Eva Schindler (4th cohort) took courses introducing participants to Ethnography and Field Research (Xymena Kurowska, PhD, Central European University, Budapest), Issues in Political, Policy, and Organizational Ethnography and Participant Observation (Prof. Dr. Dvora Yanow, Wageningen University) and Concepts and Approaches in Qualitative Data Analysis. (Marie-Hélène Paré, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya). Eva will draw extensively on these courses in the methodological work of her doctoral research.
Anna Lemcke (4th cohort) took a course on ‘Expert Interviews for Qualitative Data Generation’. Alenka Jelen-Sanchez (University of Stirling) offered a comprehensive introduction to the conceptual foundations of interview research as well as a number of hands-on exercises, including an interview with former Hungarian foreign secretary and CEU professor Péter Balázs. The course proved to be a very useful preparation for the interviews Anna will be conducting with senior members of the German federal administration and other experts in the field of family policy.
Jennifer Bansard (4th cohort) followed a course on ‘Theoretically Informed Social Network Analysis’. Balazs Vedres, Director of the CEU’s Center for Network Science gave the participants an overview of the evolution of the field and the origin of core concepts such as centrality and betweenness before diving into practice exercises on the software program UCINET. Jennifer will be using this method in her dissertation to map the organizations and actors involved in the emergence of coastal carbon governance.
Diane Bombart (4th cohort) took part in Marie-Hélène’s Paré’s course on Concepts and Approaches of Qualitative Data Analysis. Approaches could be directly tested by means of the software program for qualitative analysis NVivo. Diane will use the knowledge acquired in this course to analyze how actors in the French development aid administration frame the issue of results.
Minh-Nguyet Le (4th cohort) completed Prof. Dr. Dvora Yanow’s course on ‘Issues in Political, Policy, and Organizational Ethnography.’ The advanced interpretive-qualitative research methods course focused on current debates about political, policy, and organizational ethnography ranging from research ethics issues that arise in the conduct of field research, questions of reflexivity and positionality; as well as writing as method. The method will be part of Minh’s core approach in studying the institutionalization and legitimation of experimental practices in government.
Beyond the methods training itself, the summer school offered opportunities to network with researchers from other universities and disciplines both within formal courses and a number of social events. The CEU proved to be perfectly equipped to host such an event: from the fully functioning online learning environment to the attractive sights of the city of Budapest it managed to produce a productive and enjoyable working atmosphere.