MultiPluriTrans in Educational Ethnography: Approaching the Multimodality, Plurality and Translocality of Educational Realities [1. Aufl.] 9783839427729

Table of contents :
Content
Approaching the Complexities of Educational Realities. An Introduction
Where is the Field?. About the Transnationality, Translocality, and Multi-Sitedness of Education and Ethnography
Ethnography “is not what it used to be”. Rethinking Space, Time, Mobility, and Multiplicity
Experiences with Multi-Sited Ethnographies in Transnational Studies
The ‘International Preschool’ as Translocal Field. An Ethnography of the Production of ‘International’ Education in Japan
The Multiple Geographies of Early Childhood Education and Care. An Ethnographic Approach to the Places and Spaces of Young Children’s Care Arrangements
Who are the Actors?. Multiple Actors of Education: From Humans to Networks, Technologies, Organisations, and States
Transsituating Education. Educational Artefacts in the Classroom and Beyond
Matters of Learning and Education. Sociomaterial Approaches in Ethnographic Research
ICT in Classrooms. The Practical Side of a Technical Order
School Entry Proceedings as Organisational Practices. Ethnographic Perspectives on the Interferences between Governmental and Situated Regulations
The Political Economy of Prison-based Treatment and Re-entry Programming in Illinois and Chicago
What is Education?. Dealing with the Complexity of Educational Phenomena – Multimodality, Plurality, Heterogeneity
Designing Meaning. Social Semiotic Multimodality Seen in Relation to Ethnographic Research
Bringing Sound Back Into Space. Multimodal Ethnography of Early Education
Language Practices and the Accomplishment of Educational Realities. An Ethnography of Multilingualism in Luxembourgish Early Childcare Settings
The Empiricisation of “Bildung” in Early Childhood. Ethnographical-praxeological Perspectives on the (Trans)locality and Corporeality of Education
Family Life as Education. Ethnographic Perspectives on how Familial Education Emerges in Families and in Educational Family Research
Notes on Contributors

Citation preview

Sabine Bollig, Michael-Sebastian Honig, Sascha Neumann, Claudia Seele (eds.) MultiPluriTrans in Educational Ethnography

Pedagogy

Sabine Bollig, Michael-Sebastian Honig, Sascha Neumann, Claudia Seele (eds.)

MultiPluriTrans in Educational Ethnography Approaching the Multimodality, Plurality and Translocality of Educational Realities

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de © 2015 transcript Verlag, Bielefeld

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Cover layout: Kordula Röckenhaus, Bielefeld Cover illustration: Erasmi + Stein, graphische Kommunikation, München Typeset by Justine Haida Printed in Germany Print-ISBN 978-3-8376-2772-5 PDF-ISBN 978-3-8394-2772-9

Content

Approaching the Complexities of Educational Realities An Introduction Sabine Bollig/Michael-Sebastian Honig/Sascha Neumann/Claudia Seele | 9

Where is the Field?

About the Transnationality, Translocality, and Multi-Sitedness of Education and Ethnography Ethnography “is not what it used to be” Rethinking Space, Time, Mobility, and Multiplicity Jane Kenway | 37

Experiences with Multi-Sited Ethnographies in Transnational Studies Stephan Wolff | 57

The ‘International Preschool’ as a Translocal Field An Ethnography of the Production of ‘International’ Education in Japan Yuki Imoto | 79

The Multiple Geographies of Early Childhood Education and Care An Ethnographic Approach to the Places and Spaces of Young Children’s Care Arrangements Sabine Bollig | 99

Who are the Actors?

Multiple Actors of Education: From Humans to Networks, Technologies, Organisations, and States Transsituating Education Educational Artefacts in the Classroom and Beyond Tobias Röhl | 121

Matters of Learning and Education Sociomaterial Approaches in Ethnographic Research Tara Fenwick, Sarah Doyle, Maureen Michael, Jennifer Scoles | 141

ICT in Classrooms The Practical Side of a Technical Order Christoph Maeder | 163

School Entry Proceedings as Organisational Practices Ethnographic Perspectives on the Interferences between Governmental and Situated Regulations Helga Kelle | 175

The Political Economy of Prison-Based Treatment and Re-entry Programming in Illinois and Chicago Robert P. Fairbanks II | 195

What is Education?

Dealing with the Complexity of Educational Phenomena – Multimodality, Plurality, Heterogeneity Designing Meaning Social Semiotic Multimodality Seen in Relation to Ethnographic Research Gunther Kress | 213

Bringing Sound Back into Space Multimodal Ethnography of Early Education Oliver Schnoor | 235

Language Practices and the Accomplishment of Educational Realities An Ethnography of Multilingualism in Luxembourgish Early Childcare Settings Claudia Seele | 257

The Empiricisation of “Bildung” in Early Childhood Ethnographical-praxeological Perspectives on the (Trans)locality and Corporeality of Education Marc Schulz | 279

Family Life as Education Ethnographic Perspectives on how Familial Education Emerges in Families and in Educational Family Research Dominik Krinninger | 297

Notes on Contributors  | 315

Approaching the Complexities of Educational Realities An Introduction Sabine Bollig, Michael-Sebastian Honig, Sascha Neumann, Claudia Seele

