ETHNOGRAPHY CHAPTER 8 ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH IN LITERACY DEFINITION

ETHNOGRAPHY CHAPTER 8 ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH IN LITERACY

DEFINITION OF ETHNOGRAPHY • Ethnography is a methodology grounded in theories of culture. • Allows researchers to view literacy development, instruction, learning and practice as they occur naturally in sociocultural contexts. • Ethnographers aim to discover, understand describe human behavior holistically as it occurs within social and cultural contexts.

DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO ETHNOGRAPHY • Phenomenological/Interpretive • Ecological Approach • Critical Approach • Network Approach

PHENOMENOLOGICAL/INTERPRETIVE: • The researcher seeks to understand the world through the participants’ perspectives. • This lens assumes knowledge, beliefs, and values are socially constructed through social interaction and are constantly changing and evolving. • The researcher must live in participant’s world, interacting with group members, observing and interviewing. (Purcell Gates study)

ECOLOGICAL APPROACH • The researcher studies the ways that individuals and group of people are defined by social structures at different levels of influence: family, peers, school, work, community, society). • The ecological researcher observes behavior and elicits participant perspectives so that the analysis of systematic structures and meanings can proceed. • Ex: A researcher examines the different ways people in a community use literacy and how literacy practices are shaped.

CRITICAL APPROACH • Researcher takes a critical stance and views the world through a lens that forefronts inequality, oppression, and marginalization resulting from unequal power relationships. • The researcher and the participants inform one another and work together for empowerment and ultimate resolution of unequal power relationships. • The researcher is very involved in the lives of the participants. • Ex: Ellen Cushman’s (1998) ethnography of the ways in which inner city women use literate strategies to empower themselves within oppressive systems.

NETWORK APPROACH • This is a relatively new approach to literacy researchers. • Researcher study literacy as it is influenced by and occurs within social networks in specific cultural domains. • Takes on the lens of the sociologists. • Ex: the research of Deborah Brant’s Literacy in America in which the study documents how families pass on literacy to their children within times of social and technological change as well as the social impact of literacy skills of adults.

ETHNOGRAPHIC DATA COLLECTION • The Ethnographic researcher collects data as a participant/observer. • In the classroom the ethnographer is usually at the observer end of the continuum. Ex: Dyson’s study on writing • Field notes to record observations (hand written, audio tapes, video tapes) • Interviews are almost always a part of data collection. More formal and semi structured interviews are often used later in data analysis to further clarify or triangulate interpretations. • Artifacts and Archival data are often used by literacy researchers to provide physical evidence of literacy.

ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF ETHNOGRAPHIES • Validity in ethnography refers to the degree to which one’s data and interpretation correspond to “the way it is” with the phenomenon being studied. • Triangulation is a procedure used to ensure validity. The gathering of data from different sources. • Reliability is closely related to validity and can be achieved by building in the factor of time when designing the research study. • Field Entry involves the researcher building a relationship with the participants. In the classroom it is important to develop trusting relationships with classroom members.

SAMPLING • There are many different ways to approach selecting who to research as there are types of ethnographies. • Ethnographies in literacy usually involve convenience sampling that fit the research focus or question. • Purposeful sampling involves sample participants for a specific purpose. • Ex: I want to research teachers who implement writing workshop with ELLs so I will choose to observe in classroom where this is taking place. In doing so, I can examine my construct of interest.

DATA ANALYSIS • Intersubjectivity: A fundamental difference between analysis of ethnographic data and that of causal, correlational, and descriptive data lies within the epistemological lens used by ethnographers. Data analysis in ethnography is also considered interpretive, filtered through the researcher’s culturally learned frames for interpretation. Therefore several procedures are used to ensure that inappropriate conclusions are not drawn from this perspective. • * Search for disconfirming (negative) evidence. This will prevent the researcher from accepting early or favorable interpretations from data analysis without double checking that evidence may exist to disconfirm these perhaps biased findings. • * A search for negative evidence allows the researcher to discover nuances and variation in data that may lead to the discovery of new patterns and categories of interest.

DATA ANALYSIS (CON’T) • Data analysis begins in the field and continues past the time the researcher has left it. • Informant checking ensures greater validity. Researcher shares interpretations of data with study participants to gain their perspective. • Location refers to the researcher making clear their theoretical, methodological, and personal preferences and biases in their write ups to the extent that they may affect research processes or outcomes, so readers of ethnographies do not inappropriately interpret the researchers interpretation. • Organizing and coding data ( organizing notes, clarifying, synthesizing data from audiotapes, etc. ) for identifying emerging patterns, themes. • Intersubjectivity:

WRITING UP ETHNOGRAPHIC RESULTS • Researcher presents their interpretation of the data in this final phase which includes the meaning of the results of the analysis. • It is always helpful to return to the original question to focus on interpretation. • It answers the question: What’s going on here? What insights can we take away from this? • Ethnographies in literacy are often published as articles, chapters in books, or entire books (Bissex, Dyson, Calkins, Graves, Heath, Purcell-Gates). • The final presentation is referred to as “the telling of the story” • Final presentation is ethnography differs from other empirical research where data collection, analysis, results, and discussion are presented separately and in assumed temporal order.

CONCLUSION • In ethnography behaviors, values, and beliefs can never be viewed or analyzed outside social contexts of the communities of interest. • Partner Activity: Please look at the article and ask: • Which approach to Ethnography does this study use? • Does the study in the article follow the criteria stated in the PP? Theoretical framework, design, data sources/analysis, are any researcher bias made clear? (location) • Purcell-Gates, V. (2011). Ethnographic Research. In N. K. Duke, & M. H. Mallette (Eds. ), Literacy Research Methodologies (pp. 135154). New York, NY: Guilford Press.