Lost in Transition? Video Classroom Observations of Civics Courses during the German Reunification

Author(s):

May Jehle(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2015

Network:

17. Histories of Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

17 SES 09 A, The Museum: a Place for Education (Part 1)

Paper Session to be continued in 17 SES 10 B

Time:

2015-09-10

11:00-12:30

Room:

427.Oktatóterem [C]

Chair:

Branko Šuštar

Contribution

The paper is part of a larger project that collects digitalized videos of classroom observations in the German Democratic Republic (GDR, or East Germany) and the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, or West Germany) from the 1970s to the 1990s and provides them in online archives of the German Institute for International Educational Research (Deutsches Institut für Internationale Pädagogische Forschung, DIPF; www.fachportal-paedagogik.de/forschungsdaten_bildung/studien.php?la=de). This new source does not only provide insights into classroom practices in different political and educational systems and during processes of transition within and between these systems in the period from the 1970s until the 1990s, it also raises methodological questions: Starting with the overcomplexity of data one of the central outstanding questions is how to deal with the visual aspects of the video material. Following the methodological differentiation of the “Documentary Film in Educational Research Project” (DFER, 2009-2010) between videos as a source for information or as an object of research in studies of technical or representational features I will discuss the relationships between the visible and the visual in these films and if and how these relationships can be read referring to contextual information.

As a part of a comparative case study, which analyses videos of classroom observations in civics courses in East and West Germany from the 1970s to the 1990s, my paper will focus on video classroom observations in 1990 and 1991. The context of these videos is the continuing education for East German teachers to prepare them for new instructional concepts for civics courses. This process of the development of new curricula and concepts for civics courses in East Germany was accompanied by processes of transition not only in East Germany but also of whole political systems and societies in Central and Eastern Europe. Teachers and students in civics courses were confronted with a loss of confidence in political systems and a crisis of legitimation of the old instructional concepts. Assuming that the ongoing process of transitions caused different patterns of uncertainty my paper will analyse the practice of implementation of new instructional concepts in relation to the cooperation between teachers and students in civics courses in the creation of a specific classroom environment.

Regarding the visual constructions in these videos I will point out different remarkable observations: With respect to the result of first case studies that both in East and West Germany the visual construction of the classroom interaction in the 1980s reflects central instructional concepts the case of the videos of the continuing teacher education in 1990 and 1991 seems to be different. As in these videos mostly there is no reasonable relationship between the focus of the camera work and the camera position it is also hard to characterise the camera work in relation to the process of implementation of new instructional concepts. Notably, in a lot of cases the camera does not focus on teaching practices or the “official” classroom interaction but it pans on “hidden” interactions between students and semi-official students’ practices. Doing this the camera often focuses on details and materials such as it is a typical use of videography in actual ethnographic studies which, finally, raises the question of the role of aesthetics in these videos. Analysing these strategies of camera work the paper will discuss the relationship between the documented classroom interaction and the way of documentation by taking into consideration the specific conditions of the historical context.

Method

The project uses a mixed-method approach, based on qualitative practices of media studies, including tools of hermeneutics, ethnography and the sociology of knowledge. Following the principles of the ethnomethodological conversation analysis in the understanding of communication as a process of generation and negotiation of meaning of ethnography is used as a tool to consider how teachers and students work together to create a specific classroom environment. Given that the main focus of this paper is the visual content and the dramaturgical aspects of the video observations, a specific combination of video hermeneutics and a visual sociology of knowledge will be developed. Following the mentioned differentiations of the DFER between source and object, visible and visual or “action that is shown” and “action of showing” I also refer to concepts of hermeneutics in combination with a visual sociology of knowledge. This approach does not only differentiate different levels of emerging signification it also supports a understanding of the moving images of the video as part of a specific culture of visual perception. In consequence, the reconstruction of the visual content can also lead to a deeper understanding of cultural contexts. Context analyses of the videos, finally, enable a discussion of the results in relation to the specific situation of the continuing teacher education, the development and implementation of new curricula and instructional concepts and the historical context of transition.

