Adail Sebastião RODRIGUES-JÚNIOR
Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto
Vera Lúcia Menezes de Oliveira e PAIVA
Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais/CNPq
1.
Introduction
Ethnography as
logic of inquiry (Green,
Traditional research characterizes itself for isolating
parts of a specific phenomenon in order to study it. Nevertheless, a new
research attitude enables the researcher to view her/his research object as a
complex system. Second language acquisition (
As complex systems agents are “constantly acting and reacting to what the other agents are doing” (Larsen-Freeman, 1997, p. 143), in order to understand language learning, we need a methodology which takes into account the multitude of social, cultural, political and economic complexities that (un)predictably pervade the field of education.
It is our contention that ethnography as logic of
inquiry is the best option to study the complexities of the events under
scrutiny, in a bid to represent reality as a complex, dynamic and mainly
unpredictable system. In order to develop this assumption we will present the
characteristics of complex systems in section 2 and will discuss ethnography as
a basis for understanding the complexities of
2. Some characteristics
of a complex system
The main characteristics of a complex system are dynamicity, non-linearity, adaptability, self-organization, and emergence.
Seldom, if ever, is the system in equilibrium, given
that dynamicity
is one of the characteristics of a complex system. The system changes over time and so does its components. Changes happen often
as the result of feedback and the system adapts itself to the new environment,
learning from its experience. The changes are non-linear as the effect is not necessarily proportional to the cause. They are,
in fact, chaotic.
The system is apparently disordered, although there
is an underlying order in this apparent disorder. Nothing is determined or predicable.
Another feature of such a system is thus non-linearity. Apparently, there are no causal relationships to explain how many things happen in nature, including learning or social interaction. Unpredictability seems to govern this kind of system. Kirshbaum (2002) explains that
the unpredictability that is thus inherent in the natural evolution
of complex systems can yield results that are totally unpredictable based
on knowledge of the original conditions. Such unpredictable results are called
emergent properties. Emergent properties thus show how complex systems are
inherently creative ones.
The complex systems are creative and
the essence of creativity is unpredictability.
Humans, for instance, are unpredictable learners and this characteristic
is responsible for the emergence of creative learning experiences.
Emergence can be
understood, according to Johnson (2002), as “what happens when the whole is
smarter than the sum of the parts”. To put it very bluntly,
Another characteristic is adaptability,
that is to say, the system capacity to reorganize itself in reaction to the
interference of external agents. This marked characteristic of the system leads
the latter to self-organization, or
the system’s ability to search for organization whenever it has been disturbed
by surrounding forces. Thornbury (2001) reminds us that
systems that are left to themselves (closed
systems) tend to run down – they move from order to stasis, just as an unwound
clock will eventually stop. However, open systems – systems that are open to
intake of new energy – may move in the opposite direction, evolving into more
complex states.
Changes and perturbations make the system work
and it gets increasingly more organized due to its own dynamics and, by being
adaptive, they have the capacity to learn from experience and change. As the system
evolves it increases in complexity and self-organizes itself.
There is enough evidence to argue
that language learning certainly seems to be an adaptive complex system due to
its inherent ability to adapt to the different conditions imposed upon it by individual
and environmental constraints. To transform oneself from a speaker of one’s
native language into a speaker of a second or foreign language is a process as
complex as changing from total order to chaos, and by chaos we mean “a long
time behavior of a dynamical system characterized by a great deal of
irregularity[1]”. It is our contention that ethnography can shed
much light on this process as it does not focus on the product, but on the
process.
3. Ethnography as logic of inquiry
Ethnography as logic of inquiry has been considered one influential means of exploring and describing specific cultures and communities of practice within education. Intertwined views of classroom dynamics with wide ranges of social practices have been the core issue of school ethnography and its logic of investigation. According to Athanases and Heath (1995, p. 263), “an ethnography can provide researchers, teachers, and other educators with rich documentation of learning as it unfolds and varies over time, leading potentially to insights into cultural patterns, formulation of hypotheses for testing, and support for generation of theory”. The researcher can thus observe and at the same time be part of the dynamicity and self-organization of the system.
The term ethnography comes from the Greek word ethnos, which means people or cultural group, and the term graphia, which means writing or representation of specific groups of people through writing (LeCompte and Priessle, 1993). The etymological definition of ethnography carries in itself the explanation of what an ethnographer is supposed to do – describe specific cultures and groups of people, be they exotic groups from different cultures or groups within the ethnographer’s culture. Consequently, the ethnographic description of a culture does need long-term participation within the community investigated in order for the ethnographer to gain confidence from the people s/he analyzes and principally to build rapport (Spradley, 1980). Athanases and Heath (1995, p. 267-8), building on Talbert’s (1973) view of an anthropological basis for ethnography, calls our attention to this long-term period of exploration by arguing that
the discovery of
cultural patterns [is] the primary goal of anthropology [and] long-term
fieldwork in pursuit of that goal requires a period of at least a year of study
and participant observation. The researcher becomes immersed in the culture as,
at minimum, a “tolerated observed”. The researcher engages in comparative
science, using a relativistic view (treatment of language norms on their own
terms), demonstrating sensitivity to context or the interrelated nature of
social systems within which the culture under study is situated and the pursuit
of complementary scholarly study to understand cultural patterns noted in the
fieldwork.
