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Journal Article

Developments in Ethnographic Research in Education: From Interpretive to Critical Ethnography.

About: This article is published in Journal of research and development in education.The article was published on 1986-01-01 and is currently open access. It has received 50 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Critical ethnography & Cultural analysis.
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Critical ethnography as discussed by the authors seeks to free individuals from sources of domination and repression by identifying the dialectical relationship between the social structural constraints on human actors and the relative autonomy of human agency.
Abstract: Interpretivist movements in anthropology and sociology have recently merged with neo-Marxist and feminist theory to produce a unique genre of research in the field of education known as “critical ethnography.” Critical ethnographers seek research accounts sensitive to the dialectical relationship between the social structural constraints on human actors and the relative autonomy of human agency. Unlike other interpretivist research, the overriding goal of critical ethnography is to free individuals from sources of domination and repression. This review traces the development of critical ethnography in education, including a brief discussion of its view of validity; discusses its current status as a research genre; and describes criticisms and suggests new directions.

603 citations


Cites background from "Developments in Ethnographic Resear..."

  • ...(For a more complete discussion of these issues than will be found in this review, see Angus, 1986a; Comstock, 1982; Lather, 1986a, 1986b; Masemann, 1982; Reynolds, 1980-1981; Simon & Dippo, 1986; Thomas, 1983; and West, 1984.)...

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  • ...Other studies that have explored the dynamics of race, gender, and class in student subcultures include those of Angus, 1986b; Aggleton, 1987; Aggleton and Whitty, 1985; Brah and Minhas, 1985; Corrigan, 1979; Humphries, 1981; Jenkins, 1983; and Macpherson, 1983....

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  • ...ethnographers who have taken care to build procedures for "objectivity" into their work (see the critique of Willis by Hammersley & Atkinson, 1983; the critique of Everhart by Cusick, 1985a, 1985b; and the critique of Anyon by Ramsey, 1983). Critical ethnography is, after all, what Lather (1986a) called "openly ideological research." The apparent contradiction of such value-based research with traditional definitions of validity has left critical ethnography open to criticism from both within and outside of the ethnographic tradition. Of course, critical ethnographers engage in standard practices associated with what Lincoln and Guba (1985) called the "trustworthiness" of ethnographic research, such as member checking and triangulation of data sources and methods....

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  • ...The result of the interpretivist movements in both disciplines was to highlight the importance of symbolic action and "to place human actors and their inteφretive and negotiating capacities at the centre of analysis" (Angus, 1986a, p. 61)....

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  • ...ethnographers who have taken care to build procedures for "objectivity" into their work (see the critique of Willis by Hammersley & Atkinson, 1983; the critique of Everhart by Cusick, 1985a, 1985b; and the critique of Anyon by Ramsey, 1983). Critical ethnography is, after all, what Lather (1986a) called "openly ideological research....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors argue that meaning management is a primary role of school administrators and that, because of the legitimation of dominant constructions of organizational and social reality many social phenomena have been rendered invisible.
Abstract: This article advocates a critical constructivist approach to educational administration that combines the explanatory power of constructivist social theory with the insights of critical theory. The author argues that "meaning management" is a primary role of school administrators and that, because of the legitimation of dominant constructions of organizational and social reality many social phenomena have been rendered invisible. The author further argues that researchers in the field of educational administration continue to perpetuate functionalist paradigms with a heavy management! control perspective and research methods incapable of capturing the sense-making processes of social actors and the subtle ways in which dominant social constructions are accomplished in schools and school districts. The article establishes the need for research accounts that explore the school administrator's legitimation role, describes a mediation model that provides access to the invisible ways dominant social constructi...

181 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that not only may versions of positivism and interpretivism be combined in the analysis of contested events, but this combination can further the goals of both approaches by contributing information that may have been missed by adopting only one perspective.
Abstract: Positivist and interpretivist analytical approaches are frequently believed to be incompatible as research strategies and ways of understanding the world. This article argues that not only may versions of positivism and interpretivism be combined in the analysis of contested events, but this combination can further the goals of both approaches by contributing information that may have been missed by adopting only one perspective. The authors illustrate this using two case studies of lethal school shootings near Paducah, Kentucky, and Jonesboro, Arkansas, and introduce methodological strategies to manage potential biases that may lead to contradictory testimony. However, these same contradictions act as distinct data points from the interpretivist perspective, offering insight into the cultural understandings of a community. The authors develop new forms of triangulation that are tailored to these research goals and illustrate how, just as positivist analysis may be used to aid interpretivism, an interpret...

