Ethnography

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International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education

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The construction of researcher–researched relationships in school ethnography: doing research, participating in the field and reflecting on ethical dilemmas

Xi Wang

To cite this article: Xi Wang (2013) The construction of researcher–researched relationships in school ethnography: doing research, participating in the field and reflecting on ethical dilemmas, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 26:7, 763-779, DOI: 10.1080/09518398.2012.666287

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2012.666287

Published online: 12 Apr 2012.

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The construction of researcher–researched relationships in school ethnography: doing research, participating in the field and reflecting on ethical dilemmas

Xi Wang*

Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China

(Received 13 April 2009; final version received 6 October 2011)

In qualitative research, the researcher’s engagement over time in participants’ daily lives entails the creation and maintenance of favourable and cooperative field relations. With this aim, it is important to build a reflexive component into the research, exploring how the researcher and researched interact with each other within the context of school and how they are challenged by political and ethical dilemmas. Drawing upon my experience while conducting an ethno- graphic study in an international school in mainland China, I reflected on two issues: what field relations were established in what ways, and what threads to ethics and research validity I encountered in the course of the fieldwork.

Keywords: the researcher–researched relationship; ethical dilemma; authenticity

Introduction

Much qualitative research on education (Moffatt 1989; Ritchie and Rigano 2001; Zigo 2001; Rogers 2004) has become increasingly attentive to interrelationships between the researcher and the researched. Rather than building an accurate represen- tation of the objective reality, research embracing a social constructionist epistemol- ogy highlights the inter-subjective nature of inquiry. Much significance was given to the following questions: how does the researcher him/herself jointly construct mean- ings with research participants, and how are these inevitably included in the subject matter under investigation? As Back and Solomos (1993) suggest: we need to ‘give our writing a history, a biography, so that our inevitably imperfect and contingent “partial truths” (Clifford and Marcus 1986) can be looked at more honestly and free from the confines of rehoric’ (179). Furthermore, due to the face-to-face contact between parties in field relations, ethical and moral issues may easily arise from the way information is gathered, analysed and represented. This adds more difficulty for the researcher to make choices of field roles and of communicative strategies.

As Herz (1996) notes, since qualitative research is contextually bounded, the ‘ethical minefield’ of research should be addressed in a situational way. In this arti- cle, drawing upon my experience while conducting an ethnographic study in an international school in mainland China, I reflect on two issues: what field relations were established in what ways, and what threads to ethics and research validity I encountered in the course of the six-month fieldwork. Referring primarily to

*Email: [email protected]

International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 2013 Vol. 26, No. 7, 763–779, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2012.666287

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theories on organisational communication (Mumby 1987; Collinson 1992), the ratio- nale of this research was that: students’ and teachers’ inter-cultural understanding would be enhanced when organisational norms and practices become sufficiently negotiable in the context of the school.

The fieldwork for this research was conducted in a private boarding international school in China, serving mainly Chinese students.1 The curricula offered in the school were designed by an international education programme, and were taught by both Chinese and foreign teachers. In the selected school, a class – class 2 grade 11 – was taken as the ‘case’ to be under investigation. In most Chinese schools, a class is the basic unit for organising learning and teaching activities.2 Each class has a fixed classroom and a lead teacher responsible for it.3 Since class participants (including both teachers and students) shared a common geographic location and undertook joint enterprise, a class could be viewed as a naturally bounded organisa- tion. In class 2, I selected nine participants as the focus of observation. They included four students, three academic teachers, the responsible lead teacher and the teacher counsellor4 (see Table 1 for information with regard to their backgrounds, age, gender and citizenship).5 This research sample enabled me to explore the web of organisational communication in its entirety and in a natural context.

Since my proposed participants involved not only students, but also teachers and school managers, the field relations I encountered appeared to be more complex than those described in the existing literature on school ethnography, such as Corsaro’s work (1997) which focused only on children. My experience gained in the field demonstrated a range of cultural and institutional factors that contributed to the construction of the research–researched relationship, and thereby to the pro- duction of knowledge. This may be useful to other researchers engaged in ethno- graphic approaches to studying organisational communication in the context of school. Furthermore, as a researcher of Chinese ethnic origin, how I took up and resisted the subject positions offered me by the research context may add insights into inter-cultural communication between school participants.

During the six-month fieldwork, I conducted participant observation in each tea- cher’s lessons twice a week. In order to capture what was occurring in participants’ moment-to-moment interaction, I referred to Hymes and Gumperz’s (1972) SPEAK- ING model as categories of observation notes.6 Based on the detailed description of linguistic features, I referred to Cazden’s (2001) and Toohey’s (2000) ethnographies of teacher–student communication to identify types of the adopted discursive prac- tice in class 2. Interview was another strategy for gathering data. My interview pro- tocol was mainly designed to explore respondents’ experience of communicating with other programme participants. Instead of seeking answers to specific questions, I tried to keep the conversation flows unstructured and informal. In agreement with many ethnographers, such as Holstein and Gubrium (1995), I saw this casual and unrestrained way of communicating with respondents as helping them to make sense of their own experiences, so generating a coherent interpretation of their roles as learners in international schools.

