Chicago Field Studies Programs

Field Studies in the Modern Workplace
Business Field Studies
Legal Field Studies
Field Studies in Social Justice
Field Studies in Civic Engagement
Field Studies in Community Research

CFS offers academic internship programs every quarter, including summer. Details on our current programs can be found below. All programs include the following components:

Student internships at Chicago-area organizations, where students work and conduct original research;
CFS weekly seminar classes;
Discussions and assignments that bring together theory and workplace research and learning;
Site visits to internship organizations.

CFS seminars are taught by faculty and graduate students from the Departments of Anthropology, Political Science, and Sociology and other related disciplines. Seminars are small so that the student-instructor ratio is no larger than 12-1. This allows maximum time for students to share their experiences and ideas in class and ensures close working relationships between students and instructors.

CFS programs are open to students in all schools and majors. Students from other colleges and universities are also welcome to apply.

Field Studies in the Modern Workplace (FSMW) - All Quarters

Offered: Every quarter, including summer

Academic Focus: workplace culture

Internships: any professional field (including business and law), 24-36 hours/week

Credits: 2 classes worth 4 credits (full-time program)

Open to: Students who have completed their sophomore year by the beginning of the program

Students participate in two small seminars, which complement each other: Workplace Culture and Contemporary Issues in the Workplace. Workplace Culture explores various theoretical approaches to the study of the modern workplace. Using various research methods, students will examine wrokplace themes in the Contemporary Issues class. Through class discussions and assignments, students examine the unwritten rules that govern social interaction and behavior at their workplace.

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Business Field Studies (BFS) - All Quarters

Next Offered: Every quarter, including summer

Academic Focus: workplace behavior and contemporary issues in business

Internships: business organizations (primarily finance and marketing), 24-36 hours/week

Credits: 2 classes worth 4 credits (full-time program)

Open to: Students who have completed their sophomore year by the beginning of the program

Students participate in two separate classes: Workplace Cutlure: Business and Contemporary Issues in Business. Workplace Culture explores various theoretical approaches to the study of the modern workplace, focusing primarily on business firms. Contemporary Issues examines major issues facing business organizations as reported in the current media (e.g., international trade, financial reporting, etc.). Discussions and assignments in both classes examine course readings in light of students’ original research at their internship sites. For both classes, students conduct original research on and about their internship organizations, and discussions and assignments examine course readings in light of this research.

* What is the difference between Field Studies in the Modern Workplace and Business or Legal Field Studies?

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Legal Field Studies (LFS) - Offered 1- 2 Quarters Per Year

Next Offered: Winter 2010; Spring 2010; Summer 2010

Academic Focus: legal cutlure and contemporary issues in law

Internships: legal firms and organizations, 24-36 hours/week

Credits: 2 classes worth 4 credits (full-time program)

Open to: Students who have completed their sophomore year by the beginning of the program

Students participate in two separate classes: Legal Culture and Process and Contemporary Issues in Law. Legal Culture and Process explores various theoretical approaches to the study of the modern workplace, focusing primarily on legal organizations. Contemporary Issues examines popular discourse on law and debates in the legal profession (e.g., the jury process, sexual harassment, hate speech, etc.). For both classes, students conduct original research on and about their internship organizations, and discussions and assignments examine course readings in light of this research.

* What is the difference between Field Studies in the Modern Workplace and Business or Legal Field Studies?

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Field Studies in Social Justice

Next Offered: Spring 2010

Academic Focus: Focus changes by quarter. Winter 2010: IMMIGRATION

Internships: social justice/public interest organizations, 10-15 hours/week (community-based organizations, nonprofits, legal, educational, governmental, and political organizations, research and policy institutes, etc.)

Credits: 1 class worth 2 credits

Open to: Students in any year

Field Studies in Social Justice is a Chicago Field Studies course that promotes learning through internships, original research, and partnerships between the university and surrounding communities. The Spring 2010 course will focus on immigration to cities such as Chicago. It includes four overarching themes: 1) Political- economic background to migration; 2) U.S. Poverty; 3) Community life; 4) Organization and Movement. Such large themes will provide an intellectual tool kit for the students, who will simultaneously be interning at organizations in the Chicago area that work with immigrant populations or on social, cultural, political, or economic issues related to immigration. Possible internship organizations include: Heartland Alliance, El Centro Romero, Coalition of African, Asian, Arab, European, Latino Immigrants of Illinois, Organization of the NorthEast, Indo-American Center, etc.

