultures as unbiased as
possible. It is impossible to be completely pure when it comes to research
because everyone is slightly biased, but in order to study people from these
minorities she had to understand their culture and not compare it to her own.
We all think like this at some point, especially Americans.
America often has this vision that we are the most powerful, “top-dog” country
that it tends to lead to the belief that our culture is the dominant culture.
Many Americans have bad attitudes towards minorities because they believe that
American culture is superior and everyone should conform to that culture. I
know that a small amount of ethnocentrism is inevitable, but after a certain
point it is ethically wrong to make a judgment of other cultures based on your
own. When you think about it, it doesn’t even make sense to form judgments of
other cultures because each culture holds a different set of standards.
Below is a link to a site I found kind of interesting. I
think that American’s strong sense of individualism might also be forming
ethnocentrism.
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