Center for Ethnographic Research (CER) | Institute for the Study of Societal Issues

Center for Ethnographic Research

Background image: Students walking past Doe Library

Image credit:

Photograph by Keegan Houser

The mission of the Center for Ethnographic Research (CER) is to promote and support interdisciplinary research on social issues using participant-observation and allied techniques. The Center has two mandates: research and training. The primary objective in the area of research is to provide in-depth understanding of issues and problems facing the variety of social environments throughout the world. In the area of training, the primary goal is to instruct undergraduate and graduate students in the principles and techniques of ethnographic methodology.

Summer Workshop in Qualitative Research Methods

A group photo of students from the CER workshop

This summer, nine students from colleges and universities across the United States came to UC Berkeley for our Summer Workshop in Qualitative Research Methods. Over six weeks, they honed their research skills under the guidance of Dr. Pablo Gonzalez.

Institute for the Study of Societal Issues