Topic:

Ethnographic research in and about integrated courses, in which multiple subject areas are coming together, in secondary education.

Research question:

How can an ethnographic methodology help us to map a complex educational construction (integration of food & nutrition, self-expression, natural sciences and social sciences) in secondary education, in which different subjects and teachers are involved?

Objective:

Our objective is to offer in this research paper an insight into the research challenges we encountered as ethnographers in this three-year research project (September 2016 – August 2019).

More specific, we will focus on the following elements:

*In our research proposal, we described the intention to work with a community of teachers in every school. The teachers, involved in the integrated School Subject, were described as members from these communities. During the project, it became clear that the way we described the communities in our research proposal, was far from the reality in the schools. The fact that we worked with an integrated subject in secondary education played a decisive role here. Because of the different subjects, it seemed a challenge to come to integrated communities. This gap between our written assumptions and the practice will be highlighted in the paper.

*Reporting was not obvious, as only 3 schools participated in the study. The observation data originates from the 3 school contexts that we have observed. The rough field notes could, as a consequence of huge organizational differences, be quickly connected to one of the three schools. We will illustrate ways to share the insights from the research, without a direct link to 1 of the 3 schools being made by the readers of our final report.

*As researcher we were connected to one of the three school. The way education was realized in the school contexts sometimes turned out to be far removed from the vision from the researcher. We will illustrate the tension between the research context and the vision of researcher with a number of concrete examples.

*From the field each researcher selected and drafted meaningfull, narrative fragments. These fragments were joined in a master document, which was studied by the researchers together. This confrontation and analysis of fragments led to the identification of 13 relevant layers, on the basis of which we have mapped the investigated communities. We will share this analysis process.

*Our project was a didactical subject-matter-teaching project and the purpose of the observations was to look for elements of subject-matter-teaching within an integrated practice. In particular in one of the three schools it turned out as problematic situation, cause the considered classes basically made it impossible to observe any aspect of subject-matter-teaching at all. We described the problematic position of the ethnographic researcher in this context.

*In the project was participative observations foreseen. A problem we experienced with our participation in the practice of a team-taught school subject was that the different teachers of the team had another idea of what our participation could or was allowed to be. As researchers we were confronted with the moving boundaries of our participation in the classroom.

The research took place in Belgian secondary education. The paper presentation will be interesting for European partners, because it is about ethnographic research in integrated, team-taught, competency-based courses. This means that our project results can be relevant for other educational ethnographers in other European countries.

Theoretical framework:

Our practice-oriented work can be placed in the tradition of critical ethnography. We applied in a project aimed at exposing problems and limitations of competency-based curricula, and challenging curriculum changes that are possibly not enough thought-out.

Methodology: School ethnography is central as methodology in this paper. An integrated, team-taught school Subject (integration from food & nutrition, self-expression, natural sciences and social sciences) in secondary education was the research context for this ethnographic research. The focus of our observation was mostly the interaction between teachers in the teacher team and their interaction with students in the class-room practice. For our inquiry process we started in a first phase with a literature and document study, with the idea to generate a point of view towards our research topic. This point of view navigated our research process. In this sense the literature and document study wasn’t finalized after a first phase. It was constantly in dialogue with the practice we were in, as fieldworkers. In a second phase we started working in three secondary school communities for several weeks. Here we worked as participant observers. Initially there was a huge focus on observation and becoming part of the communities. We were with a team of three researchers. Every researcher was involved in a school community. Field notes were made in this phase. After these weeks of community work, the researchers encountered again. This was a fourth phase in our research design. Experiences were shared an notes were presented. We made analyses in dialogue with the literature and documents we studied in phase one. Also in this phase the ethnographic methodology was revisited. Then we started to work again as fieldworkers in the practice of the integrated subject that we had explored before. We worked as participant observers. In this phase the focus moved more towards a participative role. We developed classroom materials together with colleagues, we were present as teachers. Again here we made field notes. This phase was for our research design a challenge. One of the three researchers dropped out due to a job change. The integration of a new member into a community would no longer be possible at this stage. We decided to work further with only two schools. In the fifth and final phase, the work with the field notes was central. All the notes were used as a springboard to write meaningful narrative fragments about this research project. After this an instrument was developed for the interpretation of the fragments. This instrument was composed on the basis of 13 layers that we named in the setting of the integrated school subject.

Expected finding 1: Ethnography is an interesting methodology to study the practice of integrated, team-taught courses. By effectively moving in the field, it is possible to map these communities from the inside out. Expected finding 2: A community of teachers, formed by the link with a subject, is a complexity to map. Throughout the project, the integrated aspect of the school subject also played a role in this. The teachers in the team do not share the love for the same study domain. Expected finding 3: An abstract report with a focus on figuration can be an ethical outcome from an ethnographic research trajectory in which two small communities were involved. In the paper we will illustrate this with fragments out of our final report. It was our intention to provide insight into the research process without identifying specific actions or persons from the communities involved. Expected finding 4: A thorough literature study at the start of the study is important to be able to stand in the field from a point of view. This substantive position offers the researcher the opportunity to map the community in an anchored way. This anchor offers also an opening to describe a tension between a vision that you have as researcher and a vision that is present in the field. Expected finding 5: Integrated, team-taught, competence-based courses are very much present in European secondary education. We expect that their number will increase in the coming years. Many institutions that organize education have difficulty getting a grip on these complex educational contexts. What exactly happens in such an integrated practice? How do teachers relate to the integrated domains? Ethnographic research can provide a nuanced answer to these questions, anchored in the educational contexts.

References in relation to ethnography: Erickson, F. (1984). What Makes School Ethnography 'Ethnographic'? In Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 15, 51-66. Pink, S. (2008). An urban tour: The sensory sociality of ethnographic place-making. In Ethnography (pp. 175-196). Loughborough: Sage Publications, Ltd. Pink, Sarah. (2014). Doing Visual Ethnography. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications Ltd. References in relation to our educational vision: Masschelein, J. & M. Simons. (2013).In defence of the school. A public issue. Leuven:E-ducation, Culture & Society Publishers. Rancière, J. (1991). The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press. Rancière, J. (2011). Theemancipated spectator. London: Verso. Reference on the project in which the context of the ethnographic research took place: Practice-Oriented Research Project ‘On the way to an integral learning community for the study direction Social and Technical Sciences. Qualitative approach for the Integral Tasks’ (2016-2019), funded by University College Leuven-Limburg. Information about this project (in Dutch) can be found at: https://www.ucll.be/onderzoek/call-research/goedgekeurde-pwo-projecten/goedgekeurde-pwo%E2%80%99s-2016 Reference on the Belgian-Flemish school subject Integral Tasks: Official description for teachers of the school subject Integral Tasks (leerplan, in Dutch) for the study direction Social and Technical Sciences, for 3rdand 4thyear of Technical Secondary Education, of the network of schools Flemish Union of Catholic Secondary Education (VVKSO – BRUSSEL D/2015/7841/015), can be downloaded at: http://ond.vvkso-ict.com/leerplannen/doc/Sociale%20en%20technische%20wetenschappen-2015-015.pdf Tamassia L. & T. Frenssen. (2019). Overvakkenclusters en leerkrachtenteams: naar basisprincipes voor integraal werken.Een documentenstudie van de Integrale Opdrachten als casus.Submitted for publication in Impuls - Tijdschrift voor onderwijsbegeleiding, 49/03.