Session Information
Contribution
This paper takes its point of departure in a three-year action research project, The Lade project. The project, which was funded by the Norwegian Research Council, was conducted in a primary and lower secondary school in 2006-2009. Five interrelated sub-projects took part, and the research question for each project was related to challenges in implementing the Knowledge Promotion Reform of 2006 (new national curriculum), and the need for social and cultural change in the education sector connected to this. The principal project aim was to evolve a learning organisation, and to assist teachers in developing their practice (Steen-Olsen & Postholm, 2009).
This paper focuses on methodological and ethical questions which may arise when researchers enter a workplace in order to develop it. The research topic in this paper is to examine the role of reflexivity and ethics in fieldwork, and to highlight the relationship between them. The research question is to study how, and to what extent the researcher is able to see and understand possible side effects in the work of developing other peoples’ practice. The main aim of this paper is to discuss the impact of reflexivity in field work, and to illuminate ethical considerations regarding the relationship between the researcher and the research participants.
In development work the researcher often comes close to the participants, their working routines and their everyday life. This presupposes trust and confidence from the participants’ side, and at the same time willingness to give the researcher access to their private work space. By drawing on theories of ethics of relations and ethics of caring (Martinsen, 1993; Noddings, 1984; Nussbaum, 1997) this paper is discussing how close participants in an action research project are willing to let the researcher come, and how close the researcher is willing to go. Further the paper is drawing on methodological theories discussing the issue of reflexivity. Reflexivity in social sciences is crucial in exploring and analysing the relationship between the researcher and the research objects (Bourdieu, 1990; 1993, 2007; Hargreaves, 2002; Krogh, Ichijo, & Nonaka, 2000). Systematic reflexivity can help to shed light on the researcher’s theoretical and methodological presuppositions, and therefore also on how data analysis and interpretations are done. This kind of reflexivity can be subdivided into two forms, epistemic and methodological (Coghlan & Brannick, 2005). While epistemicreflexivity focuses on the researcher’s belief system (the researcher’s meta-theoretical assumptions in the process of data analysis), methodological reflexivity focuses on the researcher’s behavioural impact and influence on the research setting. Reflexivity has in this way epistemological and ontological implications (Hammersley & Atkinson, 1987). Reflexivity constitutes an instance of correction concerning individual thoughts, beliefs and actions. Bourdieu warned against adapting ‘false matters of course’ or fixed classifications from everyday life in data analysis. Doing so can prevent the researcher in discovering the ‘blind spot’ where nothing is discovered. The researcher’s job is to lift everyday thinking up to an analytical level, and to analyze its immanent discourses and practices.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Bourdieu, P. (1990). The logic of practice. Cambridge: Polity Press [French original: 1980]. Bourdieu, P. & Wacquant (1993). Den kritiske ettertanke. Grunnlag for samfunnsanalyse. Oslo: Det norske Samlaget. [English title: An invitation to a reflexive sociology, 1992. French original: 1991]. Bourdieu, P. (2007). Viten om viten og refleksivitet. Oslo: Pax Forlag. [English title: Science of science and reflexivity, 2004. French original: 2002]. Coghlan, D. & Brannick, T. (2005) (second ed.). Doing action research in your own organization. London: Sage Publications. Hammersley, M. & Atkinson, P. (1987). Feltmetodikk. Grunnlaget for feltarbeid og feltforskning. Oslo: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag. [English title: Ethnography. Principles in practice, 1983]. Hargreaves, A. (2002). Teaching and betrayal. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 8 (3/4), pp. 393-407. Krogh, G.V., Ichijo, K., & Nonaka, I. (eds.) (2000). Enabling Knowledge Creation: How to Unlock the Mystery of Tacit Knowledge and Release the Power of Innovation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Læreplanverket for kunnskapsløftet (2006). Oslo: Kunnskapsdepartementet og Utdanningsdirektoratet. [The Knowledge Promotion Reform]. Martinsen, K. (1993). Fra Marx til Løgstrup. Bergen: Tano Forlag. [From Marx to Løgstrup]. Noddings, N. (1984). Caring. A feminine approach to ethics and moral education. Berkely: University of California Press. Nussbaum, M.C. (1997). The fragility of goodness: luck and ethics in Greek tragedy and philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Steen-Olsen, T. &. Postholm, M.B (red.) [eds.] (2009). Å utvikle en lærende skole. Aksjonsforskning og aksjonslæring i praksis. Kristiansand: Høyskoleforlaget. [To develop a learning school: action research and action learning in practice].
Search the ECER Programme
- Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
- Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
- Search for authors and in the respective field.
- For planning your conference attendance you may want to use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference
- If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.