Monitoring the Crisis

A course devoted to understanding how people are faring as the country's health and economic crisis unfolds. The premise of the course is that, as important and valuable as surveys are, it's a capital mistake to presume that we know what needs to be asked and that fixed-response answers adequately convey the depth of what's happening. We introduce a new type of qualitative method that allows for discovery by capturing the voices of the people, learn what they're thinking and fearing, and understand the decisions they're making. Students are trained in immersive interviewing by completing actual interviews, coding and analyzing their field notes, and then writing reports describing what's happening across the country. These reports will be designed to find out who's hurting, why they're hurting, and how we can better respond to the crisis. Students interested should submit the following application: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfdOZsnpOCg4zTRbVny0ikxpZEd1AFEEJh3K9KjvINyfbWMGw/viewformThe course is open to students who have taken it in earlier quarters, with repeating students allowed to omit the training sessions and, in lieu of those sessions, complete additional field work and writing. Field work will include unique interviews with new participants each lab period, along with corresponding coding, analyses, and reports.