ABSTRACT

The focus of this chapter is an analysis of ethnographic data collected through research at an agency for battered women and their children located in Chicago, Illinois. The data were collected in a 10-month period from the sum m er o f 1992 through the spring o f 1993. D ata were generated through three key m ethods. The m ajor source o f data comes from in-depth interviews with regular agency clients conducted over the course o f 6 m onths. The initial interviews involved a core group o f eight inform ants. All o f the interviewees, whose names have been changed to protect anonym ity, knew o f my research project. I verified the transcriptions o f the first set o f interviews with each o f them. O f the core group, three o f the women were European American, two were African American, and three were Hispanic American. Their ages ranged from 20 to 38, though only one inform ant was willing to specify her exact age (a European American woman, aged 23).