Keynote by Martin Forsey, University of Western Australia (AU)
Ethnography is not participant observation (Hockey & Forsey 2012); however it is common for ethnography to be portrayed as participant observation plus other appropriate methods (Crang and Cook 2012). As a starting point, I want to take this commonsense orthodoxy seriously as a means for explaining the alleged inattention to ethnography in the study of higher education (Pabian 2014). Apart from opening up the possibility that misrecognition of the key terms explains why there are apparently so few ethnographies in higher education (nullifying the original question as it does so), it allows us to explore the degree to which genuine participant observation is possible or desirable in universities. Desire may hold one of the explanatory keys, as it may well be the case that university teachers are not inclined to study their own practices or those of their colleagues. Practicality might also be significant, alongside permissibility and positionality. In this presentation I want to explore limits and possibilities of ethnographic research in higher education. As always, methodological questions are simultaneously epistemological, ethical and cultural; and so, at the core of this paper lie fundamental questions about what constitutes ethnographic practice - a term I use in the Bourdieusean sense as cultured, structured agency. There will be a great deal of past practice to reflect upon; I look forward to having an opportunity to lead and provoke discussion about the alleged dearth of ethnography in/of higher education.
Martin Forsey is Associate Professor of Anthropology & Sociology, with particular interests in the social and cultural effects of schooling, the internationalisation of tertiary education, and more recently on learning and teaching in higher education. He publishes on qualitative research methodology, and serves on the editorial board of four international research journals.
Ethnography: a methodology for engaging students in entrepreneurial practice
Keynote by Sarah Robinson, Aarhus University (DK)
Drawing on research at a Danish university, the paper suggests that ethnographic methods could be central to engage students with their disciplinary knowledge. While Higher Education institutions are being criticized for not providing students with adequate skills to equip them for a fast changing and unpredictable future many universities have responded by seeking to incorporate entrepreneurship courses in a range of education outside of the Business school, or by marketing themselves as entrepreneurial institutions. Consequently, entrepreneurship seems to have been captured by the neoliberal discourse. As a result scholars warn of the threats to staff and student roles, to academic freedom with respect to research and teaching, and the purpose and future of the university. In Scandinavia, entrepreneurship education has developed to mean something more than simply economic value. For almost a decade, researchers and educators have been working with a broader definition of entrepreneurship that is also about creating social, cultural and environmental value. This definition has led to the development of a model for that is being integrated into educational practices. The model is about being a ‘change maker’. In this model, ethnography becomes a central method, with the individual embedded in a particular social context, that enables links between university knowledge and real life contexts. Evidence illustrates that this model engages students with their disciplinary knowledge, supports collaboration, promotes co-creation, and motivates the students to engage with non-academic stakeholders.
Sarah Robinson is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Arts, Aarhus University. She is an Educational Anthropologist interested in the purpose of Higher Education and the future of the university. Currently she is working with ways to combine disciplinary knowledge with real life issues through enterprise education.
The contribution of educational ethnography to understanding learning and teaching – also in higher education
Keynote by Christoph Maeder, University of Education Zürich (CH)
The situation is a key notion for symbolic interactionist thinking, and a foundational concept for interpretive theories. It originated from a study on the child in America by William and Dorothy Thomas (1928). However, it has never played a major role in educational ethnography, where the definition of the pedagogical situation is often derived from a taken-for-granted perspective or context. Seen this way, if something happens in a school, university or another educational establishment, it becomes pedagogical by place and institution, not by its inherent structure and logic, or aspiration. Ethnographers have continually emphasized that teaching and learning are pivotal human activities and thereby cannot be restricted by formal pedagogical institutions. This emphasis gives way to a range of questions that I want to explore in my keynote: What theory-based, empirical approaches to situational knowledge ‘in (inter-)action’ are there that empower ethnography on education? What styles of writing and analytical concepts enable theory-based ethnography? What does the perspective of educational ethnography contribute to the understanding of learning and teaching? In my speech, I elaborate why and how ethnography is always concerned with teaching and learning. Furthermore, I argue that ethnography can and should frame research on education and learning in a more complex, theoretically aspiring way in order to produce relevant insights into teaching and learning. This conclusion applies to both informal learning and institutionalized learning in higher education.
Christoph Maeder is Professor of Educational Sociology, with particular interest in the sociology of knowledge and education. He is board member of Ethnography and Education, Qualitative Sociology Review, and Sozialer Sinn. As a former president of the Swiss Sociological Association, he is also convener of EERA network 19 The Ethnography Network, and ESA network 20 Qualitative Methods.
