To perceive and to be perceived: challenges of ethnography in elite schools

Abstract

Drawing on a larger study on “Gender practices and violence between peers: the stakes of mixed-sex education”, this paper examines the methodological challenges specific to carrying out ethnography in an elite high school. The researcher’s subjective experience in the field reveals the power dynamics at play in the elite setting. We also examine how interdisciplinary collective analysis of the observation journals unveils less-examined challenges to conceptualization in the research process. We call for the heuristic value when contradiction and subjectivity are acknowledged and implicated both in the field and data analysis, which leads us to articulate different social identities in the elite school environment.

Keywords:

• ethnography
• elite
• subjectivity
• interdisciplinarity
• team research

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. French National Research Agency Project ANR-09-ENFT-006. Full report (in French) available here: https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00986142.

2. Natacha Carbonne, PhD Sociology; Rebecca Weber, PhD Psychology.

3. The study was coordinated by Patricia Mercader, Professor of Social Psychology (CRPPC, EA 356), in association with Annie Lechenet, Associate Professor of Philosophy (Triangle Laboratory UMR 5206).

4. All names have been changed to protect anonymity.

5. The ethnographers primarily worked alone in each school except at the end of the year when a few observation periods were carried out with two researchers in order to intersect their perspectives.

6. Post-baccalaureate refers to students who have already taken the French “baccalaureate” examination which qualifies them to pursue higher education. Post-baccalaureate students can refer to university students in addition to those who pursue preparatory programs offered on high school campuses such as Hubble High.

7. International colloquium “Gendered practices and violence betweens peers” Université Lumière Lyon 2, France, 3–4 October 2013. http://mixite-violence.sciencesconf.org/.

8. The team included, Jean-Pierre Durif-Varembont, Associate Professor of Psychology, Psychologist, Psychoanalyst; Marie-Carmen Garcia, Professor of Sociology; Fanny Lignon, Associate Professor Cinematic Studies; Viviane Albenga, PhD in Sociology; Audrey Arnoult, PhD in Information and Communication Sciences; Natacha Carbonne, PhD in Sociology; Mehdi Derfoufi, PhD in Cinematic Studies; Fanny Gallot, PhD in Contempory History; Julia Jeune, MS Sociology; Rebecca Weber, PhD in Psychology. With the collaboration of Marie Anaut, Professor of Psychology and Education; Rommel Mendès-Leite, Associate professor of Psychology and Anthropology; Anaelle Baeyaert-Guibert, Psychologist; Patricia Baumann, School Counselor; Sarah Berrard, student in Psychology; Hélène Descubes-Demirdjian, Psychologist; Christiane Durif-Varembont, teacher and trainer.

9. However, this ideal is not particularly encouraged on an institutional level.

10. The supposed authority of brothers over sisters remains in the west, in many families and social contexts, a daily reality, despite different terminology for such phenomena.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the French National Research Agency [grant number ANR-09-ENFT-006].