Advanced Methods Graduate Seminar on the Ethnography of Human Development and Learning
“Anthropologist Sir Evans-Pritchard, in a postscript to his book Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande (1937) reminisces about his disciplinary training in methodology. As a young student in London about to set off for Central Africa, he sought tips about ethnographic procedure from more experienced hands in the field. He went to his teacher Charles Seligman, who told him ‘take 10 grains of quinine every night and keep off women.’ He went to Edward Westermarck who told him ‘don’t converse with an informant for more than twenty minutes because if you aren’t bored by that time, he will be.’ He went to the famous Malinowski who told him “not to be a bloody fool.” Evans-Pritchard (E. P., as he was known in the profession) then went off to the field and wrote a classic ethnography.” (page 15)
Quoted from Richard Shweder’s chapter “True ethnography: The lore, the law, and the lure” in Ethnography and Human Development.
So, how does one engage in the ethnography of human development and learning? As part of the LIFE Center, the Lead Investigators on its Informal Learning strand — Philip Bell, Reed Stevens, Roy Pea, and Brigid Barron — offered a joint graduate seminar across Stanford University and the University of Washington in Spring 2005 on methodological issues central to research of this kind. The “Ethnography of Human Development and Learning” seminar explored a wide range of issues including the practicalities of fieldwork and analysis, ethical issues that arise, epistemological issues about what counts as “good” ethnography, how to work with various kinds of media sources, and how this kind of work fits with other approaches to understanding human development and learning. Through regular videoconferencing, the classes at each institution were able to have frequent discussions and present to each other.
There is a blog associated with the course where class participants publicly posted annotations of the literature and reflected on the issues and themes of the course. The syllabus and EndNote database for the class are also available.
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