Vandra Lee Masemann -- Critical Ethnography in the Study of Comparative Education (Comparative Education Review, vol. 26, no. 1, 1982, pp. 1-15)
Critical ethnography is defined as a basically anthropological, qualitative, participant-observer methodology which relies on theoretical concepts dating back to Marx, via Comte. Masemann asks several questions of an ethical nature, revolving around the activist/passivist stance the researcher may or may not choose to take. Does the researcher seek to change, does the researcher seek to understand and only then let change occur, does the researcher so blur the lines that research itself must be redefined?
Masemann works through sociological approaches to comparative education, via Weber (too historically relativistic and objectivistic), and attempts to define education systems "by their type" (p. 3), which gave way to "human capital" approaches, which have been somewhat pushed aside by "equality" research.
Masemann then shifts to anthropological approaches to comparative education research. She sees such approaches as being functionalist from the days of Fraser and Tylor, and remaining so through the work of George Spindler and his students (1960s and 1970s). "A Marxist anthropology of education is far less advanced than Marxist sociology of education, while both exist in a predominantly functionalist environment" (p. 4).
From here, Masemann shifts to "interpretive approaches," including interactionist, phenomenological, ethnomethodological, and "the "new" sociology of education." In these approaches, the formal structure of the institution being studied (here, the school or the school system) is not seen as the research problem. Nor is any predefined (by the researcher) effect of the institution (such as the fact that, in Kenya, a very, very low percentage of students work from primary through secondary, and on through tertiary education, yet all start out, and most all get intense parental support). These approaches focus upon the meaning of the institution to the people involved, the micro-view rather than the distant, faux objective view of the researcher, or, if mixing views, a phenomenological approach (which is more macro, but still has micro-touches) and an ethnomethodological approach (which is more micro, but has macro elements).
In a very interesting, and applicable passage, pp. 7-8, Masemann speaks to the inadvisability of problematizing curricula, or progressive notions of work/play in ex-colonial countries. Yet Kenya, by way of example, has Montessori schools all over its urban areas (as well as madarasa, or Koranic schools). In addition, much of the debate about the 8-4-4 curriculum has concerned the ability of children to "play" or to "be children". What would Masemann say about this?
Masemann mentions "indigenous status systems" as one conflict which "conflict approaches" may key into when examining education. KB -- think about other status systems that exist in Ukambani.
Masemann also mentions (pp. 9-10) Bowles and Gintis' "theory of correspondence" as relates to the degree to which social relations of production are mirrored in the social relations of education.
pp. 9-10: " Few studies have examined "resistance" to Western education except as some kind of example of "failed" foreign aid, and there is only one that I can cite [Philip Wexler's "Educational Change and Social Contradiction: An Example, in C.E.R. 1979, pp.240-255] that examines the contradictions that students experience in certain aspects of the curriculum or school organization."
Look for Philip Altbach and Gail Kelly's book entitled, Education and Colonialism.
p. 12: "To place this analysis in comparative perspective, it is not difficult to view the diffusion of Western education internationally as part of a massive deskilling process of Third World populations in terms of indigenous systems of language, symbols, art, folklore, music, and knowledge itself. Moreover, indigenous systems of technology and "science" have been particularly undermined, so much so that anthropologists have debated for some years as to whether indigenous "science" ever existed. The underlying ethos of "development education" itself was the assumption that economic systems and thus, automatically, knowledge systems, were underdeveloped. The protests of those who resist the label of "underdeveloped" are largely squelched or muted in the colonial experience. If one views the persistence of Koranic schooling as a form of cultural resistance, one has only to look at Western distrust of the Moslem world to understand how threatening is the refusal of many to be called "underdeveloped".
"Thus the comparative study of the worldwide trend toward educational entropy, formerly thought to be "enlightenment," would be an interesting one. The progressive deskilling of teachers and students alike in computer-assisted, packaged, individualized learning systems in North American schools and the diffusion of such techniques to countries effectively controlled economically from outside present a rich field for research."
In citing Douglas Foley's work, Masemann concludes this article on critical ethnography, with the following paragraph:
pp. 14-15: "The implications of such an approach [critical ethnography] in comparative education are profound. It would be possible to study village schools in any country in terms of socialization into preferred language dialects or national language, for example. At the secondary school level, various forms of socialization into the national political culture could be examined. At the university level, socialization of elites and concomitant value orientations could be studied. In general, all forms of penetration of dominant ideology or imported innovative "rationality" could be studied in a comparative sense. Systems of student credentialling, the socialization of Third World graduate students in the universities of the metropole, and the penetration of computer technologies into high school classrooms are all topics that could be studied ethnographically and also in macrolevel surveys. Ultimately, the process of educational entropy which consists of the ever more effective spread of certain old and new forms of "rationality" could be a most challenging new field of research in comparative education."