155 citations

01 Jan 1995
TL;DR: Three types of subo rd i n a t i v e composite sentence in O.B.I. as discussed by the authors, i.e., 'cause and e f f f e c t ','c o n d i t i o n a l'and'simultaneous-successive', are used to represent an intended or an undesirable consequence/situation.
Abstract: Three types of subo r d i n a t i v e composite sentence i n the O.B.I., i . e . , 'cause and e f f e c t ' , ' c o n d i t i o n a l ' and 'simultaneous-successive', are i n v e s t i g a t e d . Since there are no formal connective markers, the l o g i c a l r e l a t i o n s h i p between two clauses can only be determined on the b a s i s of semantic c o n s i d e r a t i o n s , the tui-chen p a i r , the p r a c t i c e of a b b r e v i a t i o n and the l a r g e r context. A major type of 'cause and e f f e c t ' sentence i s the sentence of the p a t t e r n 'wu + V pu/fu ...' where the second clause represents some undesirable e f f e c t or s i t u a t i o n . A c o n s i d e r a t i o n of the general p o s i t i v e versus negative p a t t e r n of the O.B.I, and the p r a c t i c e of ab b r e v i a t i o n has l e d us to adopt the a n a l y s i s 'cause and e f f e c t ' f o r t h i s sentence type. We may i n t e r p r e t sentences i n which c h ' i appears as c o n d i t i o n a l . Nevertheless, r a t h e r than a pure subordinate marker, the word c h ' i i s i n t e r p r e t e d as a modal conveying the sense of u n c e r t a i n t y , a usage w e l l i l l u s t r a t e d i n the c l a s s i c s . A l s o , the theory that t r e a t s c h ' i as a marker of an embedded sentence has been r e f u t e d . The apodoses of ' c o n d i t i o n a l ' and 'simultaneous-successive' sentences may represent an intended r e s u l t or an undesirable consequence/situation. In most cases, these two types of apodoses can be e a s i l y d i s t i n g u i s h e d . But i n the case of r a i n i n g , we have to r e l y on the i d i o m a t i c expressions 'y_u vii (wang yu) ' and 'kou yu (pu kou yii) ' i n drawing the d i s t i n c t i o n .

85 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The!Kung San or Bushmen of Namibia and Botswana are one of the most thoroughly documented hunting and gathering societies in the annals of African anthropology as mentioned in this paper, and their well-documented egalitarian politics and gender relations are thus a product not of their own history, but of their history of shared poverty.
Abstract: The !Kung San or Bushmen of Namibia and Botswana are one of the most thoroughly documented hunting and gathering societies in the annals of African anthropology. In recent years two radically different views of the !Kung San have emerged in the anthropological literature. One sees the !Kung as hunters and gatherers living under changed circumstances and maintaining an old but adaptable way of life: the characteristic features associated with the hunter-gatherer subsistence or foraging mode of production.The other sees these same !Kung as products of a very different history, a history of long association with Bantu-speaking overlords, followed by intense involvement with merchant capital. In this view it was the !Kungs' experience of domination and incorporation, not the dynamics of autonomous foraging that shaped their economy and social life. Their well-documented egalitarian politics and gender relations are thus a product not of their own history, but of their history of shared poverty. The San are classless today precisely because they are the underclass in a more inclusive class structure (Wilmsen 1983:17).Which view more accurately reflects the historical realities and experience of the !Kung? A body of opinion within contemporary anthropology holds that this “revisionist” view provides a much-needed corrective to the anthropological tendency to treat African societies ahistorically. Others have denied this charge and have countered that the history of Kalahari peoples showed great variation; while some may have formed an underclass at an early date, others persisted as relatively independent (but not isolated) hunter-gatherers into the modem period.

67 citations