The emerging fields of educational e thnogr aphy In its broadest sense, the term “educational ethnography” in the title of this book refers to an area of qualitative research, which draws on fieldwork methods to approach the phenomena of learning, education, and social work. And yet, the term alludes neither to a single academic discipline, nor to a uniform methodology. Educational ethnographies are not only at home in the educational sciences, but also in cultural and social anthropology, social-policy analyses, childhood studies, human geography, applied linguistics, urban and cultural studies, pragmatic psychology, and not least the sociology of education. While every research labelled as such relates to educational and socio-educational fields of action or educational processes, there is considerable variation in what exactly marks them as ‘ethnographic’ – not only between disciplines but also within those. Are educational ethnographies a type of cultural research, practice analysis, or narrative inquiry? What forms of data production are paramount: the gathering of documents, videography, audio recording, or the researcher as a participating and writing field-research instrument? The same applies to the question of what is meant with ‘educational’. How do we model the objects of ethnographic research on education and social work: as interactions, institutions, cultures, practices, or discourses? Initially, it seems undisputed only that educational ethnography is a field-related research methodology that focuses on the collection of so-called natural data in the fields of education, care, and social work, describing these fields from an emic perspective, i.e. based on the participant observation of local practices. Beyond that, educational ethnography reveals to be extremely diverse and multifaceted. It may therefore be hardly surprising that the title of this book takes up three of the most popular prefixes in current social and cultural

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studies – ‘multi’, ‘pluri’, and ‘trans’ – but deliberately dispenses with the no-less popular ‘inter’. For if the term educational ethnography has to point to a coherent field of research, then it must be understood per se and from the beginning as an interdisciplinary field. The concept of the field – as used generally to denominate the objects of ethnographic research as well as its ‘places’ – reflects the diversity, ambiguity, and dynamics that currently characterise educational ethnography. Fields are defined by unsharp boundaries and a moving web of relationships between different people, positions, objects, artefacts, statements, or topics. In other words, the existence of fields cannot be thought without their continuous emergence. The notion of ‘field’ can also be used to refer to the development of educational ethnography itself: it is in many ways an emerging space of qualitative research on education, learning, and social work. This dynamic terrain is about to establish itself increasingly as a central arena for the knowledge production in educational research, not least due to its openness and ambiguity. As a strategy of fieldwork, ethnographic research owes its success in educational science certainly to its resistance to ‘grand narratives’, as offered by structural functionalism or Marxist theory; it opposes them with studies aimed at the local meaning of educational practices. But perhaps ethnography has also established itself as one of the key strategies of qualitative research in educational science because it is so versatile, flexible, and ambiguous: both stable enough to appear as a relatively uniform research style that promises a critical perspective to one’s own disciplinary knowledge of educational realities by ‘making the familiar strange’, and amorphous enough to serve the respective interests, perspectives, and contexts of ethnographic researchers. Accordingly, the still growing importance of ethnography for educational research is accompanied by an increasing diversity of ‘discovered’ educational realities and by an ever expanding and differentiating research practice. In this process, the prefixes multi-, pluri-, or trans- are attributed ever more frequently not only to the research topics of educational ethnography (e.g. multi-modality, pluri-locality, trans-nationality, and so on), but also to the ethnographic research strategies themselves (multi-sited ethnography, pluri-vocal ethnography, trans-national ethnography, etc.). This trend also marks the entry point of this volume, which starts from the assumption that the increasing importance of ethnographic strategies in educational research coincides with a more flexible, dynamic, and diversified conception of the objects of study. Apart from the plausibility of this assumption, there is not only the question what counts as ethnographic in the context of educational ethnography, but also in how far educational ethnography has contributed to a more fundamental change in perspective on educational phenomena. Is the trend towards a greater complexity of problems and research designs a consequence of the expansion of ethnographic research in education,

Approaching the Complexities of Educational Realities: An Introduction

or is it – conversely – supported by significant changes in the ways educational research constructs its objects of investigation? A central question of this volume therefore concerns the relationship between the object of educational ethnography and ethnography itself as a research strategy that actively constitutes its very objects of research.

The rel ationship be t ween object and me thodology in the history of e thnogr aphic rese arch

From the culturalisation of ‘the Other’ to field research ‘at home’ Ethnography in education and ethnography on educational phenomena has several historical roots, which all emerge at the beginning of the 20th century and which all exceed the context of educational studies in a narrow sense. The Canadian cultural anthropologist Daniel Yon characterises the period between 1925 and the 1950s as the “formative years” of educational ethnography (Yon 2003: 413), followed by a period of consolidation during the 1960s (see also deMarrais/Armstrong/Preissle 2010). This characterisation refers to a development which has taken place first and foremost in the field of American educational anthropology. In addition – or even in contrast – to this position, Sara Delamont and Paul Atkinson speak of “two traditions of ethnography in education” (Delamont/Atkinson 1980), emphasising the important role of the British sociology of education in that process of consolidating educational ethnography as a distinct field of study since the 1960s. In the German-speaking countries, the beginnings of educational ethnography can also be traced back to the early 20th century, even though ethnography would only recently establish itself as a method of educational research in this geographical context (Thole 2010). Accordingly, the history and the current state of educational ethnography cannot be described in other terms than a scattered, multi-local phenomenon (cf. also Larsson 2006; Anderson-Levitt 2013). Although no comprehensive history of educational ethnography has been written so far, there are some important aspects worth to be noted. Educational ethnography emerged around the 1920s with a special interest of cultural anthropologists in the socialisation and enculturation of children and young people in – at first – ‘exotic’ cultural settings. The classic examples here are the cross-cultural studies by Margaret Mead from the 1930s. From this starting point, educational ethnography developed into a subdiscipline of cultural anthropology, seen as a distinct field of ethnographic accounts of educational institutions ‘at home’ (Yon 2003). The rise of ethnographic fieldwork ‘at home’ was characterised by both social reform movements at the time and the interest in the explanation of cultural change. Ethnography’s distinctive benefit was

