Keri Ortiz
ENGL 5870
April 7, 2009
Dr. DeVries
    #4 Brenda Jo Bruggemann writes about existing in the hyphenated world between participant and researcher.  She candidly struggles with her part in the process and the cohabitation of both roles.  Unfortunately, by occupying the hyphen, she suffered a moral dilemma and alienated her subjects.  When conducting ethnographic research, what role should the researcher occupy in order to report the most accurate findings?  What internal and external factors should they consider?  Should the researcher follow a code of ethics and if so, who or what creates that code?  Refer to the readings to support your answer.
 The “Liminal”
    I chose this question first because it seemed to be one of the topics from our readings that I felt most strongly about.  In the articles by Brueggemann and Sunstein, we were shown how badly the research process can go when one becomes emotionally invested in the students.  In the end, their research was fine, but I do think that both researchers suffered emotionally for having hurt their subjects or having appeared to have hurt their subjects.  Sunstein struggled in trying to rewrite the experiences of several subjects to whom she had become close.  She writes that the choices where an ethnographer “crafts her informant worlds into words” is very stressful (197) and that as she “renders their [informants] culture on our pages our ethnographers guilt sneers back” (197-198).
The role
    In an ideal research world, I think the ethnographic researchers would be able to be omnipotent in the classroom.  They would be able to watch and listen to everything without being physically present in the classroom.  However, short of spy cameras and two-way mirrors, that can’t be done.  I propose the next best thing.  From what we have read, I would argue that an ethnographic researcher needs to occupy the role of a researcher, not that of a participant observer.  Like a researcher studying animals in nature dons camouflage,  ethnographic researchers should do what they can to minimize their presence in the classroom and to cause as little interference as possible.
    I am not suggesting that researchers wear clothing sewn with ruffled sheets of notebook paper and the occasional paper clip.  However, I think that a researcher needs to acclimate the students to ignoring their presence before the research can begin.  In “The Loss of the Creature” article by Walter Percy, we read that one cannot see or fully experience something by “gazing directly at it” (1).  It is only by removing oneself from the action or sight and stepping “off the beaten track” that one can fully see the object at hand.  For a researcher, this would translate into stepping away from a participant role to watch the participants and through their experiencing the “thing,” the researcher will have a better view of the action.   
    In her article, Brueggemann writes that she felt like there was a constant “dance of deceit” going on regarding her roles (24) and she quotes another author that claims that “mutual deceit” is “‘virtually inherent to the deeply engaged fieldwork role’” (24).  I don’t think that deceit is a given.  I think that researchers can be honest about their presence and honest in their relationships with their subjects and still get accurate results.  In the article “The Presentation of Self,” author Erving Goffman writes that when a person presents himself as being a certain way and his actions back-up his claim, then it “exerts a moral demand upon the others, obliging them to value and treat him in the manner that persons of his kind have a right to expect (13).  Present yourself as a classroom fixture, act like a fixture, and students should treat you as such by ignoring you.      
Internal and External Factors
    There are some internal and external factors that a researcher should take into consideration.  If researchers are debating what position to assume, then they first should look within themselves for direction.  How do they best observe?  Are they capable of participating and observing accurately?  I know that I am not.  Even now I sometimes get caught-up in the lesson and have to draw myself back to task.  The next internal factor is whether or not they are capable of making judgments about people they are emotionally invested in.  In the article, Bonnie Sunstein writes that she struggled greatly with putting her research to paper on students with whom she had developed a bond.  She called this the “ethnographic guilt” that permeates the writing of every ethnographer (179).  Removing oneself from the action and a close student relationship will not eliminate the guilt completely, but I think that it will make it easier to deal with.  
Stick to the code
    I do think that there should be a code of ethics that an ethnographer should have to follow.  When one is dealing with other people, it is a good idea to have a set of rules and regulations that will be followed and observed by all parties involved.  This offers protection for the subjects and the ethnographer.  Subjects need protection from being psychologically damaged and from having their privacy invaded.  Education, for some people, is an emotionally raw process, and it is especially so when the subject is writing.  When students have their writing criticized, it can feel as if their life story is being criticized or judged, if that is their topic.  Ethnographers also need the protection that established rules can bring because they are putting themselves into an awkward position sometimes where they are making observations, which are essentially judgments, about professionals in the field.  It would be great to have something that an ethnographer could refer back to if an issue over the way that they conducted their research was brought forth.  There is security in having rules.
