The Foundations and Fundamentals of Quantitative Ethnography

As the Quantitative Ethnography (QE) community becomes more inter-disciplinary, it will need multiple theoretical accounts to fit with the multiple epistemologies of researchers. Thus, in this paper, we provide one theoretical account. We argue that ethnography is foundational to QE, quantification augments ethnographic accounts, and that critical reflexivity is necessary in QE. Then, we outline ten iterative steps of QE analyses, explained through two examples, and articulate five main practices. Our goals for this paper are to 1) distill fundamental aspects of QE for new adopters, 2) offer a summarized account for established QE practitioners, 3) clarify underlying values and practices that drive the methodology, and 4) highlight which practices are essential to QE and which are flexible. This paper provides one accessible summarization of QE for an inter-disciplinary field.