Tallinn Draft
Time for Ethnography
Paper presented at the NorFa Pre-Congress 6-7th March 2002
by
Bob Jeffrey – The Open University – England and
Geoff Troman – Nottingham University – England
Please do not quote without permission
Abstract
Ethnography derives from traditional anthropology where time in the field is needed to discern the both the depth and complexity of social structures and relations. To the commissioners of research, the cost of extensive time in the field can seem exorbitant and unlikely to satisfy 'value for money' criteria in spite of the rewards to be gained from 'thick description' and a rich analysis that gets close to the 'subtle reality' of social life.
However, ethnographic time need not be perceived of as only a length of time over a long period up to a year or two. We suggest that there are different forms of ethnographic research time, each with specific features. Drawing on our experience of ethnographic research we exemplify some of these different forms. We conclude by suggesting that the selection of the appropriate form is dependent on the purpose of the research.
Time for Ethnography
Abstract......
Time for Ethnography
Introduction
People......
Contexts......
Time......
Ethnographic Fieldwork time modes......
A Compacted mode......
Panoramic Perspectives......
Metaphoric Invocations......
Highlighting Grand Theory Relevance......
Bringing out the colour......
A Selective Intermittent Mode......
Zooming into the relevant......
Catching the Serendipitous......
Exploring the depths......
A Recurrent Mode......
Incorporating the contradictory......
Searching for tensions......
Monitoring change......
Building narratives......
Identifying adaptations and coping strategies......
Conclusion......
Time for Ethnography
Fieldwork takes time. Does that make time the critical attribute of fieldwork? According to ethnographic tradition, the answer is yes.
(Wolcott 1995) p.77
Introduction
We have been researching the changing nature of teachers' work in the English education system for over a decade. Our various projects were all focused on primary teachers’ responses to recent educational reforms. We charted the adaptations of 'creative teachers' to the National Curriculum and other prescribed policy changes between 1992 and 1995 in eight primary schools (Woods 1990, 1993, 1995; Woods and Jeffrey 1996), showing teachers not merely responding to policy prescriptions but playing an active and creative role in the implementation process. Since 1995 three allied projects with ‘creative schools’ have taken place (Woods 2002; Jeffrey 2000, Forthcoming) which focus more on the creative learning of students. More recent work on school restructuring (Troman 1997; Woods et al. 1997) carried out between 1994 and 1996 and the impact of Ofsted inspections on primary teachers (Jeffrey and Woods 1998) carried out from 1995-9 reported a growth of constraint, intensification of work and increasing managerialism. It was clear from this research that stress was a major aspect of primary teachers' work in the mid 1990s, and indeed, occupational stress has become an urgent issue, both in teaching and generally and appears to be growing, causing much personal distress, financial cost, and educational counter-productivity (Bartlett 1998). Our most recent research on teacher stress, carried out from 1997-2000, focused on the social aspects of stress and teachers’ experiences of stress, to complement quantitative and psychological studies, which form the bulk of the existing literature. These four studies, creative teaching, the intensification of teachers’ work, the effects of Ofsted inspections on primary teachers and the experience of stress are the research projects we use to explore different forms of time in ethnography.
All our research sought to provide detailed qualitative material which was derived from using an ethnographic approach (consisting mainly of interviews, observation and documentary analysis), and involving long-term engagement in fieldwork in schools.
Our research approach is derived from classic ethnographies in the Chicago tradition of the 1920s and 1930s; what Woods (Woods 1996 p.32) refers to as the 'main line' of interactionist ethnography and derives from Mead, Blumer, Becker, Glaser and Strauss. The ethnographic work inspired by this movement is underpinned by symbolic interactionist theory. Symbolic interactionists concern themselves with the subjective meanings and experiences of individuals (Hitchcock and Hughes 1995). The emphasis here is on human beings' use and interpretation of symbols and on social life as constructed by 'generating meanings and making interpretations within small social groups' (ibid. p.34). Like Blumer, Woods (1996) stresses the importance of the 'empirical social world', that is
the minute by minute, day to day social life of individuals as they interact together, as they develop understandings and meanings, as they engage in joint action and respond to each other as they adapt to situations, and as they encounter and move to resolve problems that arise through their circumstances.
Woods (Forthcoming) argues that in order to study the empirical social world we must focus on social processes and this involves immersion in the setting over time.
