ethnographies -- week 8

I. Kathleen Casey. “The New Narrative Research in Education”
1. Purpose / research question
In the ethnography by Kathleen Casey the qualitative descriptive research deals with the entire environment of the narrative research including, autobiographies, biographies, autoethnographies, oral history, life stories etc., which Casey identifies as an interpretive posture derived from the 1970s cross between the expressivist and social epistemic. Casey wants to know if the negative criticisms of solipsism; emptiness in meaning and, fragmentation can be overcome and effectively be employed for a social episteme centered reassertion of the subject, as in feminist scholarship.
2. Subject selection
Collection of writing samples of 3 types of narrative research theoretically suggests accounts of why these 3 approaches occur. These approaches were identified as “problematics” in 3 strands. These problematics, Casey maintains, simultaneously draw together and pull apart
 Existentialist – loss of self, alienation from the group
 Political commitment – oral histories –marxian approach where social progress occurs on contested ground and told in the voice of “the people” – the phenomenon of testimonias in the Latin American liberation pedagogy, for instance
 Postmodernism – plasticity of the subject, e.g. black and latino gay culture meld into Madonna identified celebrity voguing – this plasticity blocks materialists analysis that might trace drag ball culture back to the Harlem Renaissance .
3. Data collection
The method for collecting data follows the protocols of the traditional literature review.
4. Data analysis techniques
Scholars are finding that their interpretations of narrative research are constrained or limited by their ideological positions, much like their anthropologist counterparts. The researcher report results for further scrutiny. Casey generalizes across all genres of narrative research

II. Margaret Sheehy. “The Social Life of an Essay: Standardizing Forces in Writing”
1. Purpose / research question
This ethnography wants to shed light on standardization and draws its theoretical questions from a Foucauldian analysis. However, according to a Gramscian view, students at Sanders develop discursive strategies for overcoming barriers to citizenry, which Sheehy believes standardization attempts to foreclose. Sheehy wants to know what standardizing interventions can be made by teachers effectively teach students this “gatekeeping” exercise. She finds the 5 paragraph essay to be useful strategies taught to the students, though students devised ways to break away from this master structure and “did some funky stuff” (360).
2. Subject selection – environment and culture
The students come from Sanders middle school where there is a history of intergenerational poverty and low academic achievement, “half the adult population has not completed high school” (336). According to this study and a Foucauldian analysis, essay writing is viewed as a “gatekeeping” exercise and so it is considered a useful rubric for contextualization
3. Data collection methods
The method used in this ethnography involves observation and participation, which Sheehy acknowledges was inconsistent and contingent. She realizes that her work as a participant observer for the whole group was awkward for both the students and herself, although she developed easy rapports with some of the students in her focus groups. Audio and video tapes were made and transcribed during student group work. All together, 600 pages of transcripts were collected.
4. Data analysis techniques
This ethnography concluded that even as students successfully integrated the standardizing techniques they were taught, they also broke out of strict structures in order to articulate a sense of social subjectivity and community agency. Sheehy was able to draw this connection based on the comments she received from the students’ essay/speech audience, including teachers and general members of the community – not to mention Sheehy herself, who’s conclusions seemed to draw heavily from her theoretical, i.e. ideological leanings.

III. Anne Beaufort. “Learning the Trade: A Social Apprenticeship Model for Gaining Writing Expertise”
1. Purpose / research question
The theoretical framework in operation is derived from Dell Hymes’ sociolinguistic approach that holds social/political context impacts how individuals position themselves in writing task relative to the larger goals and values of the discourse community in which the writer considers herself to hold membership.
What is more effective: process and feedback – based on expressivist approaches? Or dialogical communication -- social constructivist approaches? How can these approaches be combined to create the best pedagogy for helping novice writers adapt to professional discourse communities? How can students develop an agency over their writing so as to gain greater control over their process as professionals that can be applied to membership in their respective discourse communities?
More specifically Beaufort wanted to know: What differentiated simple task from more complex ones? How or what determines writers roles in a given community? What methods of socialization of writers new to an organization occur and to what effect?
2. Subject selection – environment and culture
Subjects were selected from an urban community and were participating in a work and professional training resource program. Most participants were single headed households employed in or undergoing training for the clerical work in business and medical settings or either administrative work in the hospitality industry. However the two participant “informants” chosen for the study were particularly high achieving with fairly well developed writing and communication skills.
3. Data collection methods
Both women were interviewed almost on a weekly basis , all of which was captured on audiotape. Along with observations of the program participants taking part in both formal and informal activities, including impromptu conversations, formal interviews, instruction and feedback on writing activities was taken up by the researcher as an overall context for the field inquiry. Notes taken during interviews and professional writing done by the two informants provided the details for the ethnography, however.
4. Data analysis techniques
In order to determine somewhat generalizable results, the researcher applied the results to understanding a framework for how writers make the leap from one type of writing to another more professionalized set of purposes for writing. Although the research did not produce a reliability or validity applicable to a generalized result, Beaufort determined that the observations made regarding socialization and writing professionalization to be useful for the formulation of a theory of process.

