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Ethnographic Practice Module - Coggle Diagram
Ethnographic Practice Module
Unit 1. Observation
a) Initial and General
The greatest initial danger is that the interpretative frameworks developed during years of teaching activity impose the way in which we perceive the experiences of others, instead of turning ourselves into evaluation material.
Then we will be more open to the opinions of others. Therefore, participation contributes to the valuation. TO
At the same time, the researcher becomes a member and can operate by reflection and analogy, analyzing their own reactions, intentions and motivations, how and when they occur in the course of the process of which they are a part.
b) Determination of Elements
This is a much more flexible instrument, capable, in theory, of mixing with the environment, discriminating the material, exercising decisions and lessons, going from one place to another, interpreting.
Films and tapes are nothing more than aids in completing the primary source of material, which may require a great deal of filling on the part of the observer.
What the observer sees, hears, and experiences in person has no real substitute. Furthermore, everything that is presented to our gaze or our hearing is potentially relevant. In this we include much of what might otherwise be considered trivial.
c) Empathy and Rapport Process
Field researchers also have to be careful not to be exploited by informants.
There is a difference between establishing rapport and being treated like a puppet. No examination of rapport would be complete without measuring excessive rapport. Although there are examples of field researchers who went native, abandoning their role and joining the groups they were studying, the most common problem is over-identification with informants.
The problem of excessive rapport underscores the importance of establishing cooperative relationships such as team field research.
d) "Fly on the wall" technique
In ethnographic work, the links that are created with the subjects under study are very strong.
In truth, this is an indispensable requirement, as we have seen to understand their ways of life in a certain depth.
First of all, it is difficult not to exert any influence on the situation being observed, particularly in particularly sensitive areas such as classrooms.
Unit 2. Interview
a) Casual Unstructured
The less formal, more relaxed, less competitive, and more stimulating a feeling of community, the better.
As has been observed so far, all this has its source of naturalness, in the collection of things as they are, not as they are forced to be.
Consequently, great credit is given to conversations that take place within the normal course of events.
b) First Survey
Interviewers must constantly ask informants to clarify and elaborate on what they have said, even at the risk of appearing naive.
During the interview you should continue to inquire for clarification until you are sure what the informant means exactly; rephrase what he said and ask for confirmation; ask the interviewee to provide examples; point out what is not clear to us.
Their comments should also be followed, until you have a clear picture of the people, places, experiences, and feelings in their life.
c) Categorization and Second Survey
There comes a time when the mass of data incorporated into field notes, transcripts, documents has to be ordered with a certain systematicity, generally through classification and categorization.
At an elementary level, this simply applies to your own data. At this stage there may be no formation of concepts, import or discoveries of theories, creation of new thoughts.
The goal is to give the material a shape that is conducive to these ends, and this means ordering the data in a consistent, complete, logical, and succinct way.
d) Direct Questioning
The fact that the questionnaires cannot encompass the sense of process, flow, incoherence, contradiction that occupies the center of ethnographic work, can become an advantage, since in this way the questionnaires can contribute to the scythe cutting of social life and assist perception of structures and models.
An example of this is found in the sociometric questionnaire, which tries to discover who is related to whom in the group and in what way.
As a consequence, questionnaires can be useful in ethnographic work to the extent that their use conforms to its principles.
Unit 3. Field application
a) Institutional Dimensions
The affinity between teaching and ethnography makes this question less complicated than it would be for any other method.
Teachers have access to their own classroom and their own vision of it.
They participate in the decision-making and production processes of educational policy and may maintain very close relationships with some of their colleagues and students, but they may need to.
b) Specific Subjects
Observers expect informants to provide them with a deep understanding of the setting.
Since the investigation is limited in time and scope, the informants can narrate the stories of the scenarios and complete the researcher's knowledge of what happens when he is not present.
The right informant can make or break a study. But be prepared to backtrack into relationships formed early in a study as long as the circumstances demand it.
c) Analysis Records
Most of the official records and public documents are available to investigators.
The analysis of official documents opens up many new sources of understanding.
Materials that those seeking objective facts consider useless are valuable to the ethnographic researcher precisely because of their subjective nature.
d) Initial Reports
Some researchers record comments outside the transcript of their discussions with students and include them in the final report.
This helps connect the discussion to the main analysis.
They may represent a certain disorder since their object is rather to suggest lines of analysis, to indicate the path of possible connections with other data and with the literature, to indicate the direction of future research, than to constitute net and final results.
Unit 4. Construction of Categories
e) Empirical Rudimentary
Triangulation is usually conceived as a way to protect oneself from the researcher's tendencies and to confront and subject to mutual control the accounts of different informants.
By digging into other types and sources of data, observers can also gain a deeper and clearer understanding of the people studied and the settings.
Virtually all observers conduct interviews and analyze written documents during or at the completion of their field investigation.
b) Parallel Readings
Colleagues can be of great help in this brainstorming, whether in seminars, workshops, informal private consultations, or through an invitation to previous redactions of the material.
This helps us to model concepts, discover weaknesses, suggest alternatives, provide more data. One always needs a certain amount of critical appraisal.
As one works with data and literature, two other mental processes are discovered that contribute to later development and that, perhaps in a strange way, present a certain reciprocal opposition; one of them is logical; the other, conjectural.
c) Diagnostic test
The theory may be well founded in the data, it does not simply emerge or come into existence, nor is it so little immediately revealed.
However detailed and insightful the observations may be at a given stage, there must be a leap of imagination when the researcher conceptualizes from mere field notes.
This, like the later stages of theorizing, requires certain attitudes and qualities of creativity.
d) Initial Visions of Solution
The emphasis placed on the researcher as a fundamental research instrument, which contributes to making these problems seem personal than they really are; more personal than they really are.
The nature of research as an open dialogue process, between data collection and theory in which the search for ideas conspires against any anticipated conclusion.
In view of this, the need to consider the writing process as an important instrument for the production of ideas, and not only for their communication.