Students will use what they learn through their internships to help them understand academic readings and debates, and they will apply what they learn through the classroom to help them better understand their community work. They will also gain insight from community practitioners. The community partners will become active participants in the education of the students. They will be invited to take part in lectures and discussions and participate in the final presentations of research projects.

While the internships will allow students to experience what it is like to work in the social justice field, for academic purposes, they will be treated as sites for original research. The course will give students a basic introduction to some key qualitative research methods--participant-observation (fieldnotes) and interviews--which they will then use at their organizations to conduct research on the issues being studied.

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Field Studies in Civic Engagement

Next Offered: Winter 2010

Academic Focus: Perceptions and goals of civic engagement.Government and non-profit organizations.

Internships: Government and non-profit organizations, 15-36 hours/week (community-based organizations, nonprofits, legal, educational, governmental, and political organizations, research and policy institutes, etc.)

Credits: 1 class worth variable credit

Open to: Students of all years.

One of the 2008 presidential election's many narratives focused on the candidates' form of service to their country. McCain's campaign portrayed him as a war hero from a long-serving military family, who had also served his country through political office. Obama, too, had been elected to political office, but his was a more academic, religious, and community-based trajectory to the national stage. Each of these narratives appealed to different demographic groups, and were shaped by various media to various ends.

This course will examine a series of contemporary case studies to investigate our changing framework for civic engagement. The first part of the course will ask basic questions about the perception of civic engagement, both in general terms and in terms of how the students' internship sites define it. How do different media imagine "civic engagement," and are there any forms of engagement that go underrepresented? Does "civic engagement" necessarily involve institutions, or can individual-to-individual action count? Do generations conceive of "civic engagement" in the same way? Is "civic engagement" determined by intentions or by outcomes? After identifying and debating some of our basic assumptions about the term, the class will think more strategically about the goals--spoken and unspoken--of civic engagement.

Students will be asked to think deeply about the missions of their internship organizations, and share with the rest of the class the obstacles their sites face in achieving their goals. The goal of this course is for students to leave with an informed personal definition of civic engagement, and a critical sense of where their internships fall within this framework.

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Field Studies in Community Research

Next Offered: Summer 2010

Academic Focus: Community Research

Internships: social justice/public interest organizations, 20 hours/week (community-based organizations, nonprofits, legal, educational)

Credits: 1 class worth 1-3 credits

Open to: Students in any year

Community Research is a joint program of Chicago Field Studies Program, the Department of Anthropology at Northwestern and the Center for Cultural Understanding and Change at the Field Museum. Through Community Research, students learn ethnographic field methods and conduct a research study in one of the many ethnic communities in the greater Chicago area in collaboration with a community-based organization. Placements are individually negotiated to meet each student's interests. Community Research is an eight-week full-time program and students may enroll for one, two or three course credits. Students meet once a week for class work in field methods, project design, data collection strategies, and data analysis techniques. APPLICATION FOR FIELD STUDIES IN COMMUNITY RESEARCH

What is the difference between Field Studies in the Modern Workplace and Business or Legal Field Studies?

There are two main differences between the Field Studies in the Modern Workplace program and the Business and Legal Field Studies programs, as follows:

Academic Focus: The courses in FSMW focus solely on organizational behavior—on examining the structure and culture of the workplace—whereas BFS and LFS focus equally on this and on contemporary issues in business and law, respectively. All three programs emphasize original research and teach qualitative research methods; methods are taught more heavily in FSMW.
Internship Variety: There is NO DIFFERENCE in the internships themselves between the programs. There is only a difference in the variety of internships in the classes overall. Students in FSMW intern in a number of different fields, including but not limited to business and law, whereas BFS and LFS students all intern in the same field (business or law). Thus, students in FSMW will learn about a broader array of organizations and fields through their seminars and class-related activities, whereas students in the BFS and LFS programs will focus more narrowly and deeply on the fields of business or law.

If you have further questions about the CFS programs, please contact our office. For more information on the internship component of the program, see the section on Internships.