Cultural Anthropology has split ethnography into two
interconnected characteristics, that is to say, ethnography as product –
ethnographic writings and descriptions of particular cultures, and as process
– techniques and methods of acquiring knowledge of specific groups or
communities by using fieldwork and participant observation (Sanjek, 2002).
Albeit the product of ethnography is the main aim of any research conducted by
ethnographic principles of knowledge and cultural description, the processes of
entering into the field, participating as an in-group member inserted in
the community studied, building rapport, and exploring culture as the
representation of the community under analysis are in fact the core of
ethnography as logic of inquiry. By doing so, the researcher becomes part of
the complexity of the culture under investigation, with the intention to allow
her/himself to be influenced by the dynamics of the people studied as if s/he
belonged to that community as a member.
Ethnographic
research has not been asked to adopt isolated observation techniques per se,
nor to exclude the voices of the people investigated from its writings. On the
contrary, ethnography requires full participation of the researcher in the
culture of the “other” and appropriate registering within ethnographic products
(reports, monographs, and so forth) of the voices of the latter. The data is
contextualized in a non-linear way and the researcher can see how everything is
dynamically interconnected in a live unpredictable system. He or she can also
view different levels of reality and different points of view.
Likewise,
ethnography leads to the metaphorical view of the ethnographer as a bridge
which constantly fills the gap between what is already known about that culture
and what is to be known about the dynamics of that culture as well. Green,
[a]n observer who
enters with a predefined checklist, predefined questions or hypotheses, or an
observation scheme that defines, in an a priori manner, all behaviors
or events that will be recorded is not engaging in
ethnography, regardless of the length of observation or the reliability of the
observation system. Further, if the observer does not draw on theories of
culture to guide the choices of what is relevant to observe and record, or
overlays his or her personal interpretation of the activity observed, they are
not engaging in an ethnographic approach from an anthropological point of view.[2]
In fact, predefined checklists may prevent the observer
to grasp what emerges from the interaction among all the elements of the system
that are inserted in that specific culture. One important but contentious
conceptualization often cautiously approached by anthropologists is the uses of
the term culture. The post-Boasian tradition of anthropological inquiry posits
as to which extent culture maps out individuals lives and social practices and
vice-versa, given the fluidity of the term, which is due mostly to the multicultural
and globalized world individuals live in (Barnard and Spencer, 2002). Far from
coming to terms with the controversial definitions and applications of culture
within Anthropology, the concept of culture we find rather appropriate and
suitable to the purposes of this paper is that of Frake[3] (1977), as quoted in
Spradley (1980, p. 9):
Culture is not
simply a cognitive map that people acquire, in whole or in part, more or less
accurately, and then learn to read. People are not just map-readers; they are map-makers.
People are cast out into imperfectly charted, continually seas of everyday
life. Mapping them out is a constant process resulting not in an individual
cognitive map, but in a whole chart case of rough, improvised, continually
revised sketch maps. Culture does not provide a cognitive map, but rather a set
of principles for map making and navigation. Different cultures are like
different schools of navigation designed to cope with different terrains and
seas (Frake, 1977: 6-7).
Taking into account educational research based upon a
purely ethnographic logic of inquiry, Heath (1982) states clearly that some
problems may arise as to what school setting seems mostly appropriate to be
studied as well as an ethnographic research to be carried out. Given that an
ethnographic-oriented research aims primarily at describing a specific culture
and its multiple and dialectical forms of social dynamics, Heath (1982) argues
that school settings are just one part of the breadth of sociohistorical
features an ethnographer may encounter and perceive within a culture. Bearing
this assumption in mind, Heath (1982, p. 37) affirms that
when formal
schooling is the focus of research, anthropologists attempt to study it in
relation to the broader cultural and community context in which it exists. For
example, the behaviors of pupils are ideally viewed not only in relation to fit
or contrast with those of teacher, typical student, or successful pupil, but
also with respect to home and community enculturation patterns of pupils and
teachers.
What Heath (1982) attempts to show is the fact that
ethnography in education, interpreted as logic of inquiry, may naturally lead
to a juxtaposition of complex perspectives
and procedures of investigation of the social dynamics under scrutiny that a
unique perspective may not reveal. As an example of this juxtaposition is
Solsken’s (1992) long-term ethnographic triangulation. Solsken contrasted one
male student reading activities within different sites, more precisely, in his bedroom,
during his family homework session, in the kindergarten and second grade class
with a female teacher, and in his first grade class with a male teacher. Her
research demonstrated that the student under analysis used to see literacy
practices as women work, given her mother and sisters habits of reading at
home, which explains his literacy problems with the female teacher. On the
other hand, when attending the first grade class with a male teacher, the boy
has considerably improved his reading skills, since he realized that literacy
is not only women work in general. By tracing the boy’s literacy development
within three years of analysis, Solsken was able to construct a picture of the
student’s reading improvement and its interconnections between school reading
activities, home reading activities and self reading interests. The results
Solsken has found are heavily due to her long-term research and the
possibilities this ethnographic procedure has provided. Consequently, knowledge
emerged from the complexity of the boy’s culture.