Getting access to research participants

As many qualitative researchers (Delamont 2002; O’Reilly 2005; Hammersley and Atkinson 2007) suggest, getting access to the research field is not a simple decision made at the initial stage, but a continuous process integrated into the overall

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research. This section describes what I have done to obtain students’ and teachers’ genuine acceptance of the research, and to cultivate an intimate and collaborate researcher–researched relationship for the entire duration of the study.

Table 1. Background of the research participants.

Participants Institutional Status Citizenship Gender Age

Educational and working experience

Yuki Student Chinese Female 18 Yuki went to primary school and junior high school in another province. She was transferred to this school until her parents started a business in this city.

Ivy Student Chinese Female 17 Ivy used to study at a leading junior high school. Since she did not do well in the high school entrance exam, she was sent to this school by her parents.

Jack Student Chinese Male 17 Jack used to study at a public high school. He went to this school because his parents had started a business in the US and wished him to have higher education there.

Suzan Student Chinese Female 17 Suzan attended junior high school in Japan before her parents moved back to China. She applied to this school because the credits got in Japan could not be transferred to a public high school in China.

Matt The physics teacher

American Male 28 Matt had completed three semesters in this IBDP. He was in the US military and had no teaching experience.

Julius The economics teacher

Australian Male 64 Julius had completed one semester in this school. He had over 30 years’ experience in teaching economics in public high schools in Australia.

Mrs Zhao The Chinese literature teacher

Chinese Female 43 Mrs Zhao had three years’ teaching experience in this school. Before this, she had worked as a Chinese literature teacher in a leading public high school for 12 years.

Miss Dai The lead teacher

Chinese Female Early 20s

Miss Dai started her career in this school and was appointed the lead teacher of class 2 at the same time her students matriculated.

Mrs Shi The teacher counsellor

Chinese Female 45 Mrs Shi was appointed the teacher counsellor when the school was initially established. Before this, she had worked as a lead teacher in a public high school.

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In order to ensure that the approval to undertake the research was of sufficient legitimacy and efficacy, my request was made to the master of the international school because of his pre-eminent institutional position. My effort made at this stage also referred to Lofland and Lofland’s (1995) suggestions of using connec- tions available through friends and acquaintances in the field. As an acquaintance of mine, the master exhibited great interest in reading my other articles that explored related topics on inter-cultural learning. He not only approved of my request for conducting the case study, but also suggested that the teacher counsellor appoint me the ‘associate lead teacher’ in the class which would be selected as the case. He believed that this would facilitate my ethnographic observation.

According to Clandinin et al. (1993), an official permission to conduct qualita- tive research in the field does not necessarily vouchsafe individual informants’ com- pletely willing participation and cooperation. Therefore, the researcher’s ‘informal access’ to the field – an ongoing and inter-personal process of negotiating participa- tion – is necessary. It helps to minimise the pressure on participants resulting from the permission given by the school authority. As Wax (1991) notes, this would transform ‘ethics of obligation’ into ‘ethics of aspiration’, which brings mutual care, mutual respect and mutual trust at a genuinely human level.

Specifically, my effort at continuously negotiating access to the participants was threefold. First of all, instead of solely relying on the master’s introduction of my research, the strategy of multiple entrances was used, that is, to employ more than one gatekeeper to facilitate my entering into the field. I asked my acquaintances – an American teacher and two students in grade 12 – to introduce me to the partici- pants with whom they worked together or had a close relationship. I found that they usually shared personal anecdotes about me, such as my age, hobbies and educa- tional background. To a considerable extent, this made other field participants more familiar with me as a true-to-life person.

Second, following Milroy’s (1987) and Walford’s (1999) suggestions, I tried to established mutual benefit between the field participants and myself. When I intro- duced my research at the initial stage, I talked about the potential benefits they might get from the research findings – a better understanding of what might account for the problematic nature of communication, so helping them to find possible ways for improvement. In addition, as an associate lead teacher, I offered some services to the class, such as doing errands for the lead teacher and helping with students’ university applications. This helped to motivate the participants’ involvement in the research.

Third, I maximised opportunities for contacting with, and the befriending of, research participants. I tried to immerse myself in their lives, participating in both classroom activities and their informal gatherings. In retrospect, my brief and relaxed conversations with both students and teachers on informal occasions, such as while having dinner together in the cafeteria, contributed significantly to shortening the dis- tance between them and myself. My job as an associate lead teacher and my resi- dence in the neighbourhood of most students created convenient opportunities for contact.

The complexity of the researcher–researched relationship

With the efforts discussed above, generally speaking, a peaceful and amicable atmosphere had been built up around me in the field. As the fieldwork proceeded, however, I found it naive to expect to have equally sufficient access to each

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participant’s world. As a participant observer, I was not purely ‘looking at’ the participants, but ‘being with’ them. Thus, my understanding of them was based on differing relationships, which were inevitably influenced by three aspects: the num- ber of opportunities I had to observe and interact with the participants, the ways they perceived and positioned me, and the images they wanted to present to me.

Opportunities of contact

Since the participants had different institutional status in the school, their time schedules and workplaces varied, so influencing how my observations were con- ducted. With respect to time schedules, students were required to have eight lessons and three self-study periods in the classroom every weekday. In addition, they spent the rest of their time on campus engaging in sports and club activities. Many of my observations, especially in respect to students’ participation in extra-curricular activ- ities, were conducted while I was playing with them on campus after school. The more I associated with them informally, the more they became familiar with me. This helped to develop closer personal relationships.