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seen as its ability to ‘culturalise’ as well as ‘localise’ these social processes at the same time, or in the words of Yon, “to take the reader into the actual worlds of subjects in order to reveal the cultural knowledge that is working in a particular place, as it is actually lived through its subjects” (Yon 2003: 412). Also emerging as early as the 1920s was an interest in the ethnographic exploration of educational fields, as exemplified by the works of George and Louise Spindler (see Spindler 2000), Murray and Rosalie Wax (Wax/Wax/Dumont 1964), or the Chicago School. These stood in the context of a range of processes: industrialisation, urbanisation, migration and the associated problems of social integration. Ethnography consolidated itself as a research strategy in the sociology of everyday life. It made visible the lives of marginalised groups, such as youth subcultures, the poor, migrants, or non-white people, especially so in North America. Within the growing disciplines of sociology, psychology, and educational studies, ethnographic approaches became part of a field of qualitative research with the aim of highlighting the specific cultural worlds of children and youth, as well as exploring their lifeworlds as distinct sites in society and independent spaces for learning and socialisation. Studies with an interest in educational focused on how socialisation phenomena, such as juvenile deviance, could be understood from the cultural context of subcultures. In the German speaking area, ethnography consolidated around this view on social change, first as research on children and youth that enquired about the specific cultural conditions in which young people are involved as members of specific groups, or the educational demands that arise from the living conditions of young people from the working class (cf. Thole 2010). Besides the interest in marginalised groups and subcultural niches, ethnographic approaches have also increasingly gained importance as a means to investigate educational institutions and practices themselves. This interest has given rise to a distinct tradition within educational ethnographic research. Educational institutions, such as the school, have come into view as reproductive microcosms of society. Examples are the classic works on the “hidden curriculum” of school culture in the 1960s and 70s (Jackson 1968; Rosenbaum 1976; Zinnecker 1975). Current international ethnographic research has spread to include numerous subjects, from different kinds of educational institutions – like schools, kindergartens, nurseries, residential care homes, universities, or adult learning arrangements – to various kinds of educational practices – such as teaching, classroom management, informal and non-formal learning, pupil assessment, street work, or youth counselling.

From descriptive to analytical ethnography Educational ethnography has moved away over time from a naturalistic, essentialising perspective on the supposed strange, unknown, or new. These had

Approaching the Complexities of Educational Realities: An Introduction

been the focus of earlier forms of ethnography that were oriented on lifeworlds and empathetic understanding. The sociology of everyday life and ethnomethodology presented key epistemological perspectives that allowed focusing no longer only on the “curious subcultures” (Breidenstein et al. 2013: 25) in an increasingly differentiating society, but also putting into view the micro-social processes of accomplishing everyday realities – or, in other words, the ‘doing of’ learning, education, and social work. This shift in perspective was not only linked to a changed definition of the object of ethnographic research, but also to a change of its gesture of discovery. As articulated by Thole (2010: 31) for the German-speaking context, the ethnographic gaze shifted away from the “static registrations and empathetic understanding of what had been found, towards the identification and reconstruction of the processes of reality production” (transl. by the authors). Accordingly, it was no longer only about rendering visible and familiar the culturally strange, like subcultures, rather such ethnographic strategies promised to cultivate a certain epistemological style that variegates the normal distance to social phenomena through different strategies of “rendering the familiar strange” (Amann/Hirschauer 1997, transl. by the authors). Connected to this was an altered conception of the relationship between strangeness and familiarity, the very conceptual dualism from the semantic field of ethnography that still points most strongly to the historical roots of this research method in social and cultural anthropology (cf. Bollig/Neumann 2011). The focus has shifted from the intentionality of actors to the social meaning of an event, in which a specific regularity is assumed from the outset with respect to its practical accomplishment. Compared to the action-theoretical naturalism of ethnographic research focusing on lifeworlds, actors step into the background as subjects and centres of action, while instead the situated local practices of which they are part come to the fore. Accordingly, it is less about understanding the subjects than about explaining the situational performative logic which the actors produce as much as they are subjected to it. One could also say with Lofland (1995) that ethnographic research has become more and more “analytical”. As a result of this development, the questions that can be answered with the help of ethnographic research changed radically at the end of the 20th century. The ‘analytical turn’ in ethnography not only set the starting point for observations of all social institutions and areas of life in terms of their everyday accomplishment, but it simultaneously also raised the question for whom these changes of normal distance, these observer-relative descriptions of social phenomena, were to be understood as discoveries. Because it “makes the familiar strange” as Breidenstein, Hirschauer, Kalthoff, and Nieswand (2013: 31) point out, ethnography has commended itself as a methodological strategy that allows different and new descriptions and analyses of the discipline’s objects.

