Less is More?

After going through the readings, I was initially trying to contrast ethnography's and case studies looking for some higher form a clarity to determine which of these methods was more viable. Both of these had lists of flaws with them, but curiously the ethnography didn't assume that the observer had to be unbiased. In fact, it encouraged bias. Why was it that when observing a community a bias was encouraged but when observing a single case it was viewed as not only being misleading but brought to mind questions as to the merit of examining a single case? Why is an observer allowed to make inferences about a larger community but not a single individual with whom they come in contact with? Does this have to do with skewing observations because if that's the case, how could one not become skewed when observing a community they take part in like Moss does in her essay.

Are the things that Moss finds when looking through the community of her own African-American church supposed to live up to the same scrutiny as some of the case studies that we looked at last week? Does observing a community give you more power because of its setting? Also, oddly enough, I thought that while plenty was done to give us as researchers viable ways of bulking up the credibility of our case study papers, there wasn't nearly as many ways to enhance the ethnography. Going through all the things that could potentially poke holes in it was like admiring Swiss cheese at the deli.

The other questions I had were primarily from the Lauer and Asher in regards to coding the various information. When observing a whole community and having so many different issues at hand in the community that can contribute to the various things being researched I can't even imagine how you would code these things. It seemed overwhelming coding a single person through various sets of eyes, but an entire community through different lens, that just seems like an overwhelming task for it to be subject to so many pitfalls.

Triangulation? Try strangulation... : - )

Great quote: "Hymes (1980) states that the validity of an ethnography depends on an 'accurate knowledge of the meanings and behaviors of those who participate in them" (quoted in LA 41). Maybe if Hymes removed “accurate,” the focus would shift to the types of knowledge on which validity depends, but my first thought was, “Wow. What a great circular explanation.” The phenomenological focus is probably what Hymes meant to describe, but the quote still made me laugh. The catalogue of challenges faced by ethnographers who want “accurate knowledge” was probably the most interesting part of the chapter for me. I was shocked to see that many uneducated people see causal relationships in single co-occurences, and the warning about our tendency to focus on novel data was another great reminder. For me, this was a novel way to look at an obvious truth: Redundant data (though it is often overlooked) is the key to induction.
The concept of triangulation is the most important characteristic of ethnography, so I guess I should comment on that. Composing an ethnography is a daunting task to consider because of the multiplicity of data sources and the biases and relationships that must be discussed by the researchers. This would take a lot of writing! I noticed at least one reference to the scarcity of publication real-estate available to thorough qualitative studies (43).On page 41, L&A mention that Lemke and Bridwell turned a program evaluation into an ethnography, so non-academic audiences may be a way to support cost of publishing thorough ethnographic research. Ethnography seems to be really useful for a report to present to a school board. A school board and school administration would be interested in an ethnographic form of research because it is personalized yet thorough, in contrast to scientifically generalizable research methods or case studies. Chris, I see you're thinking the same thing by pointing out the problem of 90-90-90 schools being treated as the perfectly generic population.
Moss’s narrative gave good practical examples of Lauer and Asher’s prescriptions for good ethnography. In her post, Chris mentioned the catch-22 of insider knowledge, and I wanted to put my take on it in different words. Moss titles the section “Conducting and Ethnography: Making the Familiar Strange,” and it seems odd to me that the ethnographer who is native to the community under study must make the familiar strange to allow new perspectives, but he or she must also not make the familiar appear strange, less the informants feel uncomfortable working with a stranger.
One aspect of ethnography research that L&A did not cover was Moss’s position that the researcher must be “responsible to the community,” (169) but this statement raised my eyebrows and I feel deserved a little more discussion. Moss “did not want anyone in the community to be dissatisfied with what [she] had written,” but this seems like an impossibility. How do we decide when tough conclusions benefit the community more than those that avoid controversy? In a school district for example, would pointing to widespread parental distrust of the educational establishment be so distasteful to the community that it would put a (triangular) wedge between the community, the researchers, and the those who would utilize the research? If a charismatic and popular community leader seems to be able to smooth out tensions, in say a church community, would that give an ethnographer more license to reveal faults or “hard truths.” I know that data collection is controlled by an IRB, but the ethics of analysis and interpretation are another matter, right? Fortunately, ethnographers generally undertake their research to raise understanding and awareness about the communities they describe—or so we hope.