Unequal Childhoods - Annette Lareau [247]
19. When Stacey was at college a couple of years later, her roommate was reading the book for a class. Stacey revealed that she was in the book.
20. Although Wendy had the book open at this time, the transcription of the tape shows that she made a number of minor modifications as she read the piece aloud. Thus, the quote does not follow the text exactly. Also, in the original field note, this quotation was longer and made it clear that her mother, stepfather, and brother stopped what they were doing, looked at her, and then (after she was finished speaking) returned to looking at the television. Wendy was upset because she felt that the attention her family gave to her was not sufficiently emphasized in the text.
21. At the time, The Oprah Winfrey Show featured a monthly discussion of a book selected by Oprah. The book Ms. Yanelli was referring to was Anna Karenina. Somewhat differently, one colleague told me that ethnography is not “wedding photography.” In retrospect, I think that indeed many of the families thought that the portrait would be similar to a written version of wedding photography, showing the family in the best possible light.
22. For example, throughout this process, I showed normal symptoms of being in a stressful situation, including having trouble sleeping.
23. I ran into the Yanellis in a store a few years later. They were warm and friendly; they looked happy. Billy now had his own apartment. “He even keeps it clean,” his mother marveled. He was working regularly. He was doing well. Mr. and Ms. Yanelli were delighted that their older son and his girlfriend had recently made them grandparents; they looked forward to spending time with the baby.
24. Burawoy, “Revisits,” p. 672.
25. It should be emphasized that not all study participants come away with negative feelings. Some report truly enjoying being in studies. Their involvement makes them feel special; they are excited by the prospect of being discussed in a book; and they draw comfort from being able to talk about private concerns with a nonjudgmental listener. Similarly, despite the very real and painful costs that participation in ethnographic studies can exact from individuals, these costs are surely less than are incurred in other spheres. In medical research, needy individuals in the control group cannot benefit from an experimental drug until after the clinical trial has ended and the drug has been approved. In a recent case of two cousins participating in the same medical study, one died waiting for the treatment to be approved. See Harmon, “Target Cancer.”
26. My experience leads me to urge that the costs of being a study participant be explicitly acknowledged prior to the beginning of a research project. They could be covered in the consent form, under a statement such as “the research could make you uncomfortable” or “the conclusions of the research report may not match your understanding of your life.”
27. See Vidich and Bensman, Small Town in Mass Society, particularly the Afterword with its description of the negative reaction of the community, including his being hung in effigy. Similarly, in the introduction to a special issue assessing Street Corner Society, Peter Adler and the other editors report that “virtually all of Cornerville felt hurt by the publication of Street Corner Society” in 1943 (p. 5). William Lloyd Warner, who studied “Yankee City” (Newburyport, Mass.) in 1949 was famously mocked by John Phillips Marquand through the character of Malcolm Bryant in Marquand’s novel Point of No Return. Studies have also been critically assessed decades later; see W. A. Marianne Boelen, “Street Corner Society,” and the vigorous defense of Whyte by Angelo Ralph Orlandella, “Boelen May Know Holland . . .”
28. See Ellis, “Emotional and Ethical Quagmires”; Stein, “Sex, Truths, and Audiotape”; Scheper-Hughes, “Ire