By contrast, teachers spent much less time in the classroom. Most foreign teach- ers left the campus for their apartments in the town centre when classes were over.7

Although I was allocated a cubicle in one of the teachers’ office, I had few opportu- nities to observe the foreign teachers working there.

Field roles and impression management

In Corsaro’s (1997) research, with the aim of seeking interpretations that are mostly close to children’s experiences, the researcher tried to be much less active in his dealing with children than that of teachers, parents and other adults. In so doing, although his physical size was much bigger than that of the students, he was not viewed as a typical adult, but a big kid – ‘Big Bill’ (30). Drawing upon his experience, I continuously reflected on my roles in the eyes of the participants and adjusted my way of approaching them accordingly.

As I was gaining access to the field, the teacher counsellor introduced me to stu- dents as an associate lead teacher in addition to my role as a researcher. This position was unique in the school, especially for the purpose of my ethnographic study.8 I was expected to collaborate with Miss Dai to manage discipline and contact parents. However, my job as an associate lead teacher was not essential to the school. Miss Dai never assigned me any fixed task, but sometimes asked to do some errands, such as writing notices on the blackboard. Accordingly, I did not have as much institu- tional authority as a lead teacher. For example, Mrs Shi told the students that they should not go to me but Miss Dai to ask for a leave of absence.

Literally, I was under Mrs Shi’s supervision only when I was performing my duty as an associate lead teacher. However, in fact her authority usually affected what was, or was not, permitted for me to participate in and observe. In other words, the field relations between the teacher counsellor and myself were always marked by a subordinate–superior relationship. By contrast, few foreign teachers perceived me in my institutional roles as an associate teacher. In interviews, Matt and John did not have a clue about the position of the lead teacher in Chinese schools. They did not even know who the female teacher was sitting in the office upstairs – Miss Dai.

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Upon my entry to the school, Mrs Shi asked me to conduct some workshops on how to take the mandated English tests and how to apply to western universities in grades 11 and 12. When my experience of studying at a well-known western uni- versity for several years was known by most students, some of them (e.g. Jack and Ivy) often consulted me about these issues after class. On one occasion, Ivy asked me to help with revising her philosophy assignment. After that, a number of stu- dents came for help, and I tried my best to offer the tutorial. As Rogers (2004) has warned, authority attached to the ‘tutor-like’ image may restrict the construction of meaning available to student participants. This problem was encountered when I conducted member checks with some of the participants. I expand on this in the next section.

It is argued that ‘long-term immersion in the field was generally a total experi- ence’ (Marlene de Laine 2000, 180). In addition to the institutional position – an associate lead teacher, my personal characteristics, such as my age and appearance, contributed to the construction of the researcher–researched relationship. During the course of fieldwork, Julius, Mrs Zhao and Mrs Shi told me that they thought I looked like a high school student, in the same age bracket as their students. Despite efforts I had made to change my dress and hairstyle to avoid the stereotype, this seemed to make little difference to how they saw me. In addition, as a non-native English speaker, there might be some incorrect or inappropriate usage of English in my everyday communication with the foreign teachers. On many occasions, Julius and Joe corrected my vocabulary and grammar as they did with their students’. I thought that my lower proficiency in speaking English might strengthen my ‘student-like’ image in the foreign teachers’ eyes to a certain extent.

The ‘student-like’ image had a powerful influence on all of my fieldwork. On the one hand, it shortened the distance between students and myself. From the sec- ond day they met me in the classroom, some of the girls began to address me by my first name rather than the title ‘miss’ followed by my family name – the way they addressed their Chinese teachers, such as Miss Dai. On many occasions, they described me as their sibling. For example, on March 8, the International Women’s Day, the class 2 students gave every female teacher who taught them a greeting card. I also received one, but with a note attached, saying: ‘take it easy! You are not a woman in our view. Happy “Girl’s Day”’!9 As they tended to view me in that way, it seemed quite natural that many students enjoyed socialising with me after class.

On the other hand, my ‘student-like’ appearance led to some ambiguous behav- iour among the teaching staff. Mrs Shi was the case in point. Taking charge of stu- dent management, she often visited the classroom and admonished students in an intense voice, making some of the misbehaving students cry. In these circum- stances, it seemed that she did not try to hide her angry mood and, quite self-con- sciously, to reinforce her own authority as a school manager for students’ benefit. However, when she realised that her behaviour was being recorded in my research reports, she seemed to regret the stance she had taken. The ethical tensions raised by my ambiguous status are further discussed elsewhere in this article.

How the participants presented themselves

As Peace (1993) notes, people usually participate in research with hidden agendas. In this research, on many occasions, participants conveyed an image of the school,

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and of themselves, seemingly for my benefit. For example, Matt, the physics tea- cher, told me that he really wanted students’ parents to know about the problems in the school, such as the excessively large class sizes, from my research. To help me be familiar with the school, Mrs Shi often suggested that I attend certain activities, even though many of them were not relevant to class 2.

Participants also made conscious decisions with regard to what and how much they would share with me when other participants were involved. At the beginning of the fieldwork, Miss Dai always went to the cafeteria with me. She told me a lot of stories about her foreign colleagues and students, adding her own comments about them. However, after she had seen me going there with some of the students and foreign teachers a few times, she began to spend less time with me. Another example was that when I dined with foreign teachers in the cafeteria, the Chinese teachers and students always chose to sit at other tables, even though the seats next to me were not taken. I believed the changes in the participants’ attitudes towards me illustrated their relationships with other participants, and reflected their social circles in the school.

