Ethnography in health care sciences (2025)

Welcome to Ethnography in health care sciences

PhD Programme: Health Care, Health Promotion and Organizations (HCHPO)

Description: 

Ethnographic research has become increasingly popular in health care sciences. This course provides a solid methodological foundation for using ethnographic research to understand real-world issues in context. Attention will be paid to how ethnographic strategies can be deployed in health care contexts, as a way of illustrating the more general principles of ethnographic work.

Over four days, this course will cover core components of the ethnographic approach such as data gathering in fieldwork (participant observation, interview, field notes and documents), data analysis, ethical issues and writing articles based on ethnography. The course will provide students with an understanding of how to design and carry out ethnographic research and an awareness of contemporary developments in the theory and practice of ethnographic studies. 

The course is designed for participants and lecturers to engage in different activities such as lectures, practical exercises and discussions of some of the theoretical, methodological and practical issues and challenges in using ethnography. Each participant will give a short presentation of his/hers PhD project and receive feedback from lecturers and participants during the course.

Prerequisites: 

Participants must provide an abstract or a brief description (approx. 1 page) of a specific issue or challenge related to ethnography concerning their study. This should be sent to hht@rn.dk no later than 15. sept

Each participant must also prepare a presentation that will be presented at the course (10 minutes), on the project also stating what are the points that each wants to have a discussion on. Based on the presentation, a discussion with lectures and the other participants will follow (each participant has in total aprx 30 minutes).

Organizer: Helle Haslund-Thomsen

Lecturers: 

Emma Balkin (EB), Birgitte Lerbæk(BIL), Siri Lygum Voldbjerg (SLV), Britt Laugesen (BL) Kirsten Schultz Petersen (KSP), Helle Haslund Thomsen (HHT).

Important information concerning PhD courses: 

There is a no-show fee of DKK 3,000 for each course where the student does not show up. Cancellations are accepted no later than 2 weeks before the start of the course. Registered illness is of course an acceptable reason for not showing up on those days. Furthermore, all courses open for registration approximately four months before start of the course.

We cannot ensure any seats before the deadline for enrolment, all participants will be informed after the deadline, approximately 3 weeks before the start of the course.

To attend courses at the Doctoral School in Medicine, Biomedical Science and Technology you must be enrolled as a PhD student.

For inquiries regarding registration, cancellation or waiting list, please contact the PhD administration at phdcourses@adm.aau.dk. When contacting us please state the course title and course period. Thank you.