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This strategy attempts to pursue the fact that experiences of inconsistency are always relative to the observer. They emanate from a difference between her or his objectivist assumptions about rules and norms on the one hand, and the internal logic of the irritating reality on the other. Accordingly, the researchers’ attention increasingly focuses on the heterogeneity, decentralisation, dynamisation, and destabilisation of those fields which are observed by ethnographic research as educational realities. In this process, the gaze of educational ethnography turned increasingly to the processes through which educational fields are created as educational, in which they construct their addressees, render their forms of action into routines, produce their professionalism, or generate the very problems that they promise to solve. The unfamiliarity, novelty, and peculiarity of the phenomena under research increasingly turned from a pre-supposed property of the objects into a matter of perspective. This process appears to be still on-going. Currently, this becomes evident when looking at the increase of studies focusing on trans- and supra-local educational phenomena, as well as research that takes a multiplying and observer-relative perspective on the ‘local’. As with early ethnographic research ‘at home’ in the first half of the 20th century, the shift from descriptive to analytical ethnography was based on diagnoses of contemporary society and interpretations of an (accelerated) cultural change. References are made to the increasing cultural dynamics in a globalised world, as reflected in the transnationalisation of educational fields and education-political discourses, the dynamics of migration movements in “traveling policies” (cf. Lindblad/ Popkewitz 2004), or the digitisation of everyday experiences. The perspectival shift leading to increasingly complex research approaches and understandings of the object is based not only on changes in the matter, but also on different forms of theorisation. New trends in social and cultural theory – such as the so-called post-structuralist theories of practice, networks, and discourse – invite to overcome the singular focus on interactions and locally performed realities. The accomplishment of the realities of learning, education, and social work is, thus, no longer tied exclusively to the agency of human actors and to the configuration of their relations in a certain place and at a certain time. With the changing theorisation, ethnographic research participates in conceptual developments in social science and cultural studies, developments that increasingly override the well-established distinctions between ‘micro’ and ‘macro’, structure and process, intention and function, local and global, situation and context, individual and society, or even between human actors and non-human artefacts. In this way, they question also to some extent the previous research responsibilities within the scientific division of labour. These developments entail significant changes both for questions of the constitution of objects as well as for the relationship between objects and methods. For example, in recent educational ethnographies, political structures and

Approaching the Complexities of Educational Realities: An Introduction

social discourses are not only considered as structural conditions of action in educational fields, but analysed as integral parts of their practical logic. Furthermore, educational practice is no longer only considered as a locally bounded phenomenon. It is more likely to be described in the conceptual frameworks of hybrid, dispersed, networked, transnational, and thus supra-local figurations. This also increases the awareness of the internal diversity of educational realities. On the one hand, this concerns ethnic, gender, linguistic, generational, and other differences and their interconnections in the institutional everyday life. On the other hand, the multimodal and praxeological diversity of the processes of education and learning moves more clearly into the focus of a perspective that is more sensitised to these phenomena and – in this sense – constitutive of its research objects. In this context, it is increasingly questioned whether only people can act in educational fields, or if not objects, spaces, bodies, and artefacts need to be included in the research process as active participants in the practical accomplishment of educational realities.

The objective of this volume Given the developments described above, we argue that both past and present ethnographic research in education and social work can be understood as a continuously renewing attempt to approach a constantly changing social world by means of fragile patterns of orientation and interpretation. The change of perspective is thus not merely motivated by ‘caesuras’ or ‘new’ phenomena, but also by the experience that interpretation routines become inadequate. This also means that the history of ethnographic research must not be (mis)understood one-dimensionally as a history of cumulative improvements. There seem to be two motifs that stand out in the history of educational ethnography and that determine its dynamics: • On the one hand, the development of educational ethnography was never based solely on methodological or theoretical assumptions, but above all on continuously changing understandings of its objects and certain assumptions about socially, politically, or professionally induced developments in the fields studied by educational ethnographers. In this context, the increasing importance of ethnographic research could be interpreted as a response to changes in the constitution of educational realities themselves. • On the other hand, educational ethnography also claims to create a form of knowledge about its objects of investigation that is different from other methodological approaches. This claim is based on two promises: the possibility to study the dimensions of an object or a field that had not been recognised before, and the possibility to observe objects in a different way than done – for example – by traditional educational theorists, quantita-

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tive researchers, or professionals. The methodological strategy of ‘making the familiar strange’ forms the pivot to this end. It addresses not only the knowledge of the actors that are familiar with the field, but also the theoretical, literally disciplined, prior understandings of the researchers (cf. Bollig/ Neumann 2011; Green/Skukauskaite/Baker 2012). This demonstrates the strong interest of ethnographic research not only in discovering new worlds and phenomena but also in questioning what is supposedly known about various ‘realities’. In light of these two recurrent motifs, the outlined developments in educational ethnography aim at more fundamental questions than might be noticed at first sight. Many basic assumptions have transformed into tasks of research, such as locating the times and places of learning, education, and social work, defining its actors and audiences, observing how education, teaching, instruction, and/or learning are performed, and determining how education is to be understood in the first place. These research tasks demand not only a more complex construction of the research objects, but also lead to new methodologies and research designs. This volume aims to explore these issues by referring to several underlying fundamental questions which are addressed in three separate sections. • In the first section, titled “Where is the field?”, the book gathers contributions on research strategies and designs that both question and challenge the traditional understanding of the locally bounded field site in educational ethnography. • In a similar manner, the contributions to the second section, titled “Who are the actors?”, present and discuss perspectives and research strategies that aim to transcend the traditional imagination of the human being as the centre of action in education. • The third section, “What is education?”, contains contributions that investigate the multimodal dimensions of educational processes with regard to the different entities, places, and practices involved. These have until now been neglected by conventional ideas of educational phenomena, which have been principally perceived as based on personal relations and face-toface interactions. Besides reflecting on these more fundamental questions, this volume also aims to discuss the innovations, potentials, and ambiguities of the research strategies that accompany the mentioned tendencies in educational ethnography. These innovations, potentials, and ambiguities can be identified at several levels, which are all addressed in the individual contributions to this volume, albeit with different weightings.