In summary, in the field, I acted as a researcher, an associate lead teacher and a friend of the research participants. The three roles always blended with one another to varying degrees, depending on the perceptions of different participants. These ambiguous and complex roles and relationships raised many ethical issues.

Straddling ‘falsehood’ and ‘reality’ – ethical considerations

According to Coffey (1999), any inter-personal relationship that has evolved in the course of ethnographic fieldwork is characterised as a mixture of ‘falsehood’ and ‘reality’ (54). The term ‘falsehood’ is not used to condemn manipulative and deceit- ful relationships. Rather, it emphasises the purposefulness of both the researcher and researched in creating, forging and maintaining particular relationships between them, which could differ markedly from the more naturally occurring relationships. For example, in order to elicit rich data from participants, the researcher may appear to be more amenable and interested in others’ lives than might otherwise be the case; similarly, with particular expectations of, or interests in, the research or the researcher, individual informants may be more enthusiastic in engaging and interact- ing with the researcher than they might otherwise be. This, again, characterises field research as a co-constructive process participated in by both parties.

The inherently ‘constructive’ and ‘artificial’ nature of field relations may be seen as both a strength and a weakness. On the one hand, drawing on different aims and interests, which are always pragmatically orientated, both the researcher and the researched are motivated to engage with each other, as exemplified in the paragraph above. In this respect, it helps to maintain relations and to facilitate data collection and analysis. On the other hand, an ‘artificial’ field relation may have an adverse effect on behaviour, both misleading and perhaps threatening the ethical protection of informants and the validity of data analysis. As many ethnographers have warned (Lofland 1971; Coffey 1999; Marlene de Laine 2000), for example, enjoying an intimate friendship with the researcher, informants may easily forget their friend’s other role as a researcher, and therefore, divulge information that they would rather have kept confidential. With regard to the researcher, if he/she acts as a complete insider in the field, he/she runs the risk of simply endorsing the informants’ accounts without generating creative and critical insights. For the above reasons, it

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is suggested that the researcher should make an effort to distinguish the ‘falsehood’ and ‘reality’, with ethical issues and validity of the research process in mind, although negotiating a path between the two is never straightforward.

In social research, it is commonly agreed that research informants should make their own decision about being involved in an unconstrained way, based on accurate and comprehensive information about the study. They also have the right to remain anonymous and to withdraw from the study at any time. However, with the ethno- graphic approach adopted, information is gathered in natural settings, rather than in experiment labs, in which the researcher’s control over the research process is rela- tively limited. Furthermore, the researcher’s prolonged immersion in the field entails intimate relationships with participants. According to Marlene de Laine (2000, 209), this situation: ‘generates all the same problems that beset intimate human inter- course in everyday life (personal likes and dislikes, anomalies, jealousies, resent- ments and conflicts of interest)’. As emotional bonds grow among research participants (including the researcher), inter-personal relationships become more lay- ered and complex. It adds difficulty for the researcher in ensuring that all infor- mants remain fully informed, completely comfortable in disclosing their thoughts and feelings, and freely consent to being studied.

In this case, as discussed before, I experienced friendship, colleagueship and superior–subordinate relationships with different informants; all these were inter- twined with a researcher–researched relationship. This multi-faceted relationship network led to the potential hazards of ‘boundary violations’ (Marlene de Laine 2000, 134), causing embarrassment, shame and anger on the part of the researched. Bearing the ethical minefield in mind, I continuously reminded myself to have a lasting and keen sensibility to others’ feelings, while at the same time maintaining a self-reflexive stance.

Informed consent

For the entire duration of the study, I lived on campus from Monday to Friday, as did most of the students in class 2. It was assumed that all occasions and all places would be open for the pursuit of field relations and the collection of data. Although we reached an agreement about the settings and frequency of observations at the very beginning of the fieldwork, I could not assume that all informants would be able to bear in mind my role as a researcher and to rationally decide how much they wished to present to me throughout the six-month fieldwork. Putting myself in their shoes, it was hard to distinguish the ‘research time’ from their regular life. In other words, my observation seemed to always be at risk of being ‘covert’ and ‘uninvited’.

This became particularly acute as the student informants made efforts to befriend me. For example, when they were happily chatting with me or were grum- bling indignantly, could they be completely sure that I was a trusted safety valve? Had they ever regretted talking too much or going too far in front of me? On a few occasions, I noticed that Ivy appeared a little abashed and embarrassed about the negative things she had just blurted out about particular classmates, and sometimes, about teachers.

Bearing in mind ethical issues, it was the researcher’s responsibility to be aware of the informants’ concerns, and to clarify with them the boundaries of the study. I continuously reminded myself to check with my informants whether their actions or

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speeches could be included in the research report. Sometimes, however, I felt that this kind of confirmation was an intrusion into their lives, requiring them to be always guarded in their behaviours. This raised the issue of when it was appropriate to remind them of my role as a researcher. In practice, when I felt that my confir- mation would be inappropriate in particular circumstances (e.g. when Yuki was very upset about the teacher counsellor and was consoled by her friends), I marked my record of such instances in field notes and waited for an appropriate opportunity to raise them.