Ethnographers are interested in how understandings are formed, how meanings are negotiated, how roles are developed, how a curriculum works out, how a policy is formulated and implemented, how a pupil becomes deviant. These are processual matters, not products. Social life is ongoing, developing, fluctuating, becoming. It never arrives or ends. Some forms of behaviour may be fairly stable, others variable, others emergent. Some forms of interaction proceed in stages or phases. This again emphasises the need for long and sustained researcher immersion in the field in order to cover whole processes and produce ‘thick description’ (Geertz, 1973) that will encompass this richness. Processes for example of cultural induction, labelling, identity formation, differentiation and polarisation, curriculum modification, friendship formation - all require lengthy involvement in the research field, otherwise only part of the process will be sampled, leading to misleading analyses. (Woods, Forthcoming, p. 5
Qualititative research has the capacity to make clear the connections between macro (structural) the meso (organisational) and micro (personal) levels. In the case of the stress research these levels were conceptualised as follows:
MACRO (structural) Level
intensification of work - school restructuring - education policy
MESO (organisational)Level
school organisation - teacher culture - teacher/pupil relationships
MICRO (personal) Level
personality - values - commitment - career - role
In this case stress is viewed as individually experienced but socially produced
Woods et al (1997) categorise influencing factors arising at structural (macro), organizational (meso) and personal (micro) levels and argues that these are interrelated (see also (Helsby 1999). As A. Hargreaves (1998 p.422) argues, these levels are not 'tightly insulated from one another' and 'structure and agency are relationally connected'.
The major considerations in our sampling are considered to be people, contexts and time, (Ball 1990; Hammersley and Atkinson 1995; Woods 1996).
People
The number of people to include in ethnographic research could be seen as only being limited by the number of people at any research site. Different categories of people are usually identified within a particular research context, for example, teachers, support workers, students, parents. If this argument is supported it is important to collect as many different relevant perspectives as possible from within categories and across categories. This aids triangulation or cystallization – multiple perspectives -(Richardson 1990) in the pursuit of the ‘subtle reality’ of the research site. An opposing argument is that put by Wolcott (1995). He argues that one person is enough because researching a person’s perspective over a length of time will bring to the surface the complexities and inter-relations of the research site together with the effects of macro and meso structural forces and the variety of coping strategies entailed in managing the process being researched. Between those poles exists a more pragmatic selection based on possible categories of people involved and the boundaries selected to carry out the research effectively. However, some people may not wish to be included, others may be excluded by hierarchies within research sites, e.g.: students and it may considered inappropriate to converse with some groups for fear of damaging the main research, e.g.: management if researching teacher practice.
Contexts
In studying teacher perspectives it is well known that behaviour 'can differ markedly in different situations' (Woods and Jeffrey 1996, p.43). Teacher behaviour has been found to change considerably between the settings of classroom and staff room (Sharp and Green 1975; Keddie 1971; Hammersley 1981; Lacey 1977). It is argued that observation of contexts about which respondents are talking is essential to ensure verisimilitude, to be able to compare their interviews with their classroom practice (Atkinson 1990). However, as with people, we are not always able to observe all the contexts of a research site. Consequently other methods need to be employed to maintain an ethnographic practice such as the acquisition of different people’s perspectives of a particular context unavailable to the researcher.
Time
It is important to spend time in the setting in order to attempt to penetrate the various 'layers of reality' in the school. An ideal length of time in the field is difficult to establish. Wolcott (1995) describes an ideal fieldwork term of two years as having become the standard as 'perhaps related to the success of Malinowski's inadvertently long fieldwork among the Trobrianders (he had to sit out World War I because of his Polish ancestry). Earlier anthropologists researching rural cultures had an ideal of twelve months minimum in order to study the annual cycle of the growing season. These days the realities of academic life and the pressures of funding bodies for quick completion make a twelve month minimum a luxury. Most often contemporary ethnographers, as we did, 'link brief visits that extend over a long period of time, so that the brevity of the periods is mollified by the effect of long-term acquaintance' (Wolcott 1995 p. 77).
However, we found that all our four main research projects were restricted in some ways in relation to these three features of ethnography. The creativity research rarely included conversations with management and limited itself to a sample of about 20. The intensification research used a similar sample but did not include any students’ perspectives or governors and parents and the stress research, again with about 20 in its sample did not speak to respondents colleagues or family. The creativity researcher did not inhabit the staff room regularly in contrast to the inspection and intensification research, where he saw this as a prime site and the stress researcher did not visit any of the work sites of the sample although interviews were often carried out in people’s homes. The length of time spent on each project was similar but there were differing time features.
Tome for ethnography is a major issue for both practitioners and commissioners of research. We focus, in this paper, on different kinds of time in ethnography and attempt to distinguish some of their features.
