717 Class Notes

03.04.03

Ethnographies are documents

transaction and interpretations
diaologic -- not just realist, interptretive
looking backwards and forward

notions of Culture

initially "race"
assume culture is innate and physical and social
physical realist
pattens in wasy of life
whose culture is it
what patterns in interactions
how is it transmitted b/t generations

Similarities and differences

socio-historical context (Shirley Brice Heath Way with Words)
theories change
context similaritie and differences don't automatically transfer across racial and ethnic groups (there is no "minority" group)
need cultural determinants
any theory has pendulum swings in them

Interpretive Views of Culture

culture is a VanManean view -- something interpreted
actors are active -- agency

Webs of Significance

Geertz builds on Weber's "Webs of Meaning"
moved from Science to Interpretation
social Reproduction Theory
Marxist Theory floods ethnography
communities and family organize according to economic constraints
elites are CEOs
middle class are managers
lower class are workers
things are framed as good things that structure and constrain to benefit existing social hierarchy
two boys go into Kindergarten, Sam and Malcom. .judged on family structure and class, not ability.

Ethnic, Feminist & Postmodern Views of Culture

culture is not same as "social group"
globalization transformed it
old ideas ignore notions of power
culture is dynamic and emerging, and represents struggles among eople
identifying selves in relation to others
based on comparison
big interest is in border people, hybrids
culture evolves, people actively compose their own, rather than have it imposed, what is offered or pushed is appropriated by actors

Borderland People

have multiple, sometimes opposing messages and values that sometimes do not make sense.
most people who look at "identities" assume that we are all hybrid.
individuals are not defined by a single group, so we look at Quaker school boy campers whose fathers and grandfathers have attended FML (exotic other).
Marxist reading suggests that those with money can buy their social situation, and don't have to consider themselves as borderline, with fractured identities.

What kind of tool is Culture today?

some individuals subvert culture
individuals are not free to choose their culture, we are constrained by inter-subjective understandings of what is possible
I think that this is the multiple-choice idea of culture -- we are given a chance to choose (among these five choices) who we are. If we don't choose one of the above, we are lumped as "Other" and largely ignored

Cultural Productions

interplay between individuals and groups
Bakhtinian view -- anything we do comes out of a particular history, and projects to a planned future.
(30% of grade is on participation and attendance)

Ethnography brought to schools

definitions, turn-taking, the structured act of teaching as opposed to grocery store interaction (formal vs. informal)
the culture of schooling
is ethnographic work "scientific and causal"? the movement in Washington to decide what kind of work will be funded, what is seen as being "effective" in the genre of authority that is currently in power.
Educating for Romance by Eisenhart: how long do you have to be in a place to call it "ethnography"? Ray Riss in the 70s talks about blitzkrieg ethnography.
cyclical calendar (school year) -- building trust, seeing patterns, saturation,
Alan Peshkin wrote a shoddy ethnography, says "2 years needed to write an ethnography" because you need enough social ruptures to indicate the patterns.

Notes on Readings 3.25.03

Gee, Jim "Critical Literacy as Critical Discourse Analysis" (2001)

What social language(s) are represented in discourse?
what are some of the situated meanings of key words or phrases?
What significant cultural models are triggered by words or phrases?
What Discourse (big "D") is or could this discourse be part of, or relate to?

College Professor compared to Middle School teacher

Social Language

lexical level -- words and phrases
- CP: people of color, the society, the economy, third world, etc.
- MST: a little bit, playing the game, teaching the kids, wait a minute)
syntax level - sentence patterns
- CP: I think, real agents are abstract entities (society, economy, etc)
- MST: I say, Pronoun verb Object pattern
discourse level - connections across sentences
- CP: agent is vague
- MST: agent is teacher, kids, "we"
overall discourse design
- CP: reasoned argument
- MST: What we do and examples

Situated Meanings - Specific and situated in contexts (material setting, beliefs of people present, language before and after utterance, social relationships of involved, Identities (ethnic, gendered, and sexual), cultural , historical, and institutional factors.

Cultural models - tell people what is typical or normal in the world. (these are sort of similar to archtypical stories by Joseph whathisname.

Discourses - a distinctive way of using language integrated with other stuff (language and non-language), to enact a particular type of socially-situated identity. In other words, how/what does one do/say to be a "tough guy". (Generalizations? Stereotypes?)

