Carolyn D. Smith – författare

During the 1950s and 1960s increasing numbers of American citizens were stationed in foreign countries, and a whole generation of American children grew up abroad. As the interdependence of nations increases, new generations of Absentee Americans will be raised outside the United States. Based on interviews and questionnaire responses, this unique volume describes the impact of overseas living on Americans who spent at least some of their formative years in countries other than the United States.It touches on a wide range of subjects such as schooling, living arrangements, social life abroad, and the experience of reentry into the United States, and it also provides a comprehensive view of the distinctive opinions shared by these global nomads. By exploring the lives and experiences of repatriates, the author emphasizes the need for increased intercultural contact and for educational programs that prepare young Americans to better understand the United States as part of the world community. This work will be of interest to sociologists and psychologists, as well as to Absentee Americans themselves, and to managers of public and private institutions with an international or intercultural dimension.

These engaging accounts by masters of field research illustrate the synthesis of passionate involvement and objective analysis. An informative and inspiring collection for students and professional social scientists. (Cynthia Fuchs Epstein Distinguished Professor of Sociology City University of New York). This revised, edited volume brings together personal accounts by a group of noted ethnographic researchers to examine the natural history of participant observation. An ideal supplemental text for methods courses, In The Field is designed to give students a sense of what it is actually like to conduct ethnographic research. As the selections show, field researchers must struggle to gain acceptance by the group under study but then often become deeply involved in the lives of the people and at times are forced into a reexamination of their own values. By learning how social scientists conduct research under field conditions and how they feel while they are doing it, students will be better prepared to carry out successful field research projects of their own.