Ethnographic Fieldwork time modes
Time on a research project has a number of features. The total length of a research project may be defined by the researcher indicating its closure as a research project; however, some projects are built upon the whole of a researchers life even though the people and the contexts may alter, so an ethnography may become a long episodic narrative. Ethnographic projects are never finished, only left, with their accounts only considered provisional and tentative (Walker 1986). Further, the ‘whole project’ period does not mean that researchers work on research projects full time, for they may have other work activities alongside the research. Project length needs to be defined in terms of a specific start and a (temporary) closure point and researchers need to be explicit about the amount of actual time spent on any research project in terms of field work, analysis and interpretation and writing. Our four projects have similar time parameters from two to three years and with about 63% of the researchers’ full time employment being allocated to the research. (Other work included university responsibilities, preparing new proposals, and contributing to the academic world through reviews, attending conferences and consultations). Fieldwork took approximately 30% of project time with 70% being allocated to analysis and writing. One year of any of the four projects included here could therefore be calculated as 63% of 200 annual working days = 133 per year. Of this number of days, approximately 45 days were allocated to fieldwork per year.
However, there is a second feature of time that affects the research practice itself and that is the frequency with which researchers’ visited sites. The frequency might vary according to access limitations, project time available and the research orientation. We have identified three types that determine, to some extent, the nature of the ethnographic practice. They are fieldwork time modes, a ‘compacted’ mode, an ‘intermittent’ mode and a more systematic ‘recurrent’ mode. Each has specific features that highlight different aspects of an ethnography and each may well be considered different types of research although in some cases they are all incorporated into one research design. Nevertheless, the exploration of their differences illuminates the varying time elements that can be employed in ethnography. We explore these with reference to our four research projects.
A Compacted mode
A compacted mode involves a short period of intense ethnographic research in which researchers inhabit a research site almost permanently for anything from a few days to a month. Researchers live the life of the inhabitants as far as is possible. A researcher on a project designed to gain a whole picture of a community or institution would, if possible, seek access to as many site contexts and people as possible. In the case of a school, this would be the classrooms, staff rooms, meetings, the playground, assemblies, class visits, school journeys, social gatherings of parents and teachers. This type of ethnography captures the dynamics of a context, documenting the visible and less tangible social structures and interactions. Observation and field notes are a central part of the data as opportunities for conversations with inhabitants is more limited as they go about their business and the time frame is short. Everything is recorded in an intense experience where the relevancy of any observation will not be immediately clear. There will be a lot of hanging around soaking up every tiny detail in case it might be of some particular significance in the later analysis. The nature of the site’s routines is explored including the tensions between them and within them, any disturbances to those routines and the effects of these on the sturdiness of those routines.
Panoramic Perspectives
The observation of many contexts and interactions with people at a site may well lead to a proliferation of perspectives with which to initially portray the site. Peter voluntered to join a school journey to the Isle of Wight for a week with year 6 students. The opportunity provided him with a ready made research project. His early observations and thoughts indicate the breadth of his compacted task.
From a front seat on the top deck of the coach, I have a good view of the beautiful English countryside, very lush and verdant after all the rain, and in full flower in the bright sunshine. Somebody's finger hurts. Hannah asks at 9.10 a.m. if it's nearly lunchtime. I reflect on the transition taking place for both children and parents. Another one of those key moments, first time away from home and away from parents. And coming at the end of their primary days, preparatory to secondary school and to secondary socialisation. The main features seem to be:
-de-institutionalization (away from school, far away in fact - an additional feature. There is no going back for an evening, no nipping down the road on a bike)
-communitas - very noticeable at mealtimes, inside and out, and at times on and near the coach. The coach a very interesting situation.
-educational, but different from normal activities. How different - subject matter first hand, on-site, new instructors; new methods; extra-National Curriculum; combined with play….
-party atmosphere. The emotional aspect very important, to counter the sadness of departure and of home-sickness, but also to celebrate the transition
-the hotel, cf public boarding school; and cf Hackleton School. What kind of institution is the hotel + excursions? It combines family, school and holiday functions. Compare the 'total institution'. They are all together for 5 whole days, 24 hours a day, and there is no escape. Parents and pupils have been advised not to make phone calls, as this increases homesickness. But the emphasis is on the upbeat, character formation, personal growth, quite the opposite to the mortification of Goffman's total institutions and to some public, boarding schools. Here, the total institution only applies for five days, so a more balanced progression is secured.
-meeting new people in different roles e.g. PW and the student teachers. And their teachers in more expansive roles, and in new places, all eating and sleeping in the same place.