As we have been discussing so far, ethnography as logic
of inquiry has gained considerable ground in educational research, principally
in the field of literacy (see, for instance, Castanheira, 2000; Castanheira et
al., 2001; Green and Bloome, 1997; Green, Dixon and Zaharlick, 2001; Heath,
1982). According to Rodrigues-Junior (forthcoming), in the field of second
language teaching and learning in Brazil however, ethnography has been used
more as a tool or orientation to research method than as logic of investigation,
since research has more generally focused on ways of collecting data from an
ethnographic perspective than taking into consideration the ethnographic logic
of inquiry that necessarily needs to lie behind the research. This common
tendency mostly leads to a misinterpretation of the fundamental principles and
scope of ethnography in the field of second language studies in
4. Conclusion
Ethnography
methodology is in accordance with the complexity science as it focuses on
observation and description of several layers of adaptive, non-linear,
self-organizing systems, that is, with learning systems. In language learning
contexts, ethnography knowledge emerges out of the interaction of the array of
data such as observation, field notes, interviews with teachers and students,
video and audio recordings, transcripts, etc. Besides that, the researcher is
also seen as involved with the culture s/he studies. Davis and Sumara (2006, p.
16) state that “complexity thinking helps us actually take on the work of
trying to understand things while we are part of the things we are trying to
understand”. When doing ethnography, the ethnographer tries to understand the
phenomenon as involved with it and not detached from it. The researcher
subjectivity is both present in his observations and field notes and s/he is
also part of the research context. Thus, the researcher, on the one hand,
affects and, on the other, is affected by the other elements of the culture
under investigation. The research develops itself through the juxtaposition of
complex perspectives and research tools, revealing aspects of multiple forms of
social practices, such as intertwined views of classroom dynamics.
5. Bibliographical
references
ATHANASES, S. Z.; HEATH,
S. B. “Ethnography in the Study of the Teaching and Learning of English”, Research in the Teaching of English,
v. 29, n. 3, 1995, p.263-87.
BARNARD, A.; SPENCER, J. (Ed.).
Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural
Anthropology.
CASTANHEIRA, M. L. Situating Learning within Collective
Possibilities: examining the discursive construction of opportunities for
learning in the classroom. Ph.D Dissertation 493ff. Califórnia, EUA:
CASTANHEIRA, M. L; CRAWFORD, T.;
DAVIS, B.; SUMARA, D.
Complexity and education: inquiries into learning, teaching, and research.
GREEN, J. L.;
GREEN, J. L.;
GREEN, J.; BLOOME, D. “Ethnography and ethnographers of and in
education: a situated perspective”. In: FLOOD, J.; HEATH, S. B.; LAPP, D. (Ed.),
Handbook for Literacy Educators: research in the community and visual arts.
HEATH, S. B. “Ethnography in
Education: defining the essentials”. In: GILLMORE, P; GLATTHORN, A. (Ed..) Children
in and out of school: Ethnography and education.
Retrieved April,15, 2006, from http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/network/2002/02/22/johnson.html
JOHNSON, S. Steven
Johnson on "Emergence. an Interview. February, 2002.
LARSEN-FREEMAN, D. “Chaos/complexity
science and second language acquisition”, Applied Linguistics.
LeCOMPTE, M. D.; PRIESSLE,
J. (Eds.). Ethnography and qualitative
design in educational research. 2nd ed.
RODRIGUES-JÚNIOR, A. S.
“Etnografia e ensino de línguas estrangeiras: uma análise exploratória de seu
estado-da-arte no Brasil”, Linguagem
& Ensino, forthcoming.
SANJEK, R.
“Ethnography”. In BARNARD, A.;
SPENCER, J. (orgs.). Encyclopedia
of Social and Cultural Anthropology.
SOLSKEN, J. Literacy, gender and work in families and in
school.
SPRADLEY, J. P. Participant observation.
TALBERT, C.
“Anthropological research models”, Research
in the Teaching of English, 7, 199-211, 1973.
WATSON-GEGEO, K. A. “Ethnography in ESL: defining the
essentials”, Tesol Quarterly, v. 22,
n. 4, 1988, p. 575-92.
[1] Glossary of Dynamical Systems Terms, available at http://mrb.niddk.nih.gov/glossary/glossary.html
[2] For
a translated Portuguese version of this work, see Green,
[3] FRAKE,
C. O. “Plying frames can be dangerous: some reflections on methodology in
cognitive anthropology”, Quarterly
Newsletter of the Institute for Comparative Human Development, 3: 1-7.