IV. Stephen Doheny-Farina. “Writing in an Emerging Organization.”
1. Purpose/ research question
How do software company executives process the writing they produce for vital company documents? The theoretical assumptions grounding the research question takes into account that rhetorical discourse is situated in the here and now and is based on the purpose, available means of persuasion, audience, etc. That the software executive is a rhetor who determines what is the best means of persuasion based on factors outside of his control is a main assumption of this research. The researcher brings to the ethnography his own set of rhetorical assumptions that the microcosmic observations made can be applied to an understanding of the rhetorical culture of the executives. While the researcher values the subjects’ interpretations of their own meanings and motives for the company documentation created, the researcher assumes the diversity of meanings and motives among his study participants, from a distant, though empathetic standpoint.
2. Subject selection
The five subjects were selected from 25 full-time executives employed by Microware, Inc.
3. Data collection methods
Interviews, informal conversations, observation of staff meetings occurred. Field notes, tape recordings, open-ended interviews, and discourse based interviews about the process of documents from first draft to final product were used to triangulate the study.
4. Data analysis
The researcher determined the executives had different ways of articulating their process. They saw the writing process in either a production capacity or as a collaborative effort. Doheny-Farina sees this as useful to understanding the rhetorical activities of social and organizational contexts in executive writing functions and therefore applicable to theory building, teaching, and further research.

V. Leon Anderson. “Analytic Autoethnography”
1. Purpose/ research question
How does a researcher use her experience as a self-avowed and duly appointed member of a discourse community in such a way that she offers research that is clear and reliable, despite the self-reflexive demands that are made of the autoethnographic subject? How does this qualitative method militate against postmodern frames or heed the calls for objective research?
2. Subject selection
A history of autoethnographies is provided as they must exhibit five key features. They are: complete member researcher (CMR) status, analytic reflexivity, narrative visibility of the researcher, dialogue with informants outside of the CMR, and a commitment to theoretical analysis.
3. Data collection methods
Each autoethnographic feature was separately described in rich detail and examples were provided as evidence.
4. Data analysis
The assertion was made that social science research methods are ever evolving and expanding. It was further determined that “non-traditional” research methods be incorporated into the field of traditional empirical methods.

VI. Carolyn Ellis. “Shattered Lives: Making Sense of September 11th and Its Aftermath”
1. Purpose/ research question
How do everyday stories make sense of the historical touchstone of 9-11? In effect, how does a historical predicament coalesce into meaning when separate, seeming disparate stories are told?
2. Subject selection
The researcher selects herself, her brother, and her mother and mother-in-laws personal narratives.
3. Data collection methods
The personal experiences of the author and the author’s loved ones are disclosed as a means to illicit the telling of more stories in order to make sense of what happened on September 11, 2001.
4. Data analysis
The analysis of the tragedy is ongoing as the stories continue to be told. So far, according to Ellis, there is only the certainty of loss and unpredictability.

So, finally the questions beg: What distinguishes ethnographies from case studies? How does “triangulation” impact data collection and analysis? And what must ethnographers do to ensure their work is both reliable and valid?
In ethnographies the results are almost never generalizable. In fact, since the methodology follows the form of the anthropological study, usually the only components that can be determined as reliable are the researchers' attitudes and assumptions. The triangulation of data attempts to provide valid results by applying numerous cross-cutting methods for gathering what can be known. Ethnographers must ensure that their work is valid by constantly, continually reevaluating their methods and ideologies.