Empowerment through sex education? Rethinking paradoxical policies

Youth empowerment is the main goal of sex education according to Dutch Government and NGO policies. Academics from different disciplines have argued, however, that the ideal of empowerment through education is problematic, because of the unequal power relations implicated in educational practices. Building on one-and-a-half years of online and offline ethnographic fieldwork among Dutch youth, this article argues that Dutch sex educational policies inhibit rather than encourage young people’s empowerment by allowing only a limited number of sexual knowledge building practices to thrive while making others nearly impossible. In order to facilitate young people’s empowerment, policies should aim to create space for young people to develop their own themes and priorities, to offer a multitude of perspectives, to set the pace and to use different strategies for sexual knowledge building, including learning by doing and online learning. This requires a cultural shift that involves both an openness to young people’s experimentation, and a change in existing power hierarchies based on age.     

Enhancing communicative spaces for fieldwork education in an inland regional Australian university

The diversity of fieldwork education models and practices ranges from mandatory to voluntary, from graded to ungraded, from paid to unpaid spectrums and they vary in length from less than a week to up to one year. Colleagues who work in the same university but in different schools, faculties or campuses are often so busy working within their discipline‐specific arena that there seems to be little opportunity to learn from and collaborate with other disciplines about fieldwork education programs. This paper provides a report on a project that trialled and evaluated an online debate with university staff about fieldwork education issues. The aims were to establish a sustainable university‐wide fieldwork education discourse, to break down profession‐specific silos, to inform the development of university‐wide fieldwork education benchmarks and to foster fieldwork education leadership through online debates. The findings demonstrate that, collectively, participants shared a wealth of experience and wisdom that remained largely untapped at a university‐wide level. Participants’ evaluation highlighted the perceived value of creating a communicative space for a fieldwork education discourse and it exposed aspects of the online environment and time constraints as its biggest barrier.     

Investigating the lives of new teachers through ethnographic blogs

This article addresses key issues embedded within what some commentators are describing as a ‘virtual’ or ‘digital’ ethnography. Namely, that through the adoption of new (virtual) spaces for ethnographic inquiry it is possible to trouble previous notions of site, place, space and meaning when collaborating in online fields. This article is located within a growing international debate in the field of education concerning digital ethnographic methods. While addressing the issues of what is ‘virtual ethnography’ the article draws briefly upon research based on a period of online ‘field work’ which has lasted for 18 months, exploring the transitional habitual social practices of new teachers as they enter first-time full-time employment in the UK This inquiry positions both the researcher and participants as co-constructors of both the site of virtual interaction, and to a certain extent, as collective decision-makers as what contributes as field and field notes. The article will explore the emerging methodological practices behind this virtual ethnography, exploring the potential use of blogs as an ethnographic tool.     

Sites unseen: Ethnographic research in a textual community

Recent writing on the subject of ethnography has sought to examine the field not only as a place where research is carried out, but also as a methodological construction. While this writing emphasizes the extent to which people's experiences of community and culture can no longer be necessarily understood in relation to geographically based locations, it often continues to assert the "legacy of the field" (Clifford, 1997, p. 88) and its accompanying expectations and practices. In this article, I draw on my experience of doing ethnographic research in the textual community of 'zines in order to challenge the assumption that ethnographic fieldwork is necessarily dependent on physical displacement, and face-to-face encounters with our research participants. Specific attention is paid to the epistemological and ethical issues that emerge when one chooses to carry out research in textual communities. Intentionally foregrounding the parallels between the textual community of 'zines and the virtual communities associated with the Internet, this article also raises important questions for ethnographers carrying out research in networked environments.     

