Rethinking Education Ethhnography: Researching On-Line Communities and Interactions
 

Sofia Marques da Silva, & Paolo Landri (Eds)

 

 

Ethnography, by its characteristics, has revealed a durable and interesting capacity to mediate the knowledge between different worlds, exploring cultural practices from the inside and in different settings.

However, recent changes have altered the way people communicate and how new technologies are being used for that purpose. For instance, the daily lives of people take place in different contexts, many of which are mediated through or linked to virtual spaces, where new forms of culture are being produced and reproduced. Given this, there is a vital need to research these new cultural settings and meanings, trying to analyse continuities and/or ruptures between those worlds involved.

In this context the classic model of single-site ethnography has been challenged and those challenges concern what means to be in the field , and they raise questions as to whether old concepts and actual perspectives in ethnography are an effective means to grasp the transformations of present cultures. We have had to question the accuracy of concepts that we have taken for granted,such as space, time, field, interaction, participant observation. New concepts have already emerged: netnography, online ethnography, cyber-ethnography, offline ethnography, digital ethnography, and we need to examine their usefulness. Do these changes mean that we are confronting a new type of ethnography, with new research tools needed, new types of empirical data to collect and new types of analysis to interpret situations?

 

 

CONTENTS

 

INTRODUCTION
Bob Jeffrey, Dennis Beach, Paolo Landri and Sofia Marques da Silva

 

PART 1: CONDUCTING RESEARCH IN ONLINE/VIRTUAL SETTINGS

 

When the (playing) field has no physical limits: Ethnographic research with young people on their learning experiences outside school
Fernando Hernández, Juana M. Sancho and Rachel Fendler

 

Non-heteronormative genders in Web 2.0
Carla Luzia de Abreu

 

Single parent online forums as learning communities
María Isabel Jociles, Ana María Rivas and David Poveda

 

Using online communities, wikis and blogs to capture the boundary crossing of novice teachers: An action research enquiry on the margins of digital ethnography
Warren Kidd

 

PART 2: CONCEPTUAL AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL CHALLENGES FOR ETHNOGRAPHY

 

Ethnography, education and online research (OLR)
Bob Jeffrey

 

Conceptual, epistemological and methodological challenges in hypermedia ethnography: A boon for ethnographic analysis
Kathleen Gallagher and Barry Freeman

 

On being there with Federica: A multi-site ethnography of a web-learning platform in higher education
Paolo Landri and Rosanna De Rosa

 

Virtual ethnography for virtual worlds: The case of Second Life
Ridvan Ata

 

Doing ethnographic researches in educational contexts in Second Life: Reflections on an ongoing project
Marta Sponsiello

 

PART 3: ONLINE ETHNOGRAPHY AND EDUCATION

 

Trajectories of participation through online affinity spaces
Russell Francis

 

An exploration of teaching and learning in Second Life in the context of initial teacher education: The research journey
Sabrina Fitzsmions

 

PART 4: DOING THE FIELDWORK

 

Being there : Re-conceptualizations of space/time, place... and power for ethnographers in hybrid and online/virtual educational contexts
Nalita James and Hugh Busher

 

PART 5: ETHICS IN ONLINE RESEARCH

 

Ethical dilemmas in using social networking sites to recruit and engage with teenage participants
Helen Hearn

 

 

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Editora: CIIE
Ano: 2012
Nº de páginas: 181
ISBN: 9789898471048