Approaching the Complexities of Educational Realities: An Introduction

• On a theoretical level, the described tendencies ask for novel approaches which are suited to explore the transnational, multimodal, plurilocal, multiprofessional, etc. realities of learning, education, and social work, while also investigating how explorations of this kind change traditional and taken-for-granted assumptions about the constitution of these realities. • On a methodological level, the on-going developments raise the question of what challenges fieldworkers in ethnographic research have to respond to while they are trying to explore the plurilingual, multicultural, multimodal, or transnational etc. dimensions of educational settings and how this affects the ways of doing ‘participant observation’. • On an empirical level, the question arises which insights ethnographic research can contribute to the understanding and reconstruction of educational fields as perspectively, positionally, territorially, linguistically, or modally diversified realities.

E merging fields in educational e thnogr aphy — the contributions in this volume

Where is the field? Ethnographic observations routinely do not refer to distinct objects in a strict sense. Rather, ethnographers are interested in phenomena which – in their perspective – appear in the form of so-called ‘fields’. However, the relation between the field as the central reference point of ethnographic investigations and the objects and issues of ethnographic research has always been an arbitrary one (Candea 2007). On a methodological level, which is expected to connect theoretical assumptions and empirical operations with one another, it is therefore barely surprising that it is especially the concept of the field itself which is affected by the current dynamic of re-conceptualising the realities investigated through educational ethnography. In the traditional “ethnographic imagination” (Willis 2000) the concept of field was fundamentally committed to the idea of localisability as one key dimension of early naturalism in ethnographic research. Similar to ethnographic research in cultural anthropology, educational ethnography also assumed that “being there” (Bradburd 1998; Watson 1999) is the essential characteristic of fieldwork. Thus research could not take place elsewhere than “in the field’’ (Atkinson/Hammersley 2007: 3), and observation, therefore, seems to be only possible through participation as a specific and internally diversified form of active local presence (see Cloos 2008). Accordingly, the implicit localism of the field concept has been one of the most prominent reference points for methodologically oriented self-critique in ethnographic research, as it has evolved both in-

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side as well as outside the framework of educational ethnography (Breidenstein et al. 2013; Gupta/Ferguson 1997; Hannerz 2006; van Maanen 1988; Salzman 1986). The localism of the traditional field concept has not least been one of the primary reference points in the debate around the so-called “crisis of representation”, as it has been coined by Marcus and Fischer (1986). The critique raised in this context came down to the following question: if the locality of fields requires the presence of the researcher, what are the consequences for the possibilities of representation (see Fabian 1990)? This is because the understanding of a locally bounded field also limits the opportunities of gaining ethnographic knowledge to what is representable as occurring naturally, at a specific place, in order to authenticate the experience based on local presence as ‘real’, ‘different’, and ‘exclusive’. Over the last two decades, the regularly articulated critique on the classical rationale for the ‘field’ in ethnographic research has stimulated a fundamental rethinking of the traditional concept and the practices of fieldwork relating to it (Sluka/Robben 2007). It is therefore barely surprising that, until today, the methodological discussion in ethnography has produced a number of approaches that can be understood as an attempt to overcome the localism and naturalism of the ethnographic field concept (Amit 2000). Primarily, they all react in different ways to the experience that the ‘field’ is not bound to only one place but potentially could be “everywhere”, as Deborah D’Amico-Samuels formulated it in the early 1990s (D’Amico-Samuels 1991: 83). This approach has been particularly common in ethnographic research dealing, for example, with virtual spaces, like networks and internet communities (cf. Henriksen 2002; Wittel 2000). It is also common in research that investigates geographically moving ‘subjects’ and forms of data, such as groups of migrants or the addressees of educational practices in general (cf. Mintz 1998), as well as documents, ideas, artefacts or digital communications. Other examples of how the traditional concept of field is increasingly questioned can be found in methodological debates on historical ethnography, an area of research where a local presence within a ‘field’ is impossible, since the object of interest has ceased to exist (Fenske/Bendix 2007; Maase 2001). One of the most elaborate approaches in this respect is the so-called “multi-sited-ethnography”, as it was labelled by George Marcus in the middle of the 1990s, while he was highlighting a new methodological trend having emerged in ethnographic research from the early 1980s (Marcus 1986, 1989, 1995; also Falzon 2009; Coleman/von Hellermann 2012; Pierides 2010). Here, the attention of the researcher is no longer dedicated to one single ‘field’ that has to be explored as a whole and over a long time. The ‘field’ which multi-sited ethnography has in mind rather consists of different settings and contexts, and the researchers follow their (materialised) objects of interest (people, things, biographies etc.) through multi-local environments and periods of time. This

