Bailey McCann

4/25/14
Junior Seminar
Hanson Pd. 3
Ethnography Paper
For my ethnographic study I plan to study my nine year old younger sister and her friends
interacting during their soccer practice from 4:00 to 5:00 at the field in front of their Elementary school,
I am going to observing the group from the steps on a hill that leads to that field. For my second
observation I will observe my sister and her friends when they come over to my house on the weekend.
I plan to eat a snack with them when they come over into our home, our home is an average cost house
for the people attending their Elementary school. They are all female eight to nine year olds in the third
grade who are attending Cold Spring Elementary School and are also on a neighborhood soccer team
together. I am studying this group to better understand the interactions between elementary school
female children so I am able to better interact with mine own sister. This observation will show me the
way my younger sister enjoys interacting in a comfortable environment, and will show me her interests
and how to interact with her. Additionally I chose this study since it is easily manipulated which allows
me to conduct a stronger ethnography where I can control meeting times, participants, and interest.
This eliminates some negative limiting factors others studies might run into such as timing issues,
locations, lack of interest to partake in interviews, and the inability to track the same people over
multiple observations.
Before I conducted this ethnography I had to note any possible biases or previous notions on
this sub-culture. I encountered multiple biases on my part that may be detrimental to my observation.
One such bias is that a member of the study is my own sister, having spent many years with her and
having developed an already strong relationship, I have preconceived notions on how I think she will act
in certain situations based on my many previous experiences with her. Due to this I may not interrupt all
of her actions because I believe them to be expected and normal of her, but however someone who
does not know her might note such actions. Additionally because of my relationship with her, I will be
less likely to acknowledge negative actions she will perform because I subconsciously do not wish to
believe someone in my family would act in such a way. This will also cause me to not note negative
things she may do that someone might quickly note. Furthermore the group of kids I am studying all
went to the same elementary school that I did, because I previously went to school there I have opinions
on how children from this school act, this may cause me to misinterpret actions and reasons behind
those actions due to the fact that I have preconceive notions on how kids from that school act towards
one another.
To better understand my study it would be helpful to learn about the specific group I am
studying. I am specifically observing my sister and two of her friends at my house, and then my sister
and many of her friends at their soccer practice. My sister and her friends all go to Cold Spring
Elementary School in Potomac, Maryland. They all live in a very wealthy area and go to a prestigious
elementary school. Also the school that they all go has kids from all different kinds of cultures and
backgrounds. These girls are in third grade and are eight or nine years old respectively. The soccer team
they participate on is a team made from girls that are in their third grade class.
When observing this group I learned various things about the way they interact together. First
off one of the things that I learned was how prevalent the upkeep of appearances is to these children.
When at their soccer practice the kids showed various times how they would try to keep their
appearances high. Even though they were in third grade they still talked about some people being
gross or laughing at another childs clothing. If one of the kids clothing became ruffled or in a
misshapen fashion they would always try to fix it right away and it seemed to take priority over their
playing of soccer. Additionally when the childrens mothers and other family member waited at the
sidelines the children tried multiple times to ignore their parents to show their independence. One of
the childrens mothers tried to cheer on the kid for scoring a goal the girl said Stop it Mom, youre so
embarrassing, repeatedly this happened throughout the practice about 4 times. Each time the mother
said something to her daughter her daughter would get red in the face and yell at her while looking
away. I believe her embarrassment comes from the childs desire to appear independent to their parent
and seem strong because they do not need anyones praise. Additionally while at the practice one girl
was offered some water from her mother although she seemed obviously tired and thirsty she refused
her Mother and stated I dont need any water Mom in an agitated tone of voice. She continued to
resist her Mom until her Mom raised her voice and told the child to come to her and then she gave in
and drank some water. Here the child wanted to appear strong through her independence from her
parents and how she does not need help from anyone else, she further shows this with how after she
drank some water she came back to the field embarrassed and angry at her mother for making her drink
water, even though she needed it. I believe that these are prime examples of a childs desire to become
independent and that it really characterizes their entire group as a whole.
