Ethnographic Research Methods

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What will I have to do?
As part of your FiPS Assignment II we ask you to take one of the situations and to explore this by looking at the lives of one or more (but no more than 2-3) children in your placement school and then writing a case study about these children and the ways in which the school (and they) are trying to raise their levels of acheivement.
What is the ethnographical method?

The ethnographic method is that most distinctively associated with sociology and anthropology. It starts from the assumption that human activities are socially organised and so, from the outset, is committed to inquiring into patterns of interaction and collaboration. Unlike many other quantitative and qualitative methods in the social sciences which tend to use more formal instruments of data capture and analysis, the ethnographic method relies on an observer going into the field and ‘learning the ropes’ through questioning, listening, watching, talking, etc., with practitioners.

The task of the fieldworker is to immerse him/herself into the work and its activities with a view to describing these as the skilful and socially organised accomplishment of parties to the work. One obvious consequence of this is that in the first instance, at least, data collected will be of the 'messy' and unstructured variety. It may include interviews, observations of work sequences, anecdotes, speculations, and so on. The data gathered, in other words, usually takes the form of fieldnotes but is often supplemented by audio and video data.
Some key features of ethnography
  1. Ethnography is naturalistic:
    That is, it predicates its inquiries on the principle that studies should be studies of real people and their activities, operating in their natural environment, whatever that may be. An important justification of the approach is that it is not known in advance of inquiry just what the relevant features of some settings are. As such ethnography refuses to deal with artificial environments and controlled versions of work, and instead aims to study the natural environment of work and its activities
  2. Ethnography is prolonged:
    The main reason for prolongation is that for the most part ethnographers have no clear idea what they will find. Because there are in principle any number of aspects which may turn out to be interesting, and any number of things which may be mystifying, it will take time to form a coherent view of what is going on.
  3. Ethnographic enquiries seek to elicit the social world from the point of view of those who inhabit it:
    Ethnographies can be undertaken for any theoretical, analytical, or empirical purpose, and as a result ethnography is too diverse a set of practices to be described as a method. At a minimum, however, we would argue that ethnography is (should be) about uncovering the world from the point of view of the social actors within it. For this reason, although it is behavioural - interested in the detail of the behaviour to a greater or lesser extent - it is not behaviourist and it does not consider the behaviour itself as the appropriate level of analysis. The appropriate level is the significance of the behaviour for those who undertake it. Ethnography focuses on the social organisation of work activities. The fact that such work is socially organised is not a discovery of the social sciences. Rather the task of ethnography is to take this ‘obvious’ fact about human life and describe and analyse how this social organisation is accomplished, understood and achieved by social actors.
  4. Ethnographic data resists formalisation.
    Ethnography stresses the importance of 'context' or 'setting', and thus there can be no theoretical perspective which can explain in advance what one is likely to see in a new setting, nor any data which constitutes the 'right' data to be collecting. Ethnographic data takes a variety of forms and can include general descriptions of behaviours, descriptions of physical layouts, close descriptions of conversation, thoughts and feelings about what is going on, tentative hypotheses, examples, repeated occurrences, and so on. Inevitably, this makes it rather difficult to distil data down to an 'essential' form

In summary, the primary emphasis in our own ethnographic study is on understanding the everyday, practical accomplishment of leadership. Unlike other accounts of leadership the emphasis in this project is not on ‘theorising’ such work as exemplars or indicators of more general social processes, but on seeking to understand leadership through the provision of ‘thick descriptions’ (Geertz, 1973) of the practical, everyday, accomplishment of the work. While we are interested in how leaders and their ‘followers’ experience and talk about their experiences of leadership/followership, our main interest is on the practices, and the supporting technologies, of leading. This entails detailed observations of the everyday work of leadership - how and in what ways leadership 'gets done', what resources and techniques are deployed in the course of the working day and so on. The situated nature of the research seeks to provide a more sophisticated, empirically-based understanding of everyday leadership work which addresses the complex conditions, processes and outcomes of leadership practices in the learning and skills sector.

Ref: Geertz, C. (1973) The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books
Entry adapted from the CEL at this link
What methods will I have to use in my research?
The key methods will be:
Observing Interviewing Talking to tohers
Spend as much time as you can observing the behaviours of the subjects - make notes on these behaviours and if possible use video / audio recordings (you will need permission for this). Talk to the subjects both formally and informally - using structured and open questioning techniqued. Talk to the class teacher, to other teachers to the teaching assisstants, parents and anyone who knows the child
Some more on observation Some more on interviewing  

Contextual Data: Use the data that is available, class records, teaching notes, Fisher Family Trust
How should I write this up?

See the assignments pages for more information but you should write this up as a case study in an anedotal style as you are reporting on the "lived experiences" of your subjects.

You should use quotes from them either first hand spoken quotes, or samples of written (or other types) of work.

You can also use second hand sources but you will need to be aware of the cultural and social filters that will be in play when one person is talking about another.
Ethical questions or are there any "no-nos"

The research process is influenced by ethical considerations.

Most sociologists believe that participation in research should be based on:

  • informed consent,
  • that participants should be protected from harm,
  • that their privacy should be respected and their confidentiality assured.

This is covered by the agreement between the university and the partnership schools. So you do not need seperate permission to conduct this research as it is part of your teaching practice - this includes the conversations you might have with the children in your school - however you must ensure you anonysmise any reference in your assignment.

When you have completed your discussions with pupils:

  • make sure you keep the data in a secure location,
  • make sure you have anonymised the data (not using any details about the student or the school that would allow you to identify them),
  • once you have finished with the data you should destroy it.
Some useful links
Further Reading
  • Jeffrey, B and Troman, G (2004) Time for Ethnography, British Educational Research Journal 30:4 - download
  • Wikipedia entry on ethnography - link
  • Cohen, L; Manion, L and Morrison, K (2011) Researh Methods in Education (7th Ed.), Routledge, London - chapter 11 pp219-247