Furthermore, according to Malone (2003), the lack of informants’ understanding of the research methodology usually makes it difficult to give fully informed con- sent. Hammersley and Atkinson (2007) also noted that even if informants are aware of your role as a researcher, they may not be clear about what sort of, and how much, information you are collecting. I did face this problem in the research. Within a Chinese high-school setting, few people understood the nature of qualita- tive research in Western academia. Therefore, the first time I fed back some of my interim analyses to the informants, many of them were surprised about the detailed descriptions.

Mrs Shi was a case in point. She said: ‘I had no idea that you would go into every minute point of my presence in the classroom, describing my gestures, appearance, tone and so forth. It’s ok, but I was just kind of unprepared.’ Taken in context, she sounded sorry for not presenting herself in an assumed ideal way in front of me. After this, I noticed that on two occasions she did not inform me about her visit to the classroom. It appeared that more fully informed consent affected tea- cher Shi’s behaviour in ways that might block the researcher from access to certain valuable data. However, it would be immoral to sacrifice her right to be sufficiently informed in return for digging up the objective ‘truth’ about her. In this regard, I firmly believed in making the research process as transparent as possible to all informants, and placing great importance on the method of feeding back research findings.

Anonymity and confidentiality

In ethnographic studies, informants’ anonymity and confidentiality cannot be achieved simply by using pseudonyms and changing other hints at identity. In this case, although I had never announced who my informants were in the classroom or in teachers’ offices, I was afraid that this had not remained a secret for most of the class 2 participants as the fieldwork proceeded. By living and working together with them for six months, it was not difficult to figure out to whom the researcher was paying the closet attention. With regard to the safeguards assuring the school’s ano- nymity, I did change many identifiable details so as to mislead readers who might attempt to guess at identity, whilst retaining those features necessary to fully charac- terise the ethnographic context.

Since the anonymity of informants could not be completely guaranteed in the local setting, individuals’ right to privacy was in danger. If their identities were known, who did or said what in the research could easily be inferred by their teach- ers/students, classmates/colleagues and superiors/subordinates. Such disclosure was troubling for informants because of the potential risks when people – who were in the home institution of the informants – saw them in some way as dishonouring the institution or, even worse, found criticism offensive personally. This was an

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especially acute problem in a research setting such as this, characterised by complex power relations. In other words, the fieldwork ran the risk of exacerbating inter-per- sonal conflicts.

I believed that the best way of eliminating harm was to adhere to the principle that participants ‘owned’ any data pertaining to them. According to Hammersley and Atkinson (2007, 213), ‘by assigning such ownership rights to people, they can be protected from the consequences of information they regard as confidential or damaging being disclosed publicly by the researcher’. As discussed before, my par- ticipants were given advance warning and access to how their stories and senti- ments were being used. For ethical reasons, I did have to delete some data and findings that I saw as relevant to the research.

Most of the informants in my research distinguished between ‘public’ and ‘pri- vate’, ‘safe’ and ‘dangerous’, based on their conjectures about the potential audi- ence for the research. For example, Mrs Zhao and Matt told me that they did not much care about the disclosure in my paper of the embarrassing situations they con- fronted in the classroom because they believed that my research paper would only be published in scholarly journals with a restricted readership. However, this raised another question. That is, if academic thesis kept most research participants at a distance, how would it benefit them by offering alternative ways of understanding or improving their current practice? From a social constructionist perspective, the overall research process, not merely the published results, has the potential for changing the perspectives and behaviour of both the researcher and the researched. The process of feeding back, having informants discuss findings with the researcher, needed to be underscored (Johnson 1982).

This research was also an issue for the informants who exhibited much anxiety with regard to the possible invasion of their privacy resulting from my daily interac- tions with other informants, especially the school managers. For example, Matt, as well as Mrs Zhao, asked me not to divulge any raw data relating to them to any of the school managers. Jack enquired about whether I was a relative of the dean because our family names were the same. To ameliorate anxiety, in conversations with any of the field participants, I censored what and how much to tell to whom and on what occasion. I always tried to evade mentioning the demeanours and nar- ratives of individual informants when they involved sensitive and confidential infor- mation. However, on several occasions, there was a sense that particular teachers and managers were trying to pump me for information about others. I had to decline politely and make clear my moral responsibilities to other research partici- pants. Although this inevitably led to a degree of dissatisfaction on their part, it had to be done for ethical reasons. In addition, I believed that this would contribute to the establishment of trust in the long run. As teachers and students found that their ‘secrets’ were safe with me, a sense of security gradually evolved. For example, before I left the field, Mrs Shi told me that she was satisfied with me because I was so discreet. She also said that I would always be welcome to come back to the school to do research.

Exploitation

Coffey (1999) argues that meaningful personal relations rely on a level of reciproc- ity. In an ethnographic study, both the researcher and the researched come to build certain field relations according to their own interests and needs. Thus, they have

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different expectations of one another. When the researcher fails to collect data as planned, the validity of his/her analysis is weakened. If the informants do not get what they want from either the researcher or the research report, they will easily feel that they are being used. That is, they are exploited to supply information, yet get little in return (Hammersley and Atkinson 2007).

In retrospect, I found that my informants’ expectations covered four aspects: my services to them, my ways of interacting with them and others, my protection of their anonymity and my ‘positive’ or ‘supportive’ representations in the research report. However, the significance of these aspects was not very obvious to me while I was in the field. In this section, I examine what I did to meet their expectations, what was neglected and what dilemmas I encountered while conducting the research.

