Abstract
This paper questions the particular contribution that can be made by educational ethnography in terms of research on education in general. The definition of the situation as a concept from symbolic interactionism is proposed as a powerful framing device to understand how educational realities are constructed by actors. Understood in this way, educational settings become places where sequences of action follow a recognizable pattern of meaning. These patterns of practice are metaphorically regarded here as ‘molecules of education’. By providing such foundational tokens, it is argued that educational ethnography can contribute to educational research in an essential way because it deciphers what education does.
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Notes
- 1.
I use the term ‘educational ethnography’ here, referring to the application of the research methods of participant observation and interviewing in the settings where education takes place. This simple categorization will suffice here, but it does not take into account differences between pedagogy and education, or specifications such as ethnography ‘in’, ‘on’ or ‘off’ educational institutions. For an elaboration on such issues, see Maeder (2018).
- 2.
The main argument of Chap. 2 is taken from a text where I put the definition of the situation into the context of the sociology of knowledge (see Maeder 2018). As regards questions around teaching and learning, I see a treasure of possibilities still to be harvested for educational sciences in the sociology of knowledge (see Berger and Luckmann 1966).
- 3.
- 4.
For an overview, see Delamont’s book (2012) All Too Familiar: A Decade of Classroom Research.
- 5.
Such a claim is of course not without controversy. Additionally, there is critique on different sides regarding the notion of the IRE sequence (see Macbeth 2003).
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Maeder, C. (2020). The Problem of the Definition of the Situation in Educational Ethnography. In: Wieser, C., Pilch Ortega, A. (eds) Ethnography in Higher Education. Doing Higher Education. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-30381-5_9
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