As part of the doctoral seminar programme on ‘Advanced Qualitative Research Methodologies’, I’m exploring more about ethnography. Learnt more about the background information on ethnography through the Wikipedia site on ethnography. I appreciate the basic information provided there. For example, the definition of ethnography:
Ethnography (Greek ἔθνος ethnos = folk/people and γράφειν graphein = writing) is a branch of anthropology.[1] It is a methodological strategy used to provide descriptions of human societies, which as a methodology does not prescribe any particular method (e.g. observation, interview, questionnaire), but instead prescribes the nature of the study (i.e. to describe people through writing) [2].
One of the key readings which I appreciated on how ethnography has been applied in psychology is by McDermott (1996):
McDermott, R. P. (1996). The acquisition of a child by a learning disability. In S. Chaiklin & J. Lave (Eds.), Understanding practice (pp. 269-305). New York: Cambridge University.
You can access a copy of the chapter here. I find that the paper provides a different paradigm in describing what a Learning Disabled (LD) child is. According to McDermott (1996), p.271:
‘By the normal line of reasoning, the child is the unit of analysis, and the disability is a mishap that scars a child’s road to competence. This chapter suggests an alternative way of thinking about the problem. LD exists as a category in our culture, and it will acquire a certain proportion of our children as long as it is given life in the organization of tasks, skills, and evaluations in our schools.’
Tobbell and Lawthom (2005) adopted a similar paradigm to investigate, through critical view, using ethnography methodology, the label of emotional and behavioural difficulties and its utility in child and professional relationships. The paper suggested to view emotional and behavioural difficulties(EBD), moving from viewing ‘EBD as an individual problem’ to ‘EBD as a distributed concept across concept’. The paper explores the use of community of practice (CoP) to suggest practices which would serve to liberate the child and the professional from the ‘difficult; relationship/identity label. The authors suggested the following practices in looking at EBD:
- Question from ‘what is wrong with the child?’ to ‘what is happening in this context which results in this child being marginalised?’
- Education should be viewed as a process of enabling children to construct identities as effective learners and equip them with practices which allow them to participate in society as able and valuable members, instead of passive recipients and reporters of prescribed knowledge sets.
- Educational psychologists’ (EPs) role should move from being an assessor to an auditor, i.e. becomes the conduit between child and teacher, and child and society in facilitating participation.
I find that the new paradigm provides a refreshing point of view in looking at LD and EBD. Perhaps similar paradigms could be adopted in other aspects of psychology.
References
McDermott, R. P. (1996). The acquisition of a child by a learning disability. In S. Chaiklin & J. Lave (Eds.), Understanding practice (pp. 269-305). New York: Cambridge University.
Tobbell, J. and Lawthom, R. (2005). Dispensing with labels: Enabling children and professionals to share a community of practice. Educational Child Psychology, 22(3), 89-97.
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