Week Three Reading Reflection: Ethnography

This week’s reading was about the specifics of an ethnography report, basically what it is and what it is not. The article went into great detail about what an ethnography should include, and what the author should be paying attentions to. One of the elements mentioned that stood out to me was that the ethnographer should be paying just as much attention to what they do not observe at the school site, to what they do observe.  An ethnography is about conveying the feeling of a school, and missing elements will certainly contribute to that feeling. Does the school have a strong athletics department? If so, do they have lots of school spirit? Does the school have a paper, and are there frequently re-visited stories? What about dances? All of these extra-curricular activities could be taken for granted at one school, but hard-fought at another. Both the presence of something, and the lack of presence should play into a complete ethnography

The article also discussed the bias of the person gathering information for the ethnography. It acknowledged that this bias is perfectly normal, because it is a person looking at a school through a particular perspective. If I am conducting research at a school that I graduated from, or that was a rival of my school, I’m sure to bring a bias to the table. Though the example doesn’t need to be quit as harsh, simply the fact that I am the person conducting the research and not another person brings its own spin to the ethnography.

Though this article was very factual and informative, it was rather dry. I am glad that we were able to see a video example of the ethnography in Watts, so I could really get an idea of what this project can be. I’m looking forward to getting the different perspectives of students and others when I conduct my research at Orange Glen.