Problematising short-term participant observation and multi-method ethnographic studies
Problematising short-term participant observation and multi-method ethnographic studies
This article reports on a study of apprentices in England and Germany designed to explore young people’s learner identities over time and in relation to particular
learning environments. The research adopts a multi-method ethnographic approach, combining biographical interviews with multi-site participant observation. The article problematises the notion of participant observation and the
possibility of obtaining meaningful data in short-term observations as part of a broader research design. It highlights the importance of the researcher role and the opportunities different roles entail for developing shared understanding and co-constructing meaning. It concludes that the observations yield important findings about the construction of identity in different sites and thus complement the interview data in enabling the researcher to reconstruct the apprentices’ learner biographies.
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Brockmann, Michaela
f8b5697f-f9fc-4645-9bd5-a78af20d0ea5
June 2011
Brockmann, Michaela
f8b5697f-f9fc-4645-9bd5-a78af20d0ea5
Brockmann, Michaela
(2011)
Problematising short-term participant observation and multi-method ethnographic studies.
Ethnography & Education, 6 (2), .
(doi:10.1080/17457823.2011.587361).
Abstract
This article reports on a study of apprentices in England and Germany designed to explore young people’s learner identities over time and in relation to particular
learning environments. The research adopts a multi-method ethnographic approach, combining biographical interviews with multi-site participant observation. The article problematises the notion of participant observation and the
possibility of obtaining meaningful data in short-term observations as part of a broader research design. It highlights the importance of the researcher role and the opportunities different roles entail for developing shared understanding and co-constructing meaning. It concludes that the observations yield important findings about the construction of identity in different sites and thus complement the interview data in enabling the researcher to reconstruct the apprentices’ learner biographies.
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Published date: June 2011
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Local EPrints ID: 343782
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/343782
ISSN: 1745-7823
PURE UUID: 9781370e-1e23-468d-ab62-e6b348a5e703
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Date deposited: 09 Oct 2012 16:41
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 03:45
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