First of all, I actively offered my service in helping with the application process to western universities and revising English essays for most students. Although I was welcomed among students, I found that some of them unconsciously viewed me as a teacher. As a result, when I conducted a member check, they always agreed with my interpretations of their behaviours and narratives.

Second, by being cast as a confidante, a colleague and a subordinate, I was expected to interact with different participants in different ways. In close friendships with students, my loyalty and allegiance were highly expected. However, bearing in mind my relationships with other field participants, I was always cautious about how much I should gossip with them, how much I should air my own opinions when they were in conflict with theirs, and how much I should be collusive with them in judging others or making decisions. For example, when Yuki was crying about particular teachers’ behaviours, I had to bridle my irritation so as to avoid uttering negative words in agreement with her. Honestly, I did feel devious at that moment. I could not help questioning myself: were they hurt by my restrained atti- tude? Were they disappointed in my friendship? In dealing with teachers, I experi- enced the same dilemma, as many of them had shown great interest and curiosity as to their students’ world. However, in order to respect the students’ privacy, I had to keep my mouth shut. Sometimes, Mrs Shi asked me to take certain actions in order not to ‘spoil’ particular students. Should I agree or disagree with her? Occa- sionally, I did not precisely follow their suggestions. As an associate lead teacher subordinate to her, I knew she would not appreciate such disobedience, even though she did not express it openly.

With regard to my protection of informants’ confidentiality, I involved them in deciding what information could be included in the research report. I also asked for their comments on my interpretation of data. When I fed back parts of my analy- sis,10 their disagreement or further explanations were expected. I initiated discus- sions with them, exploring the ideological underpinnings that may not have been recognised by the participants. The informants’ responses to my feedback varied a lot. Most foreign teachers found it very interesting, even though I had described the disorderliness of the classroom and had commented critically on some of their behaviours. They were not hesitant in pointing out where my interpretations fell short and discussing with me the situations they encountered.

Compared with them, Chinese teachers’ and students’ responses were limited. When I emailed her parts of my analysis, Mrs Zhao replied to my emails in a very polite way, to ‘thank’ me for ‘criticising’ her actions, without defending herself at all.11 By viewing my feedback as criticism and avoiding back-and-forth discussions, I sensed her concealed uneasiness with regard to my interpretation. Ivy and Jack

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responded to me in a similar way. As mentioned before, since they viewed me as a tutor on many occasions, they often agreed with my interpretations when I con- ducted member checks with them. This problem occurred in Rogers’ (2004) research on family literacy: in addition to conducting member checks with the infor- mants individually, Rogers sought outside sources – informants’ arguments in com- munity activities (e.g. a reading group) – as a way to validate her analysis of data. On these informal occasions, the informants’ voices were ‘freed’ to a considerable extent, raising counter-argument to her interpretation. Drawing upon her experience, I reconsidered whether the way of providing feedback on research findings, advo- cated by western researchers on ethical grounds, was practical and truly ‘ethical’ in a Chinese field setting, where values of harmony and saving face appeared to carry considerable weight in inter-personal relationships. In retrospect, I thought that informal conversations during class breaks and lunch times seemed to be more comfortable for us to engage in exchanging viewpoints. That is, compared with written feedback, casual chats appeared less intimidating for them. For example, when Mrs Zhao and I had lunch together, she spoke about exam pressure on students on several occasions, as a way of defending her large group instruction.

Mrs Shi appeared to be a little disappointed in my representations of her admon- ishments to students, which she believed conveyed an unfavourable image of her. She suggested that I might modify some of the seemingly ‘negative’ analyses. Compared with Matt and Julius, Mrs Shi did not reflect on where exactly my inter- pretations were decontextualised or were based on mis-understandings, but rather solely paid attention to whether the images were positive or negative in general. Her ambiguous responses made it difficult for me to revise my representations. Fur- thermore, her disappointment posed a major dilemma for me. If I followed her sug- gestion to reconstruct the image that she had of herself, my research would lose its critical edge, and I might become her ‘mouthpiece’. If I insisted on my interpreta- tions of the potentially negative effects of her admonishments, she would feel betrayed. Although I explained that my analysis was not aimed at evaluating indi- vidual participants’ competence, she did not seem to really understand the nature of the research, which was different from an evaluation report with her superiors as the audience. This, again, underscored the importance of communicating research aims and methodology between the researcher and the researched, especially in set- tings where people know little about western social research.

In school ethnographies, conversations between teachers and researchers about classroom practice are characterised by tension. Toohey (2000) points out that it is the teachers, not the researcher, who are the authorities in schools. Therefore, the researcher’s critical remarks on teachers’ classroom performance may lead to con- flicts. It may prove useful for the researcher to further investigate the following questions: how to ask respectful but critical questions, how to voice disagreement in a dialogical way, and how to display commitment to further dialogue (Toohey 2000, 133)? Discourse analysis may be a powerful tool to explore the micro-politics that beset the moment-to-moment interaction between the research and teachers. Unfortunately, I thought that my efforts fell short in this aspect.

