Ethnographic Observation Paper

Beauty School

I decided to study the unique culture that comes from students attending and participating in beauty school. I was able to observe and participate in some of the services that were offered at Sherman Kendall Academy on 700 East and 2300 South Sugarhouse Utah. I observed the way students interact with each other, clients, and the instructors at the school. The purpose of ethnographic observation is to understand the culture that is Beauty School.
For my field research, I used two different methods. Participant-observation and Interviews. I felt pretty out of place and like I was intruding on “their world”. I felt that everyone knew I was watching them and writing things down in a notebook about what they were doing so
They all dress alike and have similar hairstyles and color. It appears to be and effective cultural practices as these students are developing skills that they are going to take along with them for the rest of their career. Everything they practiced in their culture that is Hair School is going to be the bases for everything they do futuristically. If they didn’t build that foundation and learn through trial and error, they wouldn’t be very successful at keeping and maintaining their cliental in the real world as they probably would not be able to create and maintain someone’s hairstyle. So that client would no longer be their client. The prices for services offered at the school are for the most part pretty reasonable. All services are given by supervised students. A lot of the older public goes to get their hair done here because the prices are more than double at salons or private institutions. The older ladies develop really close relationships with the students and cry when they find out that their favorite student that they have seen every week for the past two years is