Teachers' embodied presence in online teaching practices

This study aims to examine teachers' embodiments online. The analysis is based on online ethnographic data from two online courses in higher education settings using different information and communication technologies. The perspective of practice theory and the concepts of being a body, having a body and the instrumental body were used to analyse how teachers step into an embodied presence. The embodied presence depends on both teacher judgements and what the technology offers. The finding adds to the understanding of the concept of teacher presence online, in showing that teacher embodiment occurs online and furthermore that the body could be understood as multiple. The result also shows how online and offline bodies hang together, actualising the offline body in the online setting, which in turn raises questions on the dualism of online and offline. Teachers also deliberately used their embodiments and bodily traces online in order to sustain presence and to bring about certain teaching practices. Their bodily positioning signalled what kind of teaching that would take place. A deliberate positioning of the online body in a virtual world also helped to reduce the complexity of the arrangements for the students.     

Youth online political expression in non-political spaces: implications for civic education

ABSTRACT

Based on an in-depth qualitative content analysis of post-election discourse in three online creative communities (Scratch, Archive of Our Own, and hitRECord), we examine the significance of youth political expression in non-political online spaces, and its implications for civic education. We find that these spaces offer a valuable window into the main concerns experienced by youth around the election, which they voice through unique modes of expression. Online spaces facilitate connections between the personal and the political, while highlighting the social aspects of youth participation and learning in regard to civic issues. At the same time, participants exhibit uncertainty regarding the limits of online expression and the potential consequences of speaking out. We argue that online spaces should be acknowledged as a significant channel for youth political expression and socialization, and consider how the practices encountered there could shape our approach to civic education.     

Multi-sited global ethnography and travel: gendered journeys in three registers

This paper joins a barely begun conversation about multi-sited and global ethnography in educational research; a conversation that is likely to intensify along with growing interest in the links between education, globalisation, internationalisation and transnationalism. Drawing on an ongoing multi-sited global ethnography of elite schools and globalisation, this paper explores the role of travel in multi-sited global ethnography and offers a feminist engagement with it. It considers the idea of fieldwork as a travel practice through three different travel registers; the traveller’s tale, critical travel studies and travel as exile. In so doing, it illustrates the reflexive affordances each register offers with regard to the directions of our feminist inquiries into elite schools and our feminist ethnographic practices.     

Liminal spaces constructed by primary schools in predominantly white working-class areas in England

ABSTRACT

Despite successive policy interventions, students’ socio-economic status continues to strongly predict educational outcomes. Many schools aspire to ‘close’ this ‘gap’. This paper presents an ethnographic study of a group of Primary schools in predominantly white working-class areas in the Midlands of England. Generating ethnographic data through time-recurrent, multi-sited fieldwork including observation, informal conversations, semi-structured interviews, photography and documentary analysis, findings were constructed through critical dialogue between the group of six researchers. A concept of liminal spaces is used to analyse the schools’ work in seeking to move individuals, families, and communities beyond that which they previously knew, foregrounding norms, practices, and discourses constructed on the ‘inside’, and highlighting aspects in tension with the imagined ‘outside’. These schools’ conceptualisations of poverty are shown to be complex and multifaceted, and suggestions are made to employ liminality for articulating and critically exploring the spaces and transformations that schools seek to construct.     

Off the Record: Police Surveillance,Muslim Youth,and an Ethnographer’s Tools of Research

Surveillance practices are becoming increasingly insidious, finding their way into nearly every aspect of public and private life in the United States. Surveillance by state policing agencies have particularly targeted and criminalized communities of color. Such practices are not simply a new context, but are part of a broader carceral state, structuring all aspects of social life. Drawing upon a year and a half of ethnographic fieldwork with Muslim youth in New York City, I attempt to engage in a practice of “uncomfortable reflexivity” to ask how living within a carceral state that actively surveils Muslim communities affected the ways in which Muslim youth engaged me, a social researcher, and the tools I used to collect data. This research recognizes that youth are not simply there for researchers to take knowledge from, even if “insider” researchers have meaningful relationships with them. Rather, this research depicts that young people are carefully engaged in thoughtful and creative ways to ensure their own safety is protected. Ultimately, this study points to the necessity of research that is both self-reflective in its design as well as in its ability to make claims about youth experiences.     

