Teaching students observational methods: visual studies and visual analysis

My experiences in teaching classes in ‘observation’ for sociology students is used to explore aspects of doing visual studies and visual analysis, using the direct or camera-aided observation of pedestrian traffic as a case in point. The students had to do some observational assignments ‘out in the streets’ and report on their experiences and findings, trying to make sociological sense of both. I fed them some ideas from Goffman in order to help them ‘see’ things in a sociological way. I also tried to unsettle their common sense sociology and methodology by confronting them with some ethnomethodological notions derived from Eric Livingston. In so doing I wanted to focus their attention on the visual methods actually used to organize pedestrian traffic ‘on the ground’, rather than restricting themselves to a structural overview ‘from above’, or ‘from aside’.