Ethnography

ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH for ELTParlindungan Pardede

Christian University of Indonesia

DEFINITIONS

• Etymology: ‘ethno’ (human culture) and ‘graphy’ (description of)

• Ethnography is the study of people in naturally occurring settings or 'fields' which aims to understand another way of life from the native point of view

• Ethnography is a qualitative research procedures for describing, analyzing, and interpreting a culture-sharing group’s shared patterns of behavior, beliefs, and language that develop over time

• Sometimes called as interpretive qualitative studies, ethnographies are investigations of particular communities, such as a hospital or a classroom, conducted to obtain an emic perspective and a holistic view of the community being studied.

Ethnography for elt: parlin pardede (2012)


An ethnography is conducted when the researcher …

• has a culture-sharing group to study• wants a day-to-day picture• has long-term access to culture-sharing group• thinks a study of a group helps the researcher

understand a larger issue

Traditional ethnography was carried out by anthropologists among non–modern people in small scale and relatively isolated societies. Ethnographic approaches were later developed and applied to modern societies and focussed on city areas, towns or villages. They have also been developed to look at aspects of identity such as ethnicity or social position, in the workplace, educational and social settings, such as societies, clubs and classrooms.

In a classroom ethnography is conducted by assuming that cultures are being constructed by the students and teachers’ interactions on a daily basis. Some of these cultures are “invisible” because they become ordinary and routine. Ethnography can be used to make them visible and allow a look at what students and teachers are doing and learning in classrooms.

Ethnography Development

ethnography for elt: parlin pardede (2012)

Five Features of Ethnographies Hammersley (1990)

• People’s behavior is studied in everyday contexts, rather than under experimental conditions created by the researcher.

• Data are gathered from a range of sources, but observations and informal conversations are usually the main ones.

• The approach to data collection is “unstructured” (it does not involve following through a detailed plan set up at the beginning).

• The focus is usually a single setting or group of relatively small scale.

• The analysis of the data involves interpretation of the meanings and functions of human actions and mainly takes the form of verbal descriptions and explanations. Ethnography for elt: parlin pardede (2012)

Some Contemporary Topics of Ethnography in ELT

• Teacher perspectives on lesson plan adjustment• Student perspectives on lecture comprehension• Cross-cultural expectations on parent involvement in school• Experiences of learners in English as a Second Language

(ESL)• The relationship of gender and language learning• The effects of computer on Foreign Language classroom• Classroom interactions• Oral presentations in graduate seminars• The role of race and gender in study-abroad program

experiences

Data Collection & Analysis

Data Analysis: Descriptive

ethnography for elt: parlin pardede (2012)

Data Collection

Observations

Field Notes

Interviews

Recordings / Other Artifacts

Data Analysis Approaches

1. Chronology—Researchers can organize their notes over time to basically tell a story of what they observed.

2. Key events—Researchers can organize the data by key events they observe and perhaps organize these events by their significance.

3. Various settings—Data can be organized according to where they occur.

4. People—If individuals or groups are the primary unit of analysis, then the data could be organized by cases.

5. Issues—Data can also be organized by key issues that the researcher has identified.

Ethnography and Case Study Compared

Case study researchEthnographic

research• Time commitment:

significant length of time required in the field (months/years)

• Orientation of researcher: learns from people

• Type of data collected: interviews, documents, artefacts, notes from fieldwork and participant observation


• Time commitment : less time required in the field (weeks/few months at most)

• Orientation of researcher: studies people

• Type of data collected: mostly interviews and documents

Basic Procedure for an Ethnographic Project

1. Choose a target group (e.g. English Education program students)2. Find informant(s) able to represent this group 3. Limit the shared patterns (of behavior/beliefs/habits) you’d like to study4. Do library/web research on the shared patterns and, if possible, the group.5. Collect the data through observations, field notes, interviews, and

recordings/artifacts and organize them into the categories of setting, systems, people, and behavior.

6. Analyze the data and form a cultural hypothesis (e.g. about what strategies they use to enrich English vocabulary, what types and how many pages of texts they used to read, what they think about English pronunciation, why they decided taking English their major, etc)

7. Reflect upon your own cultural frames of reference; and seek to understand the limitations of the evidence used to make the hypothesis formed

8. Report you findings.


Proposal Outline

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTIONA. Background to the Study B. Reason for Choosing the TopicC. Statement of the ProblemD. The site and/or unit of analysis General profiles E. Objectives of the StudyF. Research QuestionsG. Significance of the StudyH. Scope of the StudyI. Definition of Terms


Proposal Outline (cont.)CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATUREA. Previous StudiesB. Theoretical Background

CHAPTER III: RESEARCH METHODOLOGYC. Research Method (i.e. ethnography)D. Data and Data Collection ProcedureE. Research Population and SampleF. Research SettingG. Data Analysis TechniquesH. Data Triangulation TechniquesI. Research Procedure


REFERENCESBurns. A. (2010). Doing action research in english language teaching: A guide for

practitioners. New York: Routledge

Crang, M. & Cook, I. (2007). Doing ethnographies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Creswell, J. W. 2008. Educational research: Planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research. New Jersey: Pearson

Fetterman, D. (2010). Ethnography: Step-by-step (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Genzuk, M. (2003). A synthesis of ethnographic research. Center for Multilingual, Multicultural Research Digital Papers Series. Center for Multilingual, Multicultural Research, University of Southern California. Retrieved June 21, 2007, from http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~genzuk/Ethnographic_Research.html

Hammersley, M. (1990). Reading ethnographic research: A critical guide. London: Longman.

Hammersley, M & Atkinson, P. (2007). Ethnography: Principles in practice (3rd ed.). New York: Routledge

McKay, S. L. (2006). Researching second language classrooms. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers

Ethnography

Education

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