The only honest thing: autoethnography,reflexivity and small crises in fieldwork

There has been a rising acceptance of autoethnography in the past 15 years. Instead of studying social phenomena, in an appropriately reflexive way, some scholars have taken to researching themselves. Drawing on concrete examples from an ongoing ethnographic project, the paper contrasts the beneficial, even essential, practices of autobiographical and reflexive thinking about fieldwork with the narcissistic substitution of autoethnography for research.     

The sound of music: Constructing science as sociocultural practices through oral and written discourse

In this article, we examine the oral and written discourse processes in a high school physics class and how these discourse processes are related to sociocultural practices in scientific communities. Our theoretical framework is based on sociological and anthropological studies of scientific communities and ethnographies of classroom life. We review the use of discourse analysis as a methodological orientation in science education and provide a logic‐of‐inquiry framing how we used discourse analysis in our ethnographic research. Our ethnographic analysis showed that, through students' participation in creating scientific papers on the physics of sound, their appropriation of scientific discourse was related to the framing activities of the teachers and the social practices established over time in the classroom. Our textual analysis of the student papers focused on how they used evidence to make claims. We explore the lessons learned from participating in the classroom of these students. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 36: 883–915, 1999     

The social value of anonymity on campus: a study of the decline of Yik Yak

ABSTRACT

This paper considers the social value of anonymity in online university student communities, through the presentation of research which tracked the final year of life of the social media application Yik Yak. Yik Yak was an anonymous, geosocial mobile application launched in 2013 which, at its peak in 2014, was used by around two million students in the US and UK. The research we report here is significant as a mixed method study tracing the final year of the life of this app in a large UK university between 2016 and 2017. The paper uses computational and ethnographic methods to understand what might be at stake in the loss of anonymity within university student communities in a datafied society. Countering the most common argument made against online anonymity – its association with hate speech and victimisation – the paper draws on recent conceptual work on the social value of anonymity to argue that anonymity online in this context had significant value for the communities that use it. This study of a now-lost social network constitutes a valuable portrait by which we might better understand our current predicament in relation to anonymity, its perceived value and its growing impossibility.     

Online child sexual exploitation and abuse: A community diagnosis using the social norms theory

This study focused on the drivers of online child sexual exploitation and abuse (OCSEA) among Filipino children and youth, with emphasis on community norms. An ethnographic qualitative study was conducted in two communities in MetroManila that are considered “hotspots” for child sexual abuse. One hundred and forty-four (144) males and females from various age groups served as key informants. Political officials, Internet shop managers, professionals and police officers were also interviewed. Non-participant observations and mapping were used to provide context regarding OCSEA in the communities.The results revealed that OCSEA was committed online by heterosexual and same sex attracted men in their 40s–50s. The usual victims were girls aged 13–17 years, although boys were also noted. The victims came from poor families and were out-of-school. The various forms of online activities leading to OCSEA included sexual chatting, showing of child sex photos and live videos as well as sextortion. The online transactions were usually initiated by the peer group and some enablers. In general, online sexual activities were perceived as “normal” among young people, although regarded as “disgusting”. Online sex activities had become a source of “easy money” for the child and family. They were perceived as not harmful because of anonymity and the absence of any actual physical contact. People in the community tolerate these online practices and do not report the incidence to authorities. The effects on children and youth were predominantly social and psychological, albeit perceived as economically beneficial. Some preventive and mitigating actions were recommended to curb the incidence of OCSEA in the communities.     

Assessing the impact of women's literacies in Bangladesh: An ethnographic inquiry

The paper is based on ethnographic fieldwork in the north-west of Bangladesh. It explores conceptual and methodological issues involved in assessing the impact of adult literacy acquisition on social development. The paper compares ethnographic perspectives on literacy within the ‘New Literacy Studies’, and the conceptual framework provided by the ‘Livelihoods Approach’. In terms of women's literacy, the paper argues that instead of seeing the process as one of ‘skills’ acquisition, impact assessment should also examine processes of negotiation and resistance over new gender roles and identities. The risk and vulnerability associated with subaltern literacy practices, and women's literacy in particular, mean that such practices often remain hidden, and are conducted surreptitiously. Such a perspective has implications in terms of how we understand literacy, and the methods employed in impact assessment. These issues are examined in relation to both secular and religious (Koranic) literacies.     

