Final answer:
The subject of the question is Social Studies, specifically in the field of sociology, at the College level. Venkatesh's dissatisfaction with quantitative methods led him to employ participant observation to study urban poverty
Step-by-step explanation:
Dissatisfied with quantitative methods as a way to study and describe the life of the poor, Sudhir Venkatesh eventually opted for a participant observation approach.
The subject of this question pertains to the sociology field, which is a subset of Social Studies. Sudhir Venkatesh, in his research, sought to comprehensively understand the lives and struggles of the urban poor and thus found that merely using quantitative data was insufficient.
Instead, by living among the people he was studying, Venkatesh gathered qualitative data and gained insights through direct engagement with his subjects, an ethnographic method known as participant observation.
This approach allowed him to document the complex realities of poverty beyond what statistics could reveal.
Other researchers in similar fields have employed various methodologies including ethnography, secondary analysis, and surveys to gain a deeper understanding of the counterculture movements, poverty, and social inequalities.
Matthew Desmond, for example, used ethnographic methods in Milwaukee to highlight the dire consequences of unstable housing on the poor; Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo focused on understanding poverty from an economics perspective, and so on. Each approach serves to provide a more nuanced understanding of social issues.