Mini Ethnography Summary

Mini Ethnography at Colors of Inequality Conference I chose to do my ethnographic study at the Intergenerational Spring Seminar sponsored by the Unitarian Universalists United Nations Office (UU-UNO). The theme for this year’s conference was The Colors of Inequality: Costs and Consequences Conference. This conference took place at three locations throughout New York City. The three locations it took place at were All Souls Church (NYC), the Salvation Army International Social Justice Commission building, and the United Nations Headquarters. All Souls Church served as our living quarters and dining hall when we had meals at the conference. For the purposes of this assignment, I will no longer mention All Souls Church because a requirement for
They failed to achieve for a variety of reasons. Two reasons I believe the conference failed to achieve this goal are a lack of understanding of how children learn and the surface level nature of the conversation. For example, participants were lectured at for eight hours on these topics by academics presenting research-driven analysis of the issues. After the first hour of listening many of the participants, adults and children, were checked out. As a result, much of the information presented went in one ear and out the other for participants. The other reason I believe the goal of the conference was not achieved deals with the fact that much of the information presented only touched the surface when dealing with issues of inequality. The two students I was responsible for while at the conference struggled greatly with this. They struggled with the shallowness of material because they themselves had hard questions about the inequalities they suffer from that could not be adequately answered based upon the information that was presented. A few of the participants at the seminar suffer from consequences associated with the issues presented on that could not be addressed. Therefore, they voiced concern that the research was flawed because it did not include the entirety of everyone’s
This has to be done carefully because if it is not it could backfire in the face of the church. Creating safe places for dialogue on tough issues is often very difficult and requires those within that system to be intentional about having and maintaining that space. For example, people cannot get offended when someone says something they disagree with because more than likely that person will shut down when asked to speak again. Quite honestly, I am not sure the church will ever get to this place. But, I am optimistic and see it as a goal of mines as a mark to reach