Abstract
‘Good ethnography needs to fight familiarity’ is a pivotal message in the book Key Themes in the Ethnography of Education. It is a phrase that serves equally well to characterise the flavour of this volume, in which Delamont unsettles familiar perceptions of the field. One of these, is that educational ethnography represents a ‘traditional’ qualitative methodology, a view deriving from a 60-year-long history of studies upon which the book draws. Synthesising and consolidating ethnographic research contributions to the study of education, Delamont reveals a rich, vibrant and continually evolving body of important insights. In this way, the book offers a valuable reinvigoration of the field, serving to inspire and support a new generation of educational ethnographers. Chapter 2 is particularly valuable in this regard, offering six strategies ethnographers might employ for ‘fighting familiarity’ (read, producing excellent ethnographic research) in the framing of research questions and fieldwork conduct.
One way this book fights familiarity is via its structure. The task of recounting and organising voluminous studies within the ethnography of education risks a pedestrian format. Delamont enlivens this project in several ways, via the conceptualisation of what constitutes key findings of educational ethnography and the ordering of these discussions. Instead of starting predictably with a chapter on ‘Teaching and Learning’, this discussion is captured in ‘Knowledge and Transmission’ situated at the end of the book. Preceding it is a series of chapters framed in terms of ‘Places and Spaces’ (examining the importance of evoking and understanding space for teaching and learning), ‘Time and Timescapes’ (how temporal arrangements are implicated in teaching and learning) and ‘Bodies and Performativity’ (how learning, teaching and research are embodied performances). Anyone left with residual concerns that educational ethnographies are ‘traditional’ is likely to have these dismantled by other chapters on ‘Movement and Mobilities’ (exploration of where movement is required and forbidden at school) and ‘Senses and Multi-Sensory Matters’, dealing with the importance of the five senses in learning and teaching. The latter is my favourite chapter, for its exploration of an ‘unfamiliar’ in educational research (the senses) and the potential it holds for future ethnographic studies.
Another way this book makes educational ethnographic research ‘unfamiliar’ is via the types of studies it comprises. The book’s primary aim is to collect and delineate ‘continuities and discontinuities’ (p. 7) in the findings of ethnographies concerned with learning and teaching. Rather than restricting these studies to formal educational settings such as schools and universities, non-formal contexts are embraced. Delamont’s rationale is that, ‘The sociology of education can be progressed by ethnographic research in many settings, from teaching hospitals and brothels (Heyl, 1979) to pottery studios (Singleton, 1998a) and capoeira rodas’ (a Brazilian martial art context) (p. x). This widening of the contours of educational ethnographic research offers an important conceptual contribution to the field.
A further break with educational ethnographic convention is the inclusion of studies from anthropology and sociology of education. By violating what has typically been a disciplinary divide (educational ethnographies in anthropology and sociology rarely acknowledge each other), the contours of each disciplinary contribution are thrown into sharper relief. Via this reconceptualisation of what constitutes important findings for educational ethnography, the limitations and work still required are illuminated.
Given the many educational ethnographies which have been undertaken in the last 60 years (acknowledging their volume is another aim of the book) a selection of those to be included must be made. Rather self-servingly, as a sexuality researcher who employs ethnographic methods in schools, I would have liked to see inclusion of some of the seminal work undertaken in this area (Kehily, 2002; Renold, 2005). As the book points out, one of its recurrent themes is absences, and it is interesting to reflect on the limited presence of sexual ethnography in the field of education more generally.
I commend the author for wrestling into coherent shape what is a large and unwieldy array of ethnographic research in education and the way familiarity is fought in doing so. This is a book which conveys what is exciting about conducting educational ethnographies and should be mandatory reading for future ethnographers.