Different children’s perspectives on their learning environment

This article reports and discusses findings from an ethnographic case study, aiming to gain a deeper understanding of how different children perceive their learning environment in the first grade of primary school, with regard to social as well as academic aspects. The theoretical framework is based on an interactional perspective, where children’s learning and development are considered to take place in a dynamic and ecological system. The reported results are based on interviews with 16 children, and observed teaching situations during the first year of primary school. Research among children demands special ethical considerations, such as how to avoid questions and interest from the researcher affecting the position of children being vulnerable in some way. The findings show that, within a group of children, facing a similar learning environment, there are significant differences between the experiences expressed. The findings presented support the importance of listening to children when planning educational settings. Listening to and taking into account the children’s different voices is an essential part of research and education that strives for inclusion, learning and well-being of all children.     

The unacknowledged value of female academic labour power for male research careers

Academic work in Sweden's higher education system is changing character. Distinctly different career pathways are emerging, as facilities for developing research careers and capital have become both more restricted and more dependent on external funding. These developments are in focus in the present article. Based on ethnographic research and a series of semi-structured interviews with new academics and senior academic mentors in education faculties, the research suggests that several factors intercede in how careers are developed and experienced. The unacknowledged exploitation of female academic labour is perhaps amongst the more significant of these.     

The identification of a value-based pedagogical pattern promoting ‘development of the person’ in higher education

The promotion of student development through engagement with a course of study in higher education (HE) is an area in need of urgent research. This study of college-based HE identified that teachers working with development in mind possessed a nexus of core values which were expressed in practice through an integrated pedagogical pattern (i) the development of trust, (ii) developing roles, relationships and a sense of community (iii) active confrontation and challenge and (iv) using pedagogical time and space. A naturalistic, ethnographic methodology and case study approach was used to answer the question ‘what is going on here?’ in contexts where ‘development of the person’ was a key aim. A sociocultural perspective on learning and development was adopted which supported an integrated approach to research design, analysis and interpretation.     

In Their Own Voices: An Ethnographic Perspective on Student Use of Library Information Sources

A medium-sized academic library system conducted a multi-year (2012–2016), large-scale ethnographic study using a survey, observations, and in-depth interviews. The goal of the project was to better understand how students conduct research and study in the library. The analysis of the large pool of data resulted in various reports of theoretical and practical nature. This article addresses one aspect of the findings: undergraduate and graduate student use of library resources. The findings offer an array of considerations for designing effective library services and provide a more nuanced understanding of how student use the library website, libguides, and library databases as well as print and electronic collections.     

‘Sent out’ and Stepping Back In: stories from young people ‘placed at risk’

This paper invokes the voices of young people who had been separated from mainstream schooling because they were positioned as ‘disengaged’ and ‘at risk of failing’. The authors argue that streaming students out of schooling needs serious questioning as an escalating number of young people are framed as non-performers within a globally competitive educational market. Throughout the paper we use critical ethnographic slices to expose the experiences of the 24 young people interviewed who together with mentors shared personal insights whilst attending a re-engagement programme in Australia in the year 2010. Their responses unearth a ‘wickedness’ and a preoccupation during their schooling with performance and school improvement. In response, we privilege student interpretations of their own marginalisation as an activist form of ‘speaking back’ to the social and economic conditions and limitations dominating their lives.     

Text messaging in the school lives of American high school girls

Digital technologies open new windows for ethnographic explorations of cultural experiences. In this paper, we examine text messaging among academically talented teenage girls of colour at three US urban high schools. Texting introduced a new communication modality into the girls’ lives and created a space for new discourses mediating their participation in school. We draw on the concept of ‘serious play’ to reveal the paradoxical nature of the girls’ texting. At each school, distinct text-messaged discourses emerged – with implications for ethnographic studies of discourse and young people’s commitments to schooling.     

西方对中小学生对抗行为的民族志研究及其对我国相关研究的启示

长期以来,西方学者对中小学生的对抗行为进行的大量的民族志研究发现,学生所表现出的对抗行为与他们的社会阶级结构、社会角色扮演、种族、性别身份等因素密切相关。而我国这一领域的相关研究在概念使用、研究方法、研究视角及理论原创性方面都与西方研究有着较大的差异。     

深度理解用户:图书情报领域民族志方法运用研究

[目的/意义]运用民族志方法研究图书馆及其用户,有助于洞察与满足用户需求。该方法在国外已形成应用潮流,然国内对此尚未足够重视,有必要予以引介与探讨。[方法/过程]阐述民族志方法在图书情报领域获得运用的背景知识和内在逻辑,分析国外实践案例的具体运用和实际成效。[结果/结论]民族志方法所具备的特质符合图书情报学研究趋势,且具有显著的实用意义,值得国内同行学习和借鉴。     

Proxy-produced ethnographic work: what are the problems,issues, and dilemmas arising from proxy-ethnography?

This article addresses the implications of researcher-student cooperation in the production of empirical material. For the student to replace the experienced researcher and work under the researcher’s supervision, we call such work proxy-produced ethnographic work. Although there are clear advantages, the specific relations and positions arising from such a set-up between the teacher/researcher and the proxy ethnographer/student are found to have implications for the ethnographies produced. This article’s main focus is to show how these relations and positions have shifted the focus of the ethnographic work and in some way have distorted the ethnographies in certain ways. It is shown how the participating researchers have distinctive, incorporated dispositions with which they pre-consciously participate in an implicit and subtle relation that can make it easy to overlook the distortions during the research process. These ethnographic distortions are generated within a framework drawn primarily on the work of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu.     

Social orders and interactions among children in age-mixed classes in primary schools – new perspectives from a synthesis of ethnographic data

The article synthesises data from two ethnographic projects, which both explore interactions of children in age-mixed groups in primary schools. It illuminates critical perspectives on social orders and children's interactions in age-mixed classes by showing how pupils in age-mixed groups become involved in power relations and how the teacher's authority and institutional rules are intricately interwoven into the social orders of the peer culture. The article highlights children's complicity with the teacher and her expectations and accordingly questions the notion of an increase of children's autonomy in age-mixed groups.