    Who should set the code for ethnographers?  I think that ethnographers with heavy input from the field should set the rules of conduct because ethnographers are the only ones who truly know their needs.  When I say from the field, I am referring to educational administrators and teachers because they should, in theory, know the students best and be able to better guard their interests than an outside source.
# 3The readings have focused on a variety of ways that ethnography is particularly suited to teacher research.  So, after our reading and the discussions we have had this semester, define teacher research and how your ideas have changed about what teacher research is.  

A New Perspective on Teacher Research
 Why this question?
    This is a good question because, according to our readings, teacher research has not been considered a valid field.  However, as several of our readings demonstrated, teacher research from an ethnographic perspective, can be very useful and offers a different view into the culture of the classroom.  I chose this question because, after completing the readings, I was surprised to learn that teacher research was just now beginning to find its voice in the field of ethnographic classroom study.  It seemed to me that teacher research should have been the first place to begin studying the classroom.  
    I have learned in our readings that all ethnography, no matter the credentials of ethnographer, represents one photograph in time and photographs only represent one view from a certain perspective.  So, to my way of thinking, it would be of great benefit to include research from as many different perspectives as possible.  It should be like taking a panoramic picture, the more photographs one takes, the more complete the picture will be.  Therefore, more variety in researcher perspectives will yield a more detailed and accurate view of the culture of the classroom.
My Perspective
    In “An Ethnographic Perspective,” the author argued that ethnography helped learning teachers “with the transition” from student to teacher.  Ethnography helped them by “enabling them to understand teaching and learning from multiple perspectives.” Ethnography also showed them how “to take a critical look” at all aspects of the culture of a classroom (Frank 2).
    In my Encarta dictionary, ethnography is defined as a description of an ethnic group: a branch of anthropology concerned with the description of ethnic groups.  This is a very generic description.  From our readings, I have come to the conclusion that ethnography is more than a simple description of an ethnic group.  Ethnography is a way of seeing and describing a cultural group at a moment in time, from the perspective of the ethnographer.  The position of the ethnographer must be taken into account because it is what frames his or her view of the subject.  
    Traditional definitions in our texts also claimed that ethnographers are supposed to be objective and “to be objective means to state the characteristics of objects and events as they exist and do not interpret, evaluate, and prejudge them” (Frank 3).  It is impossible to be completely objective, as some readings established.  For example, Sunstein writes that ethnographic writing exists in the “liminal space”  and is “rich with the entanglements between informant and researcher, culture and text, truth and fiction, writer and reader” (179).  Entanglement do not allow us to be objective.  Sunstein also quoted another ethnographer who explained that “her own history affects her research subject” (185).  From this work I was able to determine that researchers cannot be completely objective but that they can acknowledge their position and how it might have affected the subject.  
    After learning about ethnography in our readings, I would define teacher research as a means of studying the culture of the classroom where the researcher is able to look critically, with a narrow or wide focus lens, at the components that make up a modern classroom culture.  Their position, that of the teacher, allows them to become involved with their subjects in an acceptable way that doesn’t interfere with the results of the study.  The teacher is a traditional role in the classroom and is expected to act in certain ways.  In my first response I suggested that for accurate results ethnographers must camouflage themselves in the classroom.  The guise of the teacher is perfect camouflage.
    In our class discussion, we touched on the subject of how to introduce the researcher into the classroom.  One of my peers mentioned a previous experience where he had lied to students through omission and, as a result, felt that he gained an insider position in the culture of the classroom.  This creates a moral dilemma.  I do think that it is wrong to do any sort of research in this way.  Honesty is the best route and being the teacher is one of the only valid ways that a professional educator can enter into a classroom.  Presenting oneself as an assistant or maybe as a co-student is dishonest, and I think that we can surmise from the readings that dishonesty will create more “guilt” and other issues that can easily be avoided.