Description of Public Setting, Essay Example

Introduction

In this assignment, an actual public area was observed for 30 minutes. In the succeeding sections, the public setting selected is described and the rationale for selection of the setting is explained. Following this, the different people who were observed during the set period are described, followed by the details of the observations made.

Description of public setting

The public setting observed is a playground located within a local park. I was not able to take the exact measurement of the playground, but a local patrol officer who I asked said that the play area was roughly around 150 square meters. The setting was outdoors, and the shape of the area was irregular but resembled an L-shaped ellipse. The ground of the setting was sandy, contrasted against the grassy grounds outside the perimeter of the area. There were a number of play equipment in the area. There was a set of swings that can accommodate four people; there were three sets of seesaws; there was a set of monkey bars, and two slides. One of the slides was larger than the other, with the larger slide about two and a half meters high while the smaller slide was only about a meter and a half high. The setting was observed in the middle of the afternoon, approximately between 4:00 to 4:30 PM.

Rationale for choice of setting

The playground was selected primarily based on convenience. The park where the playground is situated is of close proximity to my home. As such, it just takes me a short work to get to it. The entire park is large, so it would be cumbersome to try and observe the entire park. Thus, I only selected a portion of the park, which was the playground. The reason why I selected the playground specifically is because I felt that it was one place where I can make a lot of observations. However at the same time, I also considered that there may be some personal biases that I should guard against in my observation as they may affect how I perceive the setting and the people in it. In particular, my own playground experiences may lead to be stereotyping people based on their appearances and based on my own childhood experiences in the playground. For example, I may label a large child as a bully simply because of his size, without considering if I actually saw him “bully” a person. In relation to this, I may also be subjective in interpreting whether a certain action counts as bullying. For example, if I see one child push another, I may consider that as bullying whereas the two children may be friends and may just be playing, without me being aware of it. In order to be able to manage these biases, I must make sure to separate my objective observations from my subjective opinions. I must clearly label what it is in my observations were actual observations, and what are actually already interpretations of the observations. I must focus on the former rather than the later, and be careful with qualifying an action without enough supportive observed evidences of that quality. My role as a researcher in this setting is that of an interpretive observer. First, I should be detached from the setting. That is, I should not interact with the people who I am observing in order to make sure that I do not influence their actions by my intervention. Second, I should contain myself to observing what is happening, and not infer upon activities that are not happening. For example, in observing two children quarrel, I should only consider possible reasons for their quarrelling based on what is happening in the setting, such as one child taking the other child’s place in a swing. I should not consider matters that are beyond the place of observation, such as if one child is having troubles at home and is merely lashing out at other children. Thirdly, I must detail my recording of observations and then organize such recordings afterwards. I should not judge what is an important observation to what is not during the observation, as I would not know if one action may become important when considered with other actions that happen later on. Thus, I should stay indiscriminate in recording observations.

Individuals and groups observed

There were a number of individuals and groups observed during the 30-minute observation period. Among groups were children playing in the monkey bars, children playing in the big slides, children playing in the small slide, children playing in the swings, parents or guardians of the children. A specific individual observed was a child playing with a push toy.

Observations

The first focus on observation was on children playing in the small slide and their parents or guardians. The children playing in the small slide were relatively young, although their ages were not asked; I estimated them to be around 3 to 4 years of age. Some parents or guardians were close by, helping their children/charges climb up the small slide and sometimes even carrying them up to the slide and guiding them as they slid down. I noted in my observation that the children did not use the slide in a consistent order. That is, whereas there were five children playing in the area of the slide at the time of observation, they did not use the slide one after the other. One child may get to use the slide several times before another child uses it. After using the slide, a child does not immediately fall back in line to ride the slide again, sometimes just walking around and other times going to his or her parent/guardian. There was one observation made when a parent/guardian helped a child slide down two times by lifting her up on the slide and guiding her as she slid down. This was while there was another child who was already at the top of the slide and was waiting to slide down. After the second use of the slide, the child who was at the top slid down abruptly, just barely after the parent/guardian picked up the child who was at the foot of the slide. Some of the adults in the setting were talking as they minded their children/charges. In one case observed, it seemed evident that the two adults who conversed did not know one another prior to meeting each other in the playground. This was because they made a handshake before going back to attending to their charges. I assumed that the handshake implied that they have just met one another, based on the cultural background of making handshakes after one has become acquainted with another person.

There was a different observation made for the group who were using the larger slide. This group of children visibly looked older than the children who were using the smaller slide. Based on unverified observation, the children looked about at least 5 years of age but not more than 10 years of age. This group seemed more organized, as they maintained a line for using the slide consistently. That is, one child would use the slide and then queue back into the line of people waiting to use the slide. There were less parents/guardians observing this group of children. As with the previous group of adults, some of the adults looking after children in the larger slide were conversing with one another. Others were concentrated in watching their children. It was observed based on the children who turned their heads when the adults called on them that those who were talking with one another were parents of older children, whereas those who were intently watching their children and not talking with other people around were the parents of younger children. There seemed to be an informal rule in the larger slide that people are not supposed to cut in front of other people in the line. This was observed to be in force when a new child entered the playground and attempted to use the slide. It was observed that the people who were in line said something that made the child go to the end of the line. However, I was not able to hear exactly what they said.

Parents/guardians were observed to be interacting with their charges most closely for children who played in the swings and in the seesaws. In the swings, it was observed that there were only parents/guardians standing behind their children and giving them boosts to swing. These parents/guardians were also concentrated in their activity and did not talk with one another. However, they did talk and laugh with their children/charges. In the seesaws, two parents were observed at the other end of their respective children’s seat in the seesaw. They sat on or pushed down their end of the seesaw to lift their child/charge up on the other end. As with the parents/guardians on the swing, these adults were also concentrated in what they are doing and they were not talking with one another, although they were talking with their respective children/charges. The place that seemed to be least organized and highly diverse is the area in the playground where the monkey bars was set. This area is also dominated by older children, but they were not so much as playing with the monkey bars as just hanging out in the setting. It was observed that the group of children here interacted extensively with one another. Occasionally, some of the children would actually use the monkey bars. However, most of what was seen in this area was children talking with each other. There were also no parents/guardians seen in the setting, giving some indication that the children who were in this part of the playground were older than the other children in the setting and were totally not accompanied by parents/guardians.

Finally, there was one individual who was specifically observed in the setting. This individual is a child, estimated to be about 6-7 years of age, who was simply pushing a toy around in the playground. He did not seem to be interested in interacting with other children or making use of the equipment in the grounds. Likewise, children in the playground did not seem to notice him.

Conclusion

In making a 30-minute observation of a playground, I was able to gather considerable data. I identified, compared, and contrasted groups of children who were playing with the different equipment in the playground. I also found that parents of younger children tended to their children more closely than the parents of older children, and many of the older children did not have parents/guardians accompanying them. Finally, a child who seemed distanced to other people in the playground was identified.