Re-connecting theory to method: taking teacher heterogeneity seriously in Japan

ABSTRACT

The iterative process of ethnography not only constructs theory, but its methodology should embody theory. Developing a theoretical framework often demands adjustments in methodology, to leverage previous work and to avoid assumptions compounding through the magnification of blind spots. New theory in policy-engaged ethnography has emphasised the importance of analysing interactions between teachers. However, such analyses have not yet emerged in research on education in Japan, partly because of enduring conceptualisations of teachers as homogeneous. Methodological tools that do exist are grounded in anglosphere data and remain unsuited to research in Japan’s schools. As such, participants are positioned amongst, but not in relation to, other teachers and school administrators. Yet, taking teacher heterogeneity seriously enhances the salience of selection bias. The same teachers who are enthusiastic about participating in the research are often those who are enthusiastic about the topic of the research. What is difficult in school ethnography is procuring, and preferably ensuring, participation from teachers who are not enthusiasts toward the topic of the research. Designing research with both the heterogeneity of teachers and the specifics of the local context in mind can provide more diverse data with potential to inform analyses of micro-politics in Japan's schools. In reference to a five-year research project and grounded in data from Japan, the paper proposes some procedures to access a diverse range of teachers based on a theory developed to conceptualise teachers’ orientations towards policy work.

KEYWORDS:

• Selection bias
• policy enactment
• micro-politics
• orientation to policy
• Japanese education
• anglocentric theory

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 I refer to this research as ‘policy-engaged’, rather than ‘policy ethnography’ (Ball 2008), to avoid suggesting that ethnography is the only method used in the main study (cf Ball 1993; 1994; Ball, Maguire, and Braun 2012) or that it necessarily falls within 'policy studies'.

2 Ball et al.’s study, like others, seems to have successfully procured sufficient, and sufficiently varied, data to develop theories of teacher heterogeneity. Nonetheless, it is silent on how such diversity of participants was ensured. I recognise that studies may achieve a wide range of teacher orientations simply by staying a long time in a school, selecting many participants indiscriminately, or through the researchers’ intuition. This does not detract from the value of developing tools to ensure it.

3 Because of Japan’s relatively uniform distribution of schools (Schoppa 2013), particular affluence relative to the municipal average is no more likely to span far beyond one junior school district than not.

4 As an aside, yeargroup meetings provided a well of data at each site – formed of existing relationships that mapped seamlessly to my selection processes and existed mainly for the purpose of discussing non-subject pedagogic and student matters at junior school, and all pedagogic matters at elementary school.

5 The following abbreviations are used: HRT: homeroom teacher, form tutor; ES: elementary school, primary school; JHS: junior high school, secondary school.

6 Experienced teachers transferred into the board of education to work across multiple schools to advise teachers on practice, usually in a particular domain.

7 I draw this interpretation reluctantly because so many preceding studies in Japanese education have found value in Union-related materials and participants. Thus, I recognise the possibility that chance, the largely metropolitan location of my fieldwork, or other systemic factors are keeping these insights hidden from my approach to practice-based research. Though tentative, it may be equally as problematic to omit seemingly unfruitful lines of enquiry, which often go unreported.