Approaching the Complexities of Educational Realities: An Introduction

kind of “mobile ethnography”, as Marcus (1995: 99) writes, “expands from its committed localism” and finally displaces the field-related research strategies. More precisely, we can witness a methodological decoupling of ‘place’ and time on the one hand and the ‘field’ on the other. Today, the consequences of the continuing critique of ethnography’s traditional localism are noticeable not least in the discussion of methodology and the development of research strategies in educational ethnography. This development is closely related to the experience that – especially in the age of globalisation – the limited focus on the locally bounded or single sites of education (e.g. classrooms, playgrounds, school buildings, or youth centres etc.) restricts investigations to locally situated events, and tends not only to forget the overarching discursive and political frameworks of local (educational) processes, but also their network-like interconnections to other sites within the same institutions, as well as to the surrounding social space of milieus, different socio-political sites, audiences, neighbourhoods, or other institutions of the same kind (Pierides 2010; see also Epstein/Fahey/Kenway 2013). The more conventional strategy is to follow the participants to different sites (for example from the classroom to the teachers conference in Breidenstein 2006) within the same setting or across different settings (for example studies investigating the diverse offices involved in case management processes of welfare services, see Nadai/Koch 2011). In addition, there are now more complex research designs which involve nothing else than the transnationalisation of the whole research process (see e.g. Huf/Panagiotopoulou 2011). In line with this, Jane Kenway, co-leader of the current research project “Elite Schools in Globalizing Circumstances: A Multi-Sited Global Ethnography”, discusses in her contribution in how far the approach of multi-sited ethnography changes the traditional imagination of space, time, and mobility in ethnographic research. On the one hand, she points out to which extent current ethnographic research is still depending on the traditional idea of the single, locally bounded field or site; on the other hand, she also explains how traditional notions of space, time, and movement can be reworked in research praxis. The methodical, methodological, and practical challenges of multi-sited ethnography are also at the centre of Stephan Wolff ’s contribution. Drawing on his experiences with supervising doctoral projects making use of transnational field research, Wolff discusses the material, temporal, and social conditions that enable as well as limit the production of ethnographic knowledge in this context. In doing so, he also shows how practicing transnational research at multiple sites not only goes along with questioning the traditional imagination of individual sites and situations, but also with a continuing search for the objects of investigation and their analytical re-conceptualisation. Another approach to conceptualising and exploring the trans-locality of the field is applied by Yuki Imoto. Instead of following people to various places of

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occurrences, she reconstructs the trans-local character of an international preschool in Japan by tracing the individual stories, trajectories, and biographies of the different actors involved in this setting in order to reveal the trans-local character of the whole field. Thereby, she shows that the exploration of a field’s trans-locality is not only a question of where research is conducted, but also how it is conducted at a special site in terms of bringing back the trans-local relations of every day practice. The field of early childhood education and care is also the focus of Sabine Bollig’s research, which aims at exploring the fractal reality of children’s daycare days in Luxembourg by observing this reality not at the single sites of daycare centres, but from the vantage point of children’s care-arrangements. On a theoretical level, her research applies a practice-theoretical approach to analyse how specific places and events are connected within the genesis and the actual ‘doing’ of these care-arrangements. On a methodical level, she develops a specific kind of multi-sited ethnography which transcends a locally bounded perspective on early-childhood-education institutions by ‘following’ and ‘tracing’ the multiple realities which coincide and interact in the daily accomplishment of distinct day-care childhoods.

Who are the actors? The new emerging understanding of ‘field’ in educational ethnography and research on social work affects not only the expansion of places and settings or the translocalisation of objects under investigation in general. By moving away from a human-actor-focused situationalism, it also draws attention to the diversity of actors, agents, and agencies that are involved in these (trans-)local practices of education and social work. With the ‘analytical turn’ in educational ethnographies, ethnography’s ‘emic perspective’ could no longer be justified hermeneutically in how it had tried to understand subjective experiences, but in how it conceptualises these experiences by looking at the local level of social and societal processes. At first, this shift brought research to the fore which reconstructed the social and historical conditions and institutional dynamics as structural contexts or ‘superstructures’ of subjective experiences. But since the 1970s, the de-substantialisation of such cultural or structural concepts brought with it a radically different understanding of the actors in education and social work, extending even to the concept of the actor as such. This emerging decentring of human actors has been raising the question not only whether there are other actors besides human beings that should be taken into account, but also if the earlier strong centring on actors is still playing a role in ethnographic research. On a methodological level, this does not only affect how agency is linked to particular instances – independently of whether these are people, things, or systems – it also raises the question of how someone, or if anything at all, can become ‘agentic’.

Approaching the Complexities of Educational Realities: An Introduction

A part of educational ethnographies has dealt from an early stage with more abstract ‘actors’, such as organisations and institutions, and has moved their ‘internal logic’ and ‘internal life’ into focus. This meant that the organisations themselves came into play as actors, for example, within their political and local environments (e.g. school development processes). But of equal importance was the question which positions for actors organisations ‘offer’ to their members and how the interests and agency of those are institutionally constituted (e.g. Wolcott 1973). Given that agency in education or social work is almost entirely performed within organisational contexts, the term ‘organisation’ is thus to be understood not only as referring to a separate level of rationality, but also as the pivot which allows analysing the educational action of individual actors in its welfare-state or market-based constitution. In contrast to this, discourse- and field-theoretical conceptions of education and social work move their actors directly into the complex dynamics of discourses and fields, but without giving them the status of actors independent of their respective contexts. Along their traditionally critical attitude, educational ethnographies nurtured a special interest in the processes of habituation (Bourdieu) or subjectivation (Foucault) of learners and teachers alike, as reflected, for example, in the recently emerging ‘performance culture’ in schools (e.g. Rasmussen/Gustafsson/Jeffrey 2014). Ethnography appears here as a particularly potent approach to describe the production of certain subject positions in specific processes of embodiment. But, keeping the discursive structuring of those positions in mind, the aim is likewise to identify them as part of social processes that work across different localities and scales. While elaborating on those “ruling relations” between social discourses and everyday life, Dorothy Smith (2005) coined the term “institutional ethnography”, whereby the texts and documents that circulate between different practical contexts are given particular emphasis (‘textually-mediated social organisation’). This interest in the interplay of complex constellations of actors has also influenced theoretical designs that describe the social as network (Latour), assemblage (Deleuze/Guattari), or arrangement (Schatzki), even though these theories do not principally address the ‘ruling relations’ but more directly processes of concatenation of bundles of practices, scattered in time and space, and their rhizome-like connections. Looking at who the actors of education and social work are, these so-called ‘flat ontologies’ (Marston/Jones/Woodward 2005), however, also share a perception of actor positions merely as nodes inside networks, i.e. they try to determine these as a medium and outcome of multiple, connected practices and their trajectories (cf. Eßer 2014; Oswell 2013; Bollig/Kelle 2015). Paradoxically, in this context, the actor-network-theory with its interest in networks of translation (Latour 1996) still holds on most firmly to the traditional conception of the actor, even though it simultaneously elicited the most radical decentring of human actors by ascribing actantiality to all so-

