The Challenges of Conducting an Ethnographic Case Study of a United Kingdom Teacher Education Institution

Abstract

Qualitative researchers engaging in systematic fieldwork encounter dilemmas that may illuminate cultural assumptions and enhance understanding of the contexts of studies. This article is based on a study of the extent to which the concept of competence in the everyday life of a teacher education institution in the United Kingdom (UK) showed sensitivity to the need to prepare future teachers as critical, autonomous professionals. I conducted ethnographic research in this institution and wrote a case study about the experience. The study was particularly imbued with a transformative approach to competence, the need to prepare teachers as agents of change of educational inequality in which certain groups whose cultural patterns differ from those in the school systems are systematically kept off the main tracks of the educational system. Transformative educational practices in teacher education involve teaching technical skills and competencies and encourage future teachers to reflect critically on the impact of their actions and perceptions on the achievement of pupils from different cultural backgrounds. I (Canen, 1984) undertook a similar study in Brazil in which I pinpointed practices contradictory to transformative approaches in teacher education in two teacher education institutions I used as case studies. The multicultural nature of the UK and Brazil (Canen, 1995) was a framework for reflection on preparing teachers to deal with cultural diversity. In this article, I focus on the ethical dilemma I encountered during an ethnographic study in the UK. I first deal with issues related to ethnographic studies and then describe the negotiations in the fieldwork and the constraints imposed on it. The relevance of these matters in qualitative research in teacher education is twofold: They show the contradictions and difficulties qualitative researchers likely encounter conducting research in a teacher education institution. In this study, they illustrate cultural assumptions informing the concept of competence itself, which might be detrimental to the enhancement of critical thought in a teacher education institution. Ethnographic Case Studies: Some Considerations in the Literature Denzin and Lincoln (1994) define case study as the study of things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of, or interpret phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them (p. 2). ... coupled with the presence of a gendered, multiculturally situated researcher (p. 11) throughout the process of research, from adoption of the theoretical framework and formulation of questions to the strategies of inquiry and interpretation of data. Fieldwork procedures and theoretical ideas are two sides of the same coin (Wolcott, 1992, p. 6). Fieldwork procedures are paradigms of interpretation [put] into motion (Denzin & Lincoln, 1994, p. 14). Case study is a choice of object to be studied (Stake, 1994, pp. 236-237). Ludke and Andre (1986) point out that a case is a unity inside a wider system, an instance such as an event, a person, a group, a school, an institution, or a program to be intensely and systematically studied. Case researchers seek out both what is common and what is particular about the case, the end results being generally something unique (Stake, 1994, p. 238). An ethnographic case study uses techniques such as observation, interviews, analysis of documents, and others to discover the cultural knowledge that people hold in their minds, how it is employed in social interaction and the consequences of its employment (Spindler & Spindler, 1992, p. 70). Even though some scholars recommend the description of conflicts of values and ethical challenges in ethnographic studies, others point out its low frequency. Punch (1994) notes that it would be inappropriate for the `scientist' to abandon objectivity and detachment in recounting descriptions of personal involvement and political battles in the field setting (p. …