Theorizing Class Through Ethnography
*Ethnography: Ethnography is both a method of research as well as a type of text. Ethnography as a research method is most closely associated with the discipline of anthropology. Ethnographies are also monographs (texts) that are, more often than not, based on the method of participant-observation – in which the ethnographer (the researcher) produces knowledge and a text by being physically present (e.g. participating and observing the lives/experiences of the people he/she is interested in). As such, ethnographies are usually focused on relatively small groups of people and are based on long-term intensive fieldwork – research – traditionally in one location (although this is changing with “multiple-site ethnography”).
For those who question whether class and other identities matter in education, there are numerous ethnographic studies that demonstrate the way social class frames educational opportunities and relationships between communities and schools. These studies have turned our attention to the lived experiences of poor and working-class students. Through ethnographic and other forms of qualitative investigation, some researchers have highlighted the relationship between social class and access to knowledge (Anyon, 1981; Hemmings & Metz, 1990; Metz, 1986; Oakes, 1985; Page, 1991). Working-class students, for example, have been found to receive unequal access to knowledge because of academic tracking and differential teacher expectations.
Many critical ethnographers have focused on working-class students’ creative and often resistant responses to schooling (Fine, 1991; Weis, 1990; Willis, 1977). These scholars have focused on working-class students as active agents in their own education. In his seminal book Learning to Labor, Paul Willis (1977) found that working-class boys created a culture of resistance and opposition to school that ultimately contributed to their class reproduction. By identifying working-class boys as active agents in their education, Willis challenged purely structural accounts of education that focused on the role of schools in reproducing existing class inequalities (Bowles & Gintis, 1976).
Even good ethnographies, however, are limited in their ability to show the fluidity of social life; ethnographies often freeze people, cultures, and communities in time.
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THE ETHNOGRAPHIC METHOD
ReplyDeleteEthnography, which seeks to understand and represent the points of view of the members of a particular culture, is a primary approach to data collection and analysis in anthropology. As in other forms of qualitative research, the data collected are rich in their descriptions of people, places, languages, and events. Ethnographers conduct extensive fieldwork during which they listen carefully to what people say, directly observe their behavior, and study the products of their behavior. Their goal is to make detailed observations of behavior with a minimal amount of distortion and ethnocentric bias.
This classic anthropological method has been used successfully by various researchers in education. For example, authors in Cazden, Hymes, and John (1972) used ethnographic methods to explore the social functions of language use in the classroom. Erickson and Mohatt (1982) used direct observation, videotaping, and interviews to study the organization of social relationships in two classrooms of culturally similar children (Odawa and Ojibwa, in Northern Ontario) whose teachers had different cultural backgrounds from theirs.
THE ETHNOGRAPHER'S TOOLS
ReplyDeleteEthnographic research can be characterized by its multi-instrumental approach. A cornerstone of ethnographic methodology is participant observation, in which the observer becomes part of the community being studied in order to understand the subjects' point of view. Many ethnographers spend years living and working as participant observers in the communities they study. Michael Armstrong (1980), for example, spent an entire school year observing and teaching children in a British primary school class to study intellectual growth and its enabling conditions (p.13). His book, "Closely observed children," is a meticulous account of what he observed. Heath (1983) spent several years examining the literacy tasks that people in three communities in the Carolina Piedmonts routinely encountered. This helped her to understand their use of oral and written language and how that use might influence classroom practices.
In addition to participant observation, with extensive note taking and possibly audio- or videotaping, data gathering techniques include interviewing informants and compiling biographical data on them, collecting genealogies and life histories, taking photographs or making films, administering questionnaires or surveys, and eliciting ratings and rankings. These and other forms of instrumentation assist the ethnographer in attaining a holistic view of the culture studied.
Since ethnographers do not set out to test pre-established hypotheses but instead try to describe all aspects of the community they are studying in the greatest detail possible, they structure and refine their research as they proceed. Thus, the collection and analysis of data affect the design of the research.
USING ETHNOGRAPHIC TOOLS IN DESIGNING WORKPLACE LITERACY PROGRAMS
ReplyDeleteTeachers, administrators, or researchers seeking to design workplace literacy programs sensitive to their learners needs do not need to spend years collecting data and conducting full-blown ethnographic studies. Instead, they can learn a tremendous amount about the home, school, and community contexts of their clients by using some of the ethnographic techniques described above. For example, in a study of the on-the-job reading practices of 42 service and clerical workers of the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company in Washington, DC, Kirsch and Guthrie (1982) found that the amount of time workers spent engaged in various types of reading activities significantly predicted their performance on related tasks.
Kirsch and Guthrie's findings are consistent with other ethnographic research which has shown that workers can and do acquire competencies to meet their particular occupational and personal needs. Sticht (1982), for example, found that people can enhance their ability to perform particular types of reading tasks at work, even though they may not make gains in what he terms "general" reading. Marginally literate adults enrolled in a job-related reading program made approximately twice the gains in performance on job-related reading tasks than they did on standardized reading tests, which measured generalized reading ability.
Through ethnographic approaches, including participant observation, questionnaires, and interviews, Castaldi (1989) found that union employees, including both native and non-native speakers of English enrolled in degree programs, experienced significant overlap among their worlds of work, school, and family. Their success with school-based writing was closely correlated with the ways they used writing in their jobs. For example, union secretaries who regularly cut out and highlighted newspaper articles for their employers used these newspapers as models for their essay writing in college. Thus, through their work activities, these women learned to construct their academic writing. As a result of this study, classroom teachers and administrators began to examine closely the working backgrounds of their students before planning course curricula.
Shore and Platt (1984) found that cultural and social factors played a large role in Samoan immigrants' adaptation to the American workplace. The high value placed on human relations within the Samoan community radically differed from employers' expectations of punctuality and consistent attendance on the job. Also, young Samoans, who acted in a submissive manner in the presence of older adults, did not communicate well in interviews conducted by older employees, especially when asked questions about their personal achievements. Samoans of all ages acted as if they had understood directions when in fact they had not, so complex orders were often misunderstood. Finally, the Samoans studied were accustomed to hands-on educational experiences, so that abstract "blackboard explanations" given in class were confusing and alienating. These findings have profound implications for both the workplace and the design of worker education programs for these individuals.