Chapter 2: Methodology

This chapter gives a brief explanation of ethnography and the method and issues commonly related to ethnographic research - data collection, informed consent and relationships within the research process. My art-based inquiry as a methodological approach is described and explained through the use of artifacts as a research tool. This is followed by a description of the data analysis and a discussion about the shifts in my thinking and perspectives that occurred during the process of this study.

Ethnography

Ethnography is the direct study of human beings in interaction and claims that "knowledge, while always tenuous, is best established by doing fieldwork, that is, research with people in the natural settings" (Haig-Brown, 1992:101). A key assumption within ethnographic inquiry is that one can reach a better understanding of the beliefs, motivations, and behaviours of people in the research setting than by using other methods. I wanted to know how the teachers and students experienced the Centre and to understand what those experiences mean to them, thus this was best explored through ethnographic fieldwork that consisted of participant observation, general observation, and formal and informal interviews.

Ethnography is a combination of research design, fieldwork and various methods of inquiry to produce accounts, descriptions, interpretations and representations of human lives that are historically, politically, and personally situated (Tedlock 2000). An ethnographic study works to place situations, events and understandings into a fuller, more meaningful context. This thesis works to describe, interpret and represent one period of time in the life of an adult literacy centre, and is situated within the historical and political context of adult literacy education in a North America.

I agree with other tenets of ethnographic inquiry that include the assumption that human group life is a process - a dynamic and relational process where we are shaped by the people and events around us (Prus, 1994). People influence one another and humans develop cultures through this process of connection and making sense of those connections and situations. Thus the life of the Reading and Writing Centre and the life of my research process are included in this human group life process. As an ethnographer, I planned to be attentive to all aspects of the Centre during my early observations and to involve myself in the interactions and dynamic process of group life within the culture of the Centre. Ethnographers become personally involved and enter into firsthand interaction with people in their everyday lives. Thus there can be potential problems when conducting ethnographic research in maintaining the delicate balance required between involvement and over-involvement, sometimes termed as "going native" (Shaffir, Dietz and Stebbins 1994:41). I experienced an identification with literacy students and in the epilogue following the final chapter, I discuss some of those struggles related to that identity.