In the ethnography discussed in class, Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood before Marriage, the sociologists studied the realities of single motherhood for poor, urban women in Camden, New Jersey. Before beginning their research, they immersed themselves in the community. They moved her family to the city, and they both volunteered in community program. Moving into their environment helped them in which step of the research?
This is a variant of natural observation research in which the researcher joins the group they are studying in order to get a deeper insight of the lives of the "samples"- the people under study.
