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Participant Observation Paper

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METHODS: To collect data I used two methods, participant observation and surveys. For participant observation, I went to Oliver Hall to get my food and observe other students’ interactions with the workers. I was able to observe and participate six times for about 30 minutes each session, and each time I was able to interact in meaningful and respectful conversations with each worker I came into contact. Since it was my own experience, I was able to take notes after I sat down on the table closest to the entrance, and then I took notes on who walked in, how many people they walked in with, and which worker was working. At first I focused on simple greetings, for example, saying “hello” or “thank you,” but then I was able to go more in depth to seeing which students make an effort to go beyond pleasantries and ask about the worker’s day or tell a joke. When I went to …show more content…

This could be an issue, but the idea would be which student would be most likely to respond and I observed that it was still minority students. I was able to observe one of the students who agreed to let me use their conversation in my study, and the student was talking to one of the chefs. The chef asked what part of Mexico the student’s parents were from, and when the student responded with his hometown, he was really excited and now goes out of his way to talk to that student through one connection they had. The workers seem to connect to the students more when they are from a similar culture/background, and race/ethnicity as I realized more and more this seem to be the case contributing to my research question that race/ethnicity affect the interactions with the Sodexo workers. Real conversations were hard to keep records because it is unethical to listen to conversations, but a lot of body language was involved in these findings as well as my own

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