Another trend I noticed in this group is how the children are quick to follow other childrens
actions. I believe that this is also related to their desire to keep up appearances as the children showed
at multiple times the desire to do something that someone else is doing and they only did certain things
once someone else began to do them. This group of children seemed to have developed a group with
few leaders and many followers and no one person seemed to always be a follower however. For
example when at my house my Mom asks the children if they want a snack. She first asks the guests and
they all say no, however when my Mom asks my sister she says Of course and then one of the girls
goes Actually I want some too, and another girl said Me too as well. This interaction shows how the
highly this group values their appearance. Here the girls are afraid that saying yes will imply that they
are fat or that they are doing something different than the others so they are afraid to say what they
actually want. Once my sister said that she wanted something, the other children felt that it was
acceptable for them to ask for something and then they did so. Their fear of openly expressing their
opinions if they think they may be mocked for them is shown greatly in this encounter, however if one
member of their group wants the same thing they are afraid to say they want, the girls are quick to jump
to get what they want if someone else agrees with them. I believe that this shows that members of this
group are afraid of speaking out against others and doing things differently. My previous example of
getting snacks shows their reluctance to speak up for themselves, but however there are other things
that point to this. When the girls were eating their snack I noticed that my Mother attempted to give
them a vegetable platter and told them that they were really tasty. However one of the girls said No
thanks, they are kinda gross, all the other girls then did not want to try any vegetables. I believe that
this comes from the children of the groups desire to fit in with everyone. They are afraid to speak out
because they feel that they might be ostracized for doing something that the rest of the group doesnt
like or thinks is odd.
The group has also shown to be very close knit and kind to one another. When interacting with
each other they are very friendly and are nice to one another. One example of this is how when greeting
one another. When greeting one another at the soccer practice and at my home, they all said Hello and
waved to one another in a polite manor. What was different from the two locations however was that
certain girls on the soccer team only said hello to other girls on the soccer team. This shows the early
development of cliques in this group. Because only certain girls interacted and greeted other specific
girls this is one case of how girls in this group act towards the formation of cliques. Another situation
that showed the development of cliques is how once again during soccer practice when they were
having a water break the group specifically split up into smaller groups similar to the ones shown at the
beginning of practice. They seemed to distance themselves from the other groups and just interact with
themselves, this once again show early development of cliques in their larger group.
When questioning the girls on what they enjoyed doing I got rather conflicting answers. They
were slow to completely answer on which they enjoyed to do and required some prodding for them to
fully answer. I feel that many of them are easily embarrassed and do not want to share what they like
with people not of their age, and especially not males. Many of the girls said that they enjoyed television
and playing with dolls. Additionally I asked them who they enjoy playing with many said that they did
not enjoy hanging out with guys because they are dumb and gross. When asked about other friend
choices they mentioned how they are friends with certain people because everyone else is weird or
we like the same things. From asking some girls questions I learned that many do not have any male
friends, and when I asked them how they felt about one of the girls that were friends with a lot of guys
in their grade they said that she was weird. This distancing from males shows that this group is not
exempt from the social norm of elementary school girls thinking boys are gross. Many girls looked
uncomfortable when questioned about their friend choices and why they were friends with others so I
did not push many questions about this topic. I believe their discomfort comes from their desire to fit in
well and they feel embarrassed if someone questions their friend choices because it implies they are
doing something wrong and they think they will be ostracized for it.
Overall the group I observed was very similar in many ways to my previous notions and
knowledge of third grade girls however there was a few differences. One major discrepancy I noticed is
how much people cared about their appearances to others, much more so then when I was an
elementary schooler. The girls try very hard to promote their image well in their group and this seems to
take up most of their actions, various actions that I had observed could be traced back to their desire to
fit in with the group. I believe this is why many children in this group develop cliques and are afraid to
stick up for themselves on their own. The cliques that they create are in place so that if other people do
not accept them others will accept them for who they are, and give them a falling back zone for if they
do, do something socially unacceptable by their peers. Their fear of speaking up for themselves I believe
is very related to this problem and also contributes to very low self-esteem of this group. Many are
afraid of expressing their opinions out of fear of being ostracized from the group and therefore do not
risk anything and never speak up of their own opinions if someone differs from them. Their interests see
to align with many elementary school children, and otherwise they seem to act like I had expected
besides their fixation on appearances.