Silverman, David "Analyzing Talk and Texts" in Handbook of Qualitative Research

Saussure (1974): signs derive meaning from their relations to other signs.
Wittgenstein (1968): the meaning of a word derives largely from its use
Foucault (1977): observation is at heart of prison reform.
Catholic confessional, psychoanalytic consultation, talk show, reality TV show, etc. in order to produce empathic understanding Barbara Walters, etc.
three linguistically mediated data: interviews, texts, transcripts

Interviews - "authentic gaze into the soul of another" (Chrissakes!)

realist approach: modernist, positivist view
narrative approach: interpretivist view
Richardson (1990) "participation in a culture includes a participation in the n arratives of that culture, a general understanding of the stock of meanings and their relationship to each other (p24)
questions for interviewers:.
- What status do you attach to your data?
- Is your analytic position appropriate to your practical concerns?
- Do interview data really help in addressing your research topic?
- Are you making too-large claims about your research?
- Does your analysis go beyond a mere list?

Texts - a heuristic (interpretive) device to identify data consisting of words and images that have become recorded without the intervention of a researcher.

coding devices only address what they're designed to address
we all code in daily life (stereotypes, filters, categories))
Advice:
have a clear analytical approach (Foucauldian discourse analysis, Saussurian semiotics, Sacks' analysis of membership categorizations)
Recognize that successful analysis of your data goes beyond a list
Limit your data

Transcripts

CA = conversation Analysis; DA = Discourse Analysis
the idea of completeness may be an illusion
analysisi of tapes depends on the generation of some research problem out of a particular theretical orientation.
Jennifer Mason (1996): formulate a research topic in terms of different kinds of puzzles, then work back and forth to see how the puzzle is resolved
Sacks (1992) in doing CA we are only reminding ourselves about things we already know
Qualitative Research is best viewed not as a set of freestanding techniques, but as based on some analytically defined perspective.

04.08.03 - Ken Zeichner

"When I originally designed the class I took flack…that's not research, it’s just something teachers do…"

Things that stimulated his thought when he reread the chapter.

The chapter that Sue and I wrote is not about Action research per se. AR is recursive, social, group process, etc.

MacIntyre calls her work PAR, and others do as well. KZ's PAR refers to community-based PAR, exploring oppression, with solution as a goal. PAR removes the subject-object terminology.
AERA SIG group is now the largest
Participant Action Research is now being rejected as an inaccurate term.
tens of thousands of teachers tend to use a more narrative approach.
Jeff Maas tends to do a more narrative approach
Classic classroom style AR: purpose is solving problem, enacting social change.
Narrative style AR: purpose is deeper understanding
When is it practitioner research/inquiry and when is it not? is not a simple question. Focus must be (in KZ's opinion) directed to one's own practice, not just a focus on the students.
PAR also questions the dominant political status, that researchers are the producers of research and teachers are the consumers of research is turned around to some extent. Teachers become knowledge producers. We can draw upon both practitioner based research and academic based research.
What is high quality research? 95% of Academic research KZ sees as bad research.

Criteria for "real research"

The idea that studying one's own practice is bad, or contaminated, is changing. Now folks are saying it's possible, but they can't agree yet on the criteria.
There should be a specific set of criteria. Some draw on Narrative, catalytic validity, things that 20 ears ago would be considered explosively radical.
Who should determine what "good" research should be? Mostly academics who have time to discuss it, not high school teachers. Academics don't have the right to declare what is "right" or "wrong" or what the criteria should be.
involved in attempt to synthesize Action Research in teacher education, looking at peer reviewed journals only. People were saying that you can't aggregate across a bunch of small sample size groups and apply it to anything. Now they're saying that maybe we can.
Scientific Research in Education (by NSI?) is a book they've been using to draw guidelines from. Final criteria is peer review, but that doesn't always measure up either. KZ moves back and forth.

Ways of representing teacher research

written research, reports (papers, journals, articles, books, etc.)
oral inquiries
readers theatre and other forms of Drama, photography, film, music, poetry (arts-based)
websites, k-12 Castl scholoars (Carnaegie Institute)

Questions

AERA SIG is almost no teachers. They have their own group (mostly female). Teacher self-study group is almost all professors and grad students (mostly men). When they are brought together, teachers feel that the university people dominate. Most teachers haven't even heard of AERA. Big disconnect between teachers and university researchers.

Narrative research often starts by teachers writing journals just to document the process. Madison asks teacher to document, eventually they identify practice and then critique and change it.

Action Research had a brief history. A lot of Teacher research is not AR.

Here's the deal though… it's mostly teacher-based, and it's mostly based on the institution of "school" -- rather than on the larger situation of education. So the studies focus on teachers and students, teachers and communities, teachers and "the system", etc. Not much, if anything, outside of the institution of "school"