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cial entities, people, objects, discourses, etc. Latour’s position can in many ways be understood as a key driver in the establishment of sociomaterial approaches, since it emphasises the ‘scripts’ and services of objects, technologies, and artefacts in the fields of education and social work (see, for example, Kontopodis 2007; Lenz Taguchi 2010; Fenwick/Edwards 2013). Its radical symmetrisation of humans and non-humans, however, is strongly criticised, especially with respect to its concomitant intentionalistic concept of the actor (Hirschauer 2004; Sørensen 2009; Neumann 2012; Rabenstein/Wieneke 2012). Instead, the “interplay between practices and objects, between interactivity and interobjectivity” should be brought to the fore, as advocated by Kalthoff and Röhl (2011). Considering this heterogeneity of theoretical conceptions of the actor and empirical actor positions, two elements are at stake when investigating the actors of education and social work: who is involved in which ways as an actor in the everyday production of education and social work, and what must be seen in which ways as an actor? Identifying the actors of educational realities is of consequence for the constitution of the objects of research and for the methods deployed, as shown in the section “Who are the actors?”. The contributions gathered in this section discuss this not only with reference to different research fields and research questions, but also regarding their various conceptualisations of the ‘locus of action’. Tobias Röhl’s contribution provides a conceptual framework for an ethnography of learning and teaching that focuses on the sociomateriality of school practices and, therefore, takes the local practices of teachers and learners seriously, while still accounting for practices that extend beyond the here and now of a given situation. He argues that adopting a sociomaterial perspective brings with it both an agential and a transsituative shift, which emphasises how objects ‘act’ as mediators between the local classroom practices and other sites. Therefore, such a transsituative perspective on education calls for a multi-sited ethnography in which the researcher follows the material mediators connecting different sites. The text by Tara Fenwick, Sarah Doyle, Maureen Michael, and Jennifer Scoles deals with practical questions of sociomaterial approaches in the context of research on professional learning. Using three doctoral projects in progress as example, the authors reveal how “sociomateriality” – in the concrete interplay of research field, subject, and social-theoretical approach – can be studied by developing appropriate and innovative research methods. While these two contributions emphasise objects and artefacts as ‘actors’ of education, Christoph Maeder argues in his empirical contribution not to lose sight of the work of humans which has to be done in human/non-human relationships. He uses the example of ICT in the classroom, in this specific case computer and whiteboard, to reveal the continuous situated repair work

Approaching the Complexities of Educational Realities: An Introduction

undertaken by students and teachers necessary in the first place to use this technology for learning processes. Therefore, Maeder points to how ICT and pupils assemble in the classroom, and to how materials and everyday practices melt into human activity, which is entangled with the meanings and cultural discourses of artefacts. The contribution of Helga Kelle deals with interferences of governmental and situated regulations in the school entry procedures of German primary schools. By advocating an ethnographic approach that integrates organisational and governance-analytical research perspectives, she demonstrates the productivity of such a methodology of educational ethnography, highlighting the practical interdependencies of educational policy, socio-spatial environment, infrastructure, school culture, and local types of proceedings. This section finishes with the contribution of Robert Fairbanks, which deals with the complex governance of prisoners in the context of US recovery programmes for incarcerated drug abusers. His contribution uses a material analysis of the history and contextualisation of these recovery programmes linked to mass incarceration in Illinois to show how ethnographic case-study methodology should be combined with historical analysis, critical theory, and a multi-scalar and multi-sited ethnography in order to comprehend provisionally the complexity and contradictory nature of prison reform on the ground.

What is education? Given the inventory so far, this book aims at relating recent methodological developments in ethnographic research and the corresponding empirical findings to overarching questions concerning the empirical foundations of educational theory and the modes of constructing objects and building theory in educational research. In this sense, the basic question is how educational realities can be observed as such, and what entities and processes constitute the fields of education, learning, and social work. Just as the places and actors of education and learning have turned from presuppositions into the very questions of research, likewise the meanings and demarcations of what is to be identified as ‘educational’ in the first place have been called into question. Ethnography with its decided posture of openness, its gesture of discovery, and its scepticism towards the taken-for-granted has had a notable share in the process of dissolving or challenging the objects and boundaries of educational research. It is fundamentally concerned with how a given social reality is constituted in the very process of its enactment (e.g. Lüders 2000; Thole 2010). With its radical empiricism ethnography thus helps to deconstruct the established disciplinary knowledge about what is education and how it is constituted (see also Honig/Neumann 2013). By taking a methodical and reflexive distance to the aims and intentions of professional pedagogical practices, it is “decentring

