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Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice
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Fieldwork Research and Social Network Analysis

Different Methods Creating Complementary Perspectives

Mark S. Fleisher

Case Western Reserve University

This article suggests that participant observation and social network analysis are able to yield complementary perspectives on youth gangs. Participant observation over a long period yields systematically gathered observations and interview narratives. Such data may provide a close-up look at youth gangs at street level; however, participant observation has limitations that constrain its applicability in multisite research. Social network methods added to field research protocols can provide a behavioral and social structural vision of youth gangs. An analysis of egocentric social network data collected in a gang neighborhood casts doubton conventional conceptualizations of gangs as groups and gang boundaries. Compositional analyses of personal (egocentric) social networks of same-gang youth provide measures of peer influence processes beyond participant observation. Comparative analyses of opposite-gang adolescents’ egocentric networks show a wide overlap among intergang friends. The article links such findings to personal shifts in life course and adaptations to chronic poverty.

Key Words: social networks • gang theory • field methods • ethnography

Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, Vol. 21, No. 2, 120-134 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/1043986204273436
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