Dream interpretation as a component of researcher's reflexivity within an ethnographic research

Abstract

Researchers' reflexivity about how they shape the phenomena that they study within the data collection process is often presented as a crucial component of ethnographic research methodology. Nevertheless, academic literature about ethnography is mostly silent around whether researchers' dreams are relevant to the research process and their interpretation can be considered a valuable material to be reflexive of. While using data from an ethnographic study in two public primary schools in Australia and Slovakia about inclusive education and school leadership, this paper demonstrates how researcher's dreams and their interpretation navigated his decisions about the data collection process, data analysis and ethical aspects of the study. This paper presents original implications for understanding the concept of reflexivity and putting it in practice when employing ethnographic research methodology.

Keywords:

• ethnography
• reflexivity
• dreams
• qualitative research methods
• education

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank to Benjamin Jon Callaghan for our inspirational discussions about the topic of dreams and his support in writing this article. This support also included proofreading and commenting on various versions of the article.

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Government, Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research (2010 International Postgraduate Research Scholarship); the University of Sydney (2010 International Postgraduate Award) and the Faculty of Education and Social Work, University of Sydney (Thomas T. Roberts Education Fellowship 2011).

Notes

1. In case of NSW, there was no one school identified by most external informants, hence, the school identified by the representative of public administration (NSW Department of Education and Communities) was selected.

2. Altogether I recorded nine dreams in my ethnographic fieldnotes under this category of ‘reflection’. While most of these dreams were rather complex and rich with symbols relevant to this research project, and thus, potentially insightful for readers as well, the word limitations of this paper allowed me to scrutinise only three of them.

Additional information

Funding

Funding: This work was supported by the Australian Government, Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research (2010 International Postgraduate Research Scholarship); the University of Sydney (2010 International Postgraduate Award) and the Faculty of Education and Social Work, University of Sydney (Thomas T. Roberts Education Fellowship 2011).