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the pedagogical gaze” (Hünersdorf/Müller/Maeder 2008: 13) and promoting a non-normative understanding of education (Honig 2004). An analytical ethnographic approach methodologically suspends any preconceived understanding of ‘what is going on’ – in this case education – and focuses instead on how the educational practice is constituting itself in the course of its enactment (Honig/ Neumann 2013), how ‘learning subjects’ are accordingly addressed and subjectified (Beach/Dovemark 2011; Reh et al. 2015), and how they develop the related knowledge ‘to know’ (Kalthoff 1997). At the same time, this approach also calls attention to the dispersion and diversity of educational phenomena outside the traditional institutional spaces of education, care, and social work. Rather than presupposing what is educational about – for example – the fields of employment agencies, development aid, or medical assistance, it aims at describing and reconstructing how specific processes and practices are operationally performed and demarcated as ‘education’ in opposition to what is not ‘education’ (Hünersdorf/Müller/Maeder 2008: 14). Phenomena like education, learning, or personal development are disassociated from individual actors and predetermined spaces and are instead investigated as the products of social practices, which themselves generate the preconditions to observe these phenomena as individual processes (e.g. Bollig 2013; Schulz 2013; Neumann 2014). The sites where education is constituted are no longer predefined and, above all, they are not confined to the physical boundaries of institutional settings like schools, classrooms, childcare centres etc. The question is how educational fields manage to observe themselves and be observed by others as a specific and distinguishable ‘educational’ social reality (Neumann 2013: 21) – in other words: how do they produce their own ‘accountability’? With these considerations, the ethnographic approach is eventually distancing itself from any subject-centred and normatively predetermined understanding of education, moving towards a more praxeological and performative view (Hünersdorf 2008: 36; Wulf/Zirfas 2007). The focus is not on the effects, the successes, or the failings of education, but on the actual processes of ‘doing education’. This volume, and particularly the last section, is thus centring on the complex interrelationships between the empirical exploration and the theoretical conceptualisation of the research objects in educational ethnography. ‘Education’ is no longer tied to specific places and actors as a given fact; rather it is conceptualised as a complex practical accomplishment that is produced both by specific (trans-)local processes going on in the fields of educational research and by the ethnographic gaze itself. Researchers therefore ask how educational fields are constituted as such, how they construct their actors and addressees, how they develop practical routines and create distinct forms of professionalism. Answers to these questions require novel and innovative methodological approaches, methodical strategies, and research designs. Ethnography as a

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both socially and spatially mobile research strategy is well suited to overcome the restricted focus on individual interactions, typical of the pedagogical gaze, thus decentring the notion of the unity of time, space, person, and action (Neumann 2013: 21). Drawing on various kinds of empirical data, this methodology also allows directing the attention beyond the interactions between professionals and their addressees, towards the institutional, organisational, material, corporal, etc. dimensions and modalities of the everyday practice in settings that are encoded as ‘educational’. In this regard, the multimodality of educational realities refers, on the one hand, to the diverse (spatial, temporal, sensual, material, etc.) layers of social organisation and practice (cf. Atkinson/Delamont/Housley 2008), and, on the other hand, to the (multimedia, hyper-textual, poly-vocal etc.) forms of representing ethnographically generated knowledge (cf. Dicks/Soyinka/ Coffey 2006). By drawing attention to the detail and complexity of social life, ethnography is itself developing into a more sophisticated, complex, and multilayered approach. It increasingly focuses on the “multiple modes of social construction that are available to the ethnographer and that are constitutive of the complexity of everyday social life” (Atkinson/Delamont/Housley 2008: 214). A multimodal ethnography thus explores how the narrative, the visual, material, the body, space, place, and time interrelate and connect in the accomplishment of social orders and realities as a dynamical, nonlinear, and emergent process (see also Dicks et al. 2011). Meanwhile, this sociological approach to multimodality is building on the theoretical foundations of social semiotics with its interest in the multiple modes of meaning and meaning-making (e.g. Kress/van Leeuwen 2001; van Leeuwen 2005; Kress 2010). In order to go beyond a naïve ‘integration’ or additive model of multiplicity in ethnographic research, ethnographers finally need to draw on a theoretically informed and empirically grounded understanding of how the different modalities of social life function and how they can be analysed. In this line, the contribution by Gunther Kress presents the basic theoretical framework of a social-semiotic approach to multimodality, exploring its links and possible points of connection with ethnographic research. Particularly the notions of meaning-making as “semiotic work” and signs as the “traces of prior semiotic work” lend themselves as possible analytical tools for an ethnography that is interested in the multiple layers in which social realities are constructed and given meaning. Oliver Schnoor then explicitly picks up the notion of multimodality to examine the practical and situated interrelations of space, place, and sound in the enactment of early-educational realities in Luxembourgish childcare centres. His analyses demonstrate how pedagogical practices construct their own accountability as professional educational practice through particular spatial and sonic practices, which are by themselves bodily rooted and materially mediated.

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The next chapter by Claudia Seele also draws on research in Luxembourgish early-childcare settings, adding the specific multilingual dimension as part of the complexity of this educational field. She focuses on language not simply as narrative but as a both situated and contextual social practice that contributes to the construction and differentiation of the institutional social order and thus to the practical accomplishment of early education. This practice-theoretical perspective is taken further by Marc Schulz in his article on education as a trans-local phenomenon, which is actively connected to, but not exclusively rooted in, the individual child’s body. Rather, the performative enactment of education is dispersed – spatially as well as temporally, materially