Video analysis in cross-cultural environments and methodological issues

Abstract

This paper addresses the use of videography combined with group interviews, as a way to better understand the informal learnings of 11–12 year old children in cross-cultural encounters during French–German school exchanges. The complete, consistent video data required the researchers to choose the most significant sequences to highlight the processes by which the pupils communicated and expressed feelings and meanings within their experiences. The target of these paradigmatic situations was focused on two important questions relevant in the science of education: - First, an epistemological and ethical question arose about the relationship between the researchers and the subjects of the research: How could cooperative research with pupils be led so that they were considered actors within the situation, and could share with the researchers the meaning of what happened in their cross-cultural experience? - The second question arose from a methodological problem, which caused the researchers to develop a mixed apparatus involving a special recall technique using video data combined with group interviews to help the children remember what they were experiencing during the filmed interaction.