Teachers ‘liking’ their work? Exploring the realities of teacher Facebook groups

Social media are now an important aspect of the professional lives of school teachers. This paper explores the growing use of mass ‘teacher groups’ and ‘teacher communities’ on social media platforms such as Facebook. While these online communities are often welcomed as a means of professional learning and support, the paper considers the extent to which Facebook groups also expose teachers to some of the less beneficial aspects of social media, such as various forms of ‘digital labour’, commercialisation of exchanges and predominance of individualised reputation‐driven behaviours. Drawing on a detailed examination of a Swedish teacher Facebook group of over 13,000 members, the paper first addresses aspects of the online community that could be seen as professionally beneficial and/or valuable—particularly in terms of information exchange and social support. Yet while perceived by participants as a relatively beneficial and uncontroversial aspect of their working lives, the research also points to characteristics of the Facebook group that constituted disadvantaging, exploitative and/or disempowering forms of technological engagement. In these terms, the paper highlights tensions between what appears to ‘work’ for individual teachers in the short term and likely longer‐term implications that these practices might have for diminished professionalism and expertise of teachers.     

感同身受:教育民族志方法的情感向度

教育民族志是把人类学的民族志方法应用于教育研究领域所形成和发展的术语,是教育研究的基本方法之一。通过比较分析两位作者的田野经历和反思,主张将研究者“感同身受”式的情感体验作为理解教育民族志的重要维度。具体而言,研究者的情感体验包括三个层面:日常性、讽刺性和生成性。即便都是研究“教育”问题,都以“学校”为田野地点,研究者也常常因遇到文化氛围迥异的学校而有极为不同的情感体验。研究者的这种情感体验和反思对于探究研究对象的日常生活及其价值意义系统有着极为重要的意义。     

ARTICLE WITHDRAWN: Teacher Educators as Cultural Workers: Problematizing Teacher Education Pedagogies

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on what we learned as online teachers about relational contexts in our online courses using a self-study of teacher education practices methodology. Using the curriculum commonplaces of teacher, learner, subject matter, and milieu, we inquired into the design and implementation of our online courses. A responsive audience at the 2018 international self-study conference moved our work forward. We consider the ways the curriculum commonplaces interact and inform each other. A significant aspect was the shaping of milieu across distance. The ontological basis of Self Study of Teacher Education methodology resides in attention to practice and relationship, which clearly supports a focus on the relational in this online teaching context.     

Bringing our communities to the research table: the liberatory potential of collaborative methodological practices alongside LGBTQ participants

Research on and about queer people and topics in higher education continues to evolve, expand, and push boundaries on identity, policy, and programming, increasingly informed by our narratives and experiences. Thus far, this work has done little to dismantle the imposed binary of researcher and subject(s), relegating queer research and practice as something that is done ‘on,’ ‘to,’ or ‘for’ queer people, rather than ‘with’ them. Collaborative ethnographic methodologies and communities of practice (CoP) provide alternative modes of scholarship and practice that build queer people’s agency through active involvement in research and social change processes. Situated in two of our own examples, our purpose is to explore big questions and raise even more. This article calls for a further queering of LGBTQ research in higher education by utilizing collaborative methodologies such as CoP and collaborative ethnography to improve the strategies, practices, and knowledge of campus queer communities and imagining new democratic and liberatory realities together.     

The role of online communities and the impact of educational social media on Saudi female college students in the United States

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the role of online communities and the impact of educational social media on 14 Saudi female college students who were studying in the United States. The findings revealed that social media was important to the participants for maintaining relationships and seeking out information from others. Social media was also an important way for participants to remain close to their communities and keep in contact with Saudi friends and family; however, the use of social media to interact with their communities was often shaped by Saudi cultural expectations. Most of the participants enjoyed online education and interacting with others in an online educational setting because it promotes collaborative learning and cultural interaction. Overall, social media used for educational purposes was mostly seen by the participants as a positive and beneficial part of their educational experiences.