ETHNOGRAPHYMaija Lanas 2013

Ethnography is a specific research methodology. Also a useful skill for practitioners everywhere.

ETHNOGRAPHY AND TEACHERS

”Education should have chosen anthropology not psychology as is basis”

The world and the society are not static entities that exist outside of us but they are constantly produced (by us).

School and education are not ’out there’ or in the future, but right here and now, and they are (partly) produced through the actions of those working with them.

It is the responsibility of those agents to know what they are doing.

They must be able to:

- study their own actions and role

- study the actions and role of the other agents

- place this into a broader context: - e.g. what kind of society is being

produced through these actions

Ethnography

• Intent: to provide a detailed, in-depth description of everyday life and practice.

• Common fields of science: Anthropology, sociology

• Method: participant observation (sometimes interviews), “Being there”, immersion

• In educational sciences: School ethnography

• A common question: “What is going on here?” BUT: Direct gaze

Ethnography and emotions

Detached researcher

”taking it personally”

Vs.

Stereotype of cultural anthropologist ethnographer on a pacific island, taking notes, drawing ”objective” conclusions. Making strange familiar. critique?

Ethnography: BEING THERE, IMMERSION

Main critique:

What was assumed to be objective was, in fact, just eurocentric and malecentric.

Making familiar strange

MY RESEARCH: ”Smashing potatoes, challenging student agency as utterances”

Finding a new, previously unheard and unrecognized perspective to Finnish education.

Ethnography

• 4 months, living in a reindeer herding village with my family

• School ethnography: participant observation in the school 4-6 hours a day

StudentsTeachersParentsNotebookRoundingsCookiesFriendsOwn childrenNature

In practice

RELIES ON EXPERIENGING, PERCEIVING, LISTENING, HEARING, OBSERVING

How do you know when you have digged up the TRUTH?

How do you eliminate bias?

Reality as:

Interpersonal, Socially constructed

ONTOLOGY

Knowledge as:

Situational,Socially constructed, personal

EPISTEMOLOGY

How do you know when you have digged up the TRUTH?

RELIES ON EXPERIENGING, PERCEIVING, LISTENING, HEARING, OBSERVING

How do you eliminate bias?

There are multiple

truths

Knowledge as:

Situational,Socially constructed, personal

EPISTEMOLOGY

How do you know when you have digged up the TRUTH? There are

multiple truths

TRUTH about challenging student agency?

- To challenge structures?- To aggravate the teacher?- Caused by personal traumas?- Misunderstandings?- Chemistry?- In the relationship?

”TRUTH” is about power

Hold the complexity

Reality as:

Interpersonal, Socially constructed

ONTOLOGY

How do you eliminate bias?

(Reduction), positioning, reflecting, mapping out the process of constructing knowledge. Back it up, justify the claims, be logical.

Some other researcher would not ask the same questions or reach

the same conclusions.