Authenticity of data analysis

Many scholars have noted the dangers of ethnographic data, either observation notes or interview transcripts, as they involve emotions and perceptions of both the

774 X. Wang

researcher and the researched (Cohen, Manion, and Morrison 2000; Denscombe 2003). From a social constructionist perspective, I did not doubt the validity of the ethnographic approach because of its subjective nature. In the belief that any ‘truth’ was inherently subjective due to being socially constructed, the researcher’s conclu- sions were seen as creditable as long as the process of how they were constructed was described, explained and evidenced. With this epistemological stance, many scholars (Guba and Lincoln 1989; Denzin and Lincoln 2000) use the word ‘authen- ticity’ – the hallmark of trustworthy and rigorous inquiry – to address the particular nature of valid qualitative data.

In my ethnographic work, the authenticity of data faced three major threats. First, in interviews some of the respondents implicitly or explicitly advanced opin- ions or made suggestions with regard to my representations of themselves and oth- ers, such as ‘you should write this down in your report’. Another example was that, during the process of member check, Yuki firmly insisted on my documenting her resentment towards particular teachers, even though she anticipated the danger of upsetting them. On these occasions, there was a sense that the respondents tried to put words in my month. I wondered whether my analysis could still be valid when I was being ‘used’ by them to a certain extent.

Second, since I established more intimate friendships with the student infor- mants than with other participants, I had more opportunities to experience their ways of thinking and feeling. By understanding their happiness and sadness in more depth, on many occasions, I could not help myself being sympathetic to them. In other words, my perspectives were inevitably being coloured by my identifying with students. What was at issue was my bias and prejudice in relation to other research participants.

Third, through feeding back research findings, I began to realise that the respon- dents’ interpretations and my own did not always embrace the same meaning. Sometimes they were even in conflict with each other. As we were all coloured by different perspectives and institutional positions to varying degrees, how could I make sure that my final choices – to agree with, to disagree with or to compromise their opinions – would be more valid?

To minimise the potential threats, two strategies – triangulations and respondent validation – were used while analysing data. Triangulation refers to the methods of relating different sets of data sources in such a way as to counteract various hidden errors in the analysis. I employed both data source and method triangulations in the research. On entering the field, I began to store my data in two folders. One was for all forms of data collected on the same date in chronological order. The other was for data collected over time relating to the same communicative events. These folders not only enabled mutual triangulations among information gathered by dif- ferent techniques, but also allowed me to compare data deriving from different phases of the fieldwork and from the accounts of different people. My analysis of data was also iterative, involving constantly moving backwards to refine initial interpretations.

As many scholars (Becker and Geer 1957; Perlesz and Lindsay 2003) have noted, ethnographic data must never be taken at face value. It is dangerous to treat data as ‘false’ if the triangulation results do not tally. As Hammersley and Atkinson (2007) suggest, triangulation was not a matter of checking whether particular data or inferences based on it were ‘true’ or ‘false’, ‘but, at best, it [is] of discovering which inferences from those data [seem] more likely to be valid’ (184). For

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example, in interviews, Suzan claimed that she enjoyed socialising with the foreign teachers who were teaching her. However, according to my observations, she sel- dom talked to Julius, the economics teacher coming from Australia. Even when they were dining together at the same table, she did not appear to engage with him. In this instance, triangulation provided an important source of data and insight, helping to elicit greater in-depth interpretation of meanings. When I raised the ques- tion about her perspective on Julius in follow-up interviews, Suzan described him as a ‘purely purely purely Chinese-like foreign teacher’ because his speech usually took the form of either comment or admonishment. Since Julius did not fit the for- eign teachers’ stereotype, which was made welcome to most students, he was excluded from Suzan’s communication circle. Suzan’s explanation revealed some of the stereotypical contrast characteristics ascribed to the Chinese and foreign teach- ers. This was also found in other students’ interview accounts.

Respondent validation is a special kind of triangulation, involving comparison between interpretations of both the researcher and the researched. According to Bloor (1978), it is aimed at: ‘establishing a correspondence between the sociologist’s and the member’s view of the member’s social world by exploring the extent to which the member recognises, gives assent to, the judgements of the sociologist’ (548). The value of respondent validation lies in the fact that it involves direct contact with human agents who remind us whether we are mis-understanding or misrepresenting. In this research, by feeding back my analysis several times, I let respondents screen reports for accuracy of information and appropriateness of interpretations.

However, respondent validation should not be viewed as a panacea in terms of validating data analysis. For example, Hammersley and Atkinson (2007) argue that no one should be taken for granted as a privileged commentator on data, even if it is experienced by him/her in person. It is impossible to guarantee the accuracy of his/her memory traces in constructing stories. Nor is he/she able to be completely ‘objective’ in taking certain perspectives and social positions. For instance, Mrs Shi, as a school manager, was particularly concerned about the rightfulness of her management of students. For that reason, whether or not the respondents agreed or disagreed with me, their opinions were not taken as direct validation or refutation of the researcher’s interpretations. Rather, I took into consideration what might underlie the apparent discrepancies. Were they because of my mis-understanding or their particular interests? In other words, the method of respondent validation made my analysis more reflexive. In Mrs Shi’s case, as I observed, she usually dominated discursive practice in the classroom, over-riding students’ voices in the process of constructing meaning. However, in her view, she was defending against students’ deliberate assault on school regulations. In this sense, our interpretations came from different perspectives, addressing different aspects of the phenomenon. However, they had equal explanatory power. Neither of them should jeopardise the other in representing this teacher.

