Confronta i metodi

	Ricerca-Azione	Etnografia	Osservazione partecipante
Campo	Ricerca qualitativa	Qualitativo	Ricerca qualitativa
Famiglia	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Anno di origine	1946	c. 1922 (Malinowski's Argonauts of the Western Pacific)	1922
Ideatore	Kurt Lewin; expanded by Kemmis, McTaggart, Reason & Bradbury	Bronisław Malinowski (modern ethnography); rooted in 19th-century anthropology	Bronislaw Malinowski
Tipo	Method	Qualitative fieldwork tradition	Method
Fonte seminale	Lewin, K. (1946). Action research and minority problems. Journal of Social Issues, 2(4), 34–46.	Hammersley, M. & Atkinson, P. (2019). Ethnography: Principles in Practice (4th ed.). Routledge. ISBN: 978-1138504462	Geertz, C. (1973). The Interpretation of Cultures. Basic Books. ISBN: 978-0465026432
Alias	Participatory Action Research, PAR, Collaborative Inquiry	Etnografi, participant observation, fieldwork, ethnographic research	ethnographic observation, participatory observation, overt observation, immersive observation
Correlati	1	5	4
Sintesi	Action research is a collaborative research methodology in which researchers work with practitioners and community members to investigate a problem, implement change, and evaluate outcomes, cycling through reflection, action, and learning. Developed by Kurt Lewin (1946), action research bridges research and practice, aiming simultaneously to produce knowledge and practical improvement.	Ethnography is a qualitative research tradition in which a researcher immerses themselves in a social group or community over an extended period — typically three to six months or longer — to study its culture, values, and behaviours in their natural setting. Originating in social and cultural anthropology, and consolidated as a rigorous method by Bronisław Malinowski in the early twentieth century, ethnography produces rich, contextualised accounts of how people live, work, and make meaning together.	Participant observation is a qualitative research method in which the researcher embeds themselves within a community, organization, or social setting for an extended period, engaging in the activities and relationships of the group while systematically observing and documenting behavior, interactions, and cultural meaning. Pioneered by Malinowski in the 1920s and developed in anthropology, the method has been adopted across sociology, education, health sciences, and organizational research. The researcher functions as both insider (participating in group activities) and outsider (maintaining analytical distance), generating thick description—rich accounts of context, behavior, and meaning that reveal how people actually live and interact.