Analysis Of Undercover Work In My Freshman Year By Rebekah Nathan

Undercover work is commonly associated with the law enforcement, but in My Freshman Year Nathan goes undercover as a freshman at her own institution to better understand the undergraduate student experience. Going undercover as an anthropological researcher and publishing the book under a fake name were questionable things and it led to a great controversy in the higher education community.

Rebekah Nathan starts her undercover anthropological study with the a couple of research questions: “What is the current culture at AnyU (my pseudonym for my university) as an example of the American public university? How do contemporary American students understand their education, and what do they want from it? How do they negotiate college life? What

Nathan also finds that there is a great chasm between students and professors which results from both difference and hierarchy. Rebekah Nathan is not the first person to conduct an anthropological study of undergraduates, but she is the first researcher to assume the identity of an undergraduate to study the culture as an insider participant/observer. Michael Moffatt, in his 1989 work Coming of Age in New Jersey: College and American Culture, posed as a freshman for a one week orientation, then revealed himself as a professor and proceeded to spend one night a week in dorm for the next two years. Nathan’s work is controversial for a number of reasons. First, writing under a pseudonym is not a generally accepted practice in academic work. Second, Nathan does not identify her sources when quoting students. While she does this to protect them, it is not a generally accepted in academic work. Finally, she is not transparent with all of her subjects in revealing her true background and intentions as a professor writing a book. While Nathan addresses many of these ethical issues in her book, many readers may not feel the issues are resolved. While some may view Nathan’s questionable ethical

Nathan took much of her data from small samples of bathroom wall writing from the floor on which she lived and time diaries from ten students. The size of the samples seems too small to give such great emphasis. Another major weakness in Nathan’s mini-studies involved her analysis of eating patterns. She used apparent ethnicity to classify who students ate with on campus. While she acknowledges that appearances can be problematic but that she was interested in appearances, this study seems flawed in its design. One should not assume a person is a certain ethnicity based on their skin color or physical features as Nathan does. A more accurate way to conduct this study would have been asking the students their ethnic background. Her first chapter “Welcome to AnyU” focuses on her orientation to life as a college student. Kuh and Whitt’s (1988) ritual is on display in this chapter. A ritual is “a standardized, detailed set of techniques and behaviors that manage anxieties but seldom produce intended technical consequences of practical importance” (Kuh & Whitt, 1988, p. 18). Nathan’s ritual is Welcome Week, a week intended to orient students to college life. For Nathan, this