Approaching methodology creatively: problematizing elite schools’ ‘best practice’ through a film about perfection and imperfection

Abstract

Elite schools around the world aspire to produce perfect students and yet there are always obstacles to this perfection being achieved. In this paper, we suggest that this process of perfectionism and obstruction can best be understood using a methodology that looks to the creative arts, rather than the usual social science orthodoxies. Our focus in this paper is therefore not on methodology as a technique, but rather methodology as a resource for thought. Using Lars Von Trier’s film The Five Obstructions as a point of departure, we suggest that the quest for perfect students, or indeed perfect humans, is one that ignores the inherent obstacles that block pathways to perceived perfection. Our research draws on ethnographic fieldwork from six elite secondary schools in Argentina, Australia, Barbados, England, Hong Kong, and South Africa. We posit a creative methodology permits a coming to terms with the abstractions required when analyzing and interpreting large amounts of data from a multi-sited ethnographic study. This approach makes it feasible to draw some conclusions about a common characteristic – perfectionism – among elite schools around the globe.

Keywords:

• elite schools
• creative methodology
• privilege
• global ethnography
• community service
• student-centered learning

Disclosure statement

The authors derive no financial interest or benefit from the direct application of their research.

Notes

1. This research is part of a project called Elite independent schools in globalising circumstances: a multi-sited global ethnography. The project focuses on schools in the British World and includes one reputed school in each of the following: England, Australia, Barbados, Hong Kong, India, Singapore, South Africa, Cyprus, and Argentina. In addition to the fact that they all draw their inspiration from the post-Arnoldian British public school model, we have chosen schools that are over 100 years old, have produced many influential people, and have powerful social connections. Their records illustrate considerable success in end-of-school exams and entry to prestigious universities. Most of our schools are independent of government control and charge high fees; most are wealthy and very well resourced in comparison with the majority of other schools in their respective national education systems. We focus primarily on the schools in England, Hong Kong, and Argentina.

2. In terms of the ethnographic data we use in this paper, we draw particularly on one strand of the wider inquiry: in-depth interviews conducted over a two-year period with the senior staff, primarily school principals, of six elite secondary schools in Argentina (Caledonian School), England (Highbury Hall), South Africa (Greystone), Australia (Founders), Hong Kong (Cathedral), and Barbados (Old Cloisters). We also use some in-depth interviews with students attending Highbury Hall and Caledonian. The fieldwork in Argentina was conducted by Howard Prosser, the fieldwork we refer to in England, Barbados, Hong Kong, and Australia was conducted by Johannah Fahey, while the fieldwork in South Africa was conducted by Debbie Epstein and Jane Kenway. All the interviews cited here have been anonymized.

3. They are not simply the film’s main characters (its ‘protagonists’), but rather two characters in contest with each other.

4. When using the concept of elite, following Dalaz, we use it (fully cognizant of the advantages and disadvantages) ‘as a convenient way to designate categories standing at the apex of societies’ (2009, p. 2), and we identify ‘the concept of class with the relationship between people and economically relevant assets or resources’ (Wright, 2008, p. 26). Again, given the complexity of these terms, we tend to use the less conceptually fraught notion of ‘privilege’ (be it economic, social, and/or cultural) throughout as a means by which we talk about both these categories – that being said, recent theories of privilege have sought to advance the ways in which privilege is understood (Gaztambide-Fernández & Howard, 2010; Howard et al., 2014; Maxwell & Aggleton, 2013).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council [grant number DP1093778] and also by Monash University, Cardiff University, Illinois University, the Hong Kong Institute of Education, and the National Institute of Education, Singapore.