Expected Outcomes

Given that these historical classroom video observations are still a relatively new source my paper offers an approach for analysing these videos and encourages the methodological discussion. Particularly, I will focus on a discussion of the possibilities to interrelate visible and visual aspects in an analysis of historical classroom videos. The analysis of the documented classroom interactions will shed light on processes of development and implementation of new curricula and instructional concepts related to processes of political transitions. It will contribute to the discourse about educational goals of civics courses, their implementation in teaching practice and educational policy in comparative socio-political contexts and enables a discussion within a broader socio-historical European dimension.

References

- Biskupek, Sigrid (2002): Transformationsprozesse in der politischen Bildung. Von der Staatsbürgerkunde in der DDR zum Politikunterricht in den neuen Ländern. Schwalbach/ Ts. - Braster, Sjaak/ Grosvenor, Ian/ Pozo Andrés, María del Mar del (Eds.) (2011): The Black Box of Schooling. A Cultural History of the Classroom. Brüssel et al. - Cabeleira, Helena/ Martins, Catarina/ Lawn, Martin (2011): Indisciplines of inquiry: the Scottish Children’s Story, documentary film and the construction of the viewer. In: Paedagogica Historica 47, 4: 473-490. - Grammes, Tilman (1991): Unpolitischer Gesellschaftskundeunterricht? Anregungen zur Verknüpfung von Lebenskunde und Politik. Schwalbach/Ts. - Grammes, Tilman/ Kuhn, Hans-Werner (1992): Alltäglicher Gesellschaftskundeunterricht – ein Beispiel aus der DDR 1990. In: Dies. (Hg.): OSI-Fachstudienführer Politische Bildung. Berlin, S. 23-52. - Grosvenor, Ian/ Lawn, Martin/ Rousmaniere, Kate (Eds.) (1999): Silences & Images. The Social History of the Classroom. New York et al. - Hayes, Michael T. (2007): Overwhelmed by the Image: The Role of Aesthetics in Ethnographic Filmmaking. In: Goldman, Ricki/ Pea, Roy/ Barron, Brigid/ Denny, Sharon J. (Eds.): Video Research in the Learning Sciences. Mahwah, New Jersey: 67-76. - Jehle, May/ Blessing, Benita (2014): Using Classroom Recordings in Educational History Research. An East German Civics Lesson. In: Journal of Social Science Education 13, 1: 118-136. DOI: 10.2390/jsse‐v13‐i1‐1273. - Jehle, May (2015): Pädagogische Kamera? Pädagogische Perspektiven im Verhältnis von „Handlungen des Zeigens“ und „gezeigter Handlung“ in historischen Videoaufzeichnungen von Unterricht. (in press) - Mohn, Elisabeth (2009): Permanent Work on Gazes. Video Ethnography as an Alternative Methodology. In: Knoblauch, Hubert/ Schnettler, Bernt/ Raab, Jürgen/ Soeffner, Hans-Georg (Eds.): Video Analysis: Methodology and Methods. Qualitative Audiovisual Data Analysis in Sociology. Frankfurt a.M. et.al.: 173-180. - Pink, Sarah (2007): Doing Visual Ethnography. Images, Media and Representation in Research. Los Angeles et al. - Raab, Jürgen (2008): Visuelle Wissenssoziologie. Theoretische Konzeption und materiale Analysen. Konstanz. - Raab, Jürgen / Tänzler, Dirk (2009): Video Hermeneutics. In: Knoblauch, Hubert/ Schnettler, Bernt/ Raab, Jürgen/ Soeffner, Hans-Georg (Eds.): Video Analysis: Methodology and Methods. Qualitative Audiovisual Data Analysis in Sociology. Frankfurt a.M. et.al.: 85-97. - Reh, Sabine (2012): Mit der Videokamera beobachten. Möglichkeiten qualitativer Unterrichtsforschung. In: Boer, Heike de/ Reh, Sabine (Eds.): Beobachtung in der Schule – Beobachten lernen. Wiesbaden: 151-169. - Schluß, Henning/ Jehle, May (Eds.) (2013): Videodokumentation von Unterricht. Historische und vergleichende Zugänge zu einer Quellengattung der Unterrichtsforschung. Wiesbaden. - Warmington, Paul/ Van Gorp, Angelo/ Grosvenor, Ian (2011): Education in motion: use of documentary film in educational research. In: Paedagogica Historica 47/4, 457-472.

Author Information

May Jehle (presenting / submitting)

academy of fine arts vienna

Department for Education in the Arts

Vienna

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