I decided to observe the behavior of the fellow students in a nearby cafeteria, while they sat in their relevant groups and studied, ate, or socialized. The rationale behind choosing this place was quite simple: the place is accessible, and I can observe and record the behaviors easily. Therefore, from 25th of December, I started compiling my observations after studying the people in my surroundings. Moreover, even I spent a great deal of my time in cafeterias or similar places because I could do everything there. For instance, from studying and completing homework or assignments, to hanging out and eating, and relaxing. Besides, studying in former places is less boring and more productive than studying in a library, at least in my case.
I was eager to learn whether people in this place behaved similarly to me and my peers or not. After a while, I gathered that the students were either sitting in groups or alone. However, most of the groups consisted of only one gender, that is there were only males or only females. I was uncertain about whether it was a social rule and norm in that area or it was just a coincidence. Despite coming with the intention to monitor the people and their activities, I had to abandon it, since it was hard to carry out the research without any formal structure or guidelines. Furthermore, I was intrigued by the fact that how the students here were separated and distinguished according to their genders.
The other reason I chose to observe this setting and environment was the gender gap. I never saw it before and hence, found it fascinating. I was never alone on these trips, at least one person accompanied me. I was also interested to find out whether these behaviors were habitual or happened once in every while. By putting these reasons at the core of my research, I set the questions of my observations about the types of group that are there between the people. The study also sought to uncover if the segregation was happening on the basis of the only gender or were there other reasons as well, such as race and ethnicity. Therefore, I also added a few questions about the latter in my structured observation.
The cafeteria I chose to observe is an enormous and spacious room. It is located very near to the south of our university, NECC. It is a huge room, and the walls are floor-to-ceiling glass windows, which makes it very elegant and beautiful. It serves distinct types of foods and beverages, with different menus for breakfast and lunch. There is a big LED screen as well, to cater the people that love to watch sports or news. There are various table sizes to accommodate the groups of 2, 4, 6 and 10 people. Most of the tables are for 4 people. The tables are movable and given the spacious sizes, the students adjust them according to the requirements of their group. The students usually crowd the café and are busy working, studying, talking, eating, et cetera. There is a series of sockets in the middle of the café, which makes it a popular spot because everyone tries to secure a place where they can easily charge their phones or laptops. Moreover, the room is brightly lit: during the mornings, light is more dependent on the weather outside; however, internal lighting is always there as a backup. The room’s attitude varies each day. Sometimes, it is very energetic and lively and otherwise, it is quiet and peaceful.
After the structured observation, I could conclude that most of the people that hung out could be grouped as being female and white, according to the gender and race. Moreover, my point that the segregation in the cafeteria might be done on the basis other than gender was also proved right after the research. The observations revealed that the groups were also divided by the race.
However, there are few points that were not addressed by the structured observations. For starters, I only observed and recorded the students of the university. There were a lot of other adults or children from the nearby places that were there in the cafeteria. I did include some of the adult groups though. Secondly, the observations could not give answers to qualitative questions, such as why was each group present in the first place: were they there to relax, have fun, eat, or study. Moreover, since I was observing the groups that were engaged in some sort of activity, it was still hard to figure out what exactly they were doing. For instance, if two groups were working on an assignment, it could have been of dissimilar courses. This again made it impossible for me to observe the children that were present in the cafeteria. Lastly, the race classifications were a result of the pure observation and assumptions rather than the facts. I did record assumed race of each person that I had studied. However, despite evaluating everyone carefully, I might have been wrong in my generalizations and predictions of what race a particular person might belong to.
The two observation periods that I conducted led me to conclude that most of the groups in the cafeteria could be distinguished by a specific race and gender. There was a correlation between the groups and people of a similar race or gender. It could have been because these students preferred to be with people that were similar to them. However, to generalize it, a research on bigger and longer scale is required. Besides, there are various other variables as well that I was not able to account for; for instance, the settings of the groups can be very dissimilar according to the time of the day or the days of the week. However, due to the constraints of time and resources, I was unable to tackle these aspects. Hence, it is neither reliable nor accurate to provide conclusion and a generalized statement on the basis of two observations of merely 150 people. The findings of my research could be true, but more observations are compulsory to make these findings more consistent and true.