Conclusion

From a social constructionist perspective, prominence is given to the complexity and subtlety of the researcher–researched relationship in school ethnographies. This article discusses retrospectively how I myself, as a researcher, gained access to the research field, how I navigated my way through the ‘ethical minefield’, and how I attempted to remain true to the authenticity of research.

776 X. Wang

The approach of ethnography entails intimate relationships between the researcher and the researched, so that the former is enabled to personally experience the latter’s world. According to my research experience, being immersed in the field for six months, the participants and I began to treat each other as total human beings with feelings, aspirations and idiosyncrasies. Our institutional status, cultural backgrounds and personal characteristics were all involved in the process of knowl- edge production. These influences were reflected on, and made transparent, in this article. Furthermore, as a community member in the field, my role as a researcher is combined with the roles of students’ friend, teachers’ colleague and the manager’s subordinate. Within the multi-faced relationship networks, both the par- ticipants and I were faced with various expectations and demands on the one hand, and adopted various strategies to influence others while pursuing our own interests on the other hand.

It is argued that ‘most settings of ethnographic interest are complex and strati- fied’ (Marlene de Laine 2000, 204). Therefore, what was worth preserving as mor- ally good and valid can hardly be determined by a set of rigid and agreed-upon regulations. This became particularly acute in my research on students and teachers with differing cultural backgrounds and institutional status. In these circumstances, ethical practice following the medical or positivist model appeared to be impersonal and decontextualised. Bearing in mind the cultural contingence of ethical issues, in this article I paid close attention to the Chinese participants’ differing responses to some of the research methods, seen as foreign or ethically problematic in the Chi- nese cultural context. I also gave consideration to alternative strategies that may fit into the particular context, such as communicating with the participants about my interpretation in an informal way.

My reflections on the overall research process not only contributed to research authenticity, but also broadened and deepened my understanding on inter-cultural communication in the context of the international school. For example, I found that some of the participants were unconsciously excluded from the communication web because of the stereotype ascribed to them by others. Without office hours required, there were few opportunities for Chinese and foreign teachers to communicate with each other. Furthermore, this kind of reflection effected changes in the participants’ senses of self and in their understanding of inter-cultural learning, even though these were not salient to both of us while we were in the field. For instance, after reading my initial reflections on her performance in the classroom, to a certain extent, Mrs Shi modulated her ways of dealing with students despite her somewhat disappointment with my seemingly negative description. When I left the field, I kept up correspondence with some students and teachers. Once, Miss Dai emailed me that my comment on her unawareness with regard to communicating with for- eign teachers initiated her self-reflection. She began to contrast her role as an inter- national educator with teachers in Chinese public schools. Drawing on the experience, I became convinced of the importance of enabling participants’ active self-reflection in future research. That is to say, the researcher should be more atten- tive to ways of stimulating and facilitating respondents to reflect critically on their current situations and possible alternatives.

Based on the in-depth description of the research process, it is necessary to further explore power relations that account for the co-constructed nature of ethno- graphic knowledge. In this research, ethnography of communication and discourse analysis was merely adopted in exploring power relations between students and

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teachers, rather than those between the researcher and the researched. Thus, it would be important for further research on related topics to be conducted together with intense investigation into the researcher–researched communication, addressing the link between linguistic forms and their social functions.

Notes 1. This school has a relatively long history and particularly highlighted inter-cultural under-

standing in its philosophy. It offered rich opportunities to undertake my inquiry and was stable enough to secure the research.

2. While giving lectures, teachers of different academic subjects come to the fixed class- room according to the timetable.

3. The lead teachers are called ‘Ban Zhu Ren’ in Chinese. According to the MoE’s Tempo- rary Regulations Regarding the Responsibilities of Ban Zhu Ren in Primary and Middle Schools issued in 1998, Ban Zhu Rens are supposed to be the leader, the organiser, and the educator of a class, who are in charge of facilitating students’ academic study, imple- menting classroom disciplines, organising extra-curricular activities, and keeping in con- tact with subject teachers and parents involved in this class. In contrast to the general situation in public high schools in China, the lead teachers in this programme do not teach any subjects at the same time as their other duties. Each of them is responsible for managing two classes.

4. In this school, the teacher counsellor was the supervisor of all lead teachers, in charge of student management.

5. All names presented in this paper were pseudonyms. 6. Each letter of the code word SPEAKING represents one of the components of a speech

event to be described: settings, participants, ends, act sequence, keys, instrumentalities, norms and genres.

7. All teachers in this school were given free accommodation on campus, but many foreign teachers rent apartments in better conditions downtown.

8. According to the teacher counsellor, the role of ‘researcher’ would be very strange to most field participants because they had never had a researcher in the school before.

9. In many of the students’ eyes, the Chinese term ‘妇女’ (women) conveyed a sense of ‘aged females’. They usually refused to be called women by peers.

10. Usually, there were two kinds of feedback: one was my observation vignette; the other was my discourse analysis of their narratives in interviews. According to the procedure of data analysis, a member check of the former came first.

11. The term ‘criticising’ (translated from ‘批评指正’) was always used by Mrs Zhao to describe the nature of my feedback.

Notes on contributor Xi Wang is a lecturer of educational leadership at Beijing Normal University. Her research interests are in organisational communication in the context of the school.

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