The negotiation of feedback: Reporting back to teachers during fieldwork?

This study examines how an ethnographer of education and biology teachers negotiate roles during collaborative fieldwork on SocioScientific Issues. Drawing on 8 months of classroom observation and co-design of teaching materials with two high school teachers, the study explores the researcher’s shifting positionality from observer to facilitator. Initially confronted with teachers’ requests for feedback, the researcher navigated tensions between observational distance and participants’ desire for professional input. These tensions were channeled into an action-oriented ethnographic approach grounded in relational curiosity—a reciprocal interest in each other’s expertise and development. This reflection shows how teacher-researcher collaboration not only supported the teachers’ self-efficacy but also fostered peer-led professional development. Rather than reproducing deficit models common in science education research, this article highlights collaborative ethnography as a means of enhancing teacher agency, enriching pedagogical reflection, and creating equitable research relationships grounded in trust and mutual learning.