| complex societies | Nations; large and populous, with social stratification and central governments.
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| cultural consultants | Subjects in ethnographic research; people the ethnographer gets to know in the field, who teach him or her about their culture.
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| emic | The research strategy that focuses on local explanations and criteria of significance.
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| etic | The research strategy that emphasizes the ethnographer’s rather than the locals’ explanations, categories, and criteria of significance.
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| genealogical method | Procedures by which ethnographers discover and record connections of kinship, descent, and marriage, using diagrams and symbols.
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| interview schedule | Ethnographic tool for structuring a formal interview. A prepared form (usually printed or mimeographed) that guides interviews with households or individuals being compared systematically. Contrasts with a questionnaire because the researcher has personal contact with the local people and records their answers.
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| key cultural consultant | Person who is an expert on a particular aspect of local life.
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| life history | Of a key consultant or narrator; provides a personal cultural portrait of existence or change in a culture.
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| longitudinal research | Long-term study of a community, region, society, culture, or other unit, usually based on repeated visits.
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| questionnaire | Form (usually printed) used by sociologists to obtain comparable information from respondents. Often mailed to and filled in by research subjects rather than by the researcher.
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| random sample | A sample in which all members of the population have an equal statistical chance of being included.
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| sample | A smaller study group chosen to represent a larger population.
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| survey research | Characteristic research procedure among social scientists other than anthropologists. Studies society through sampling, statistical analysis, and impersonal data collection.
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| variables | Attributes (e.g., sex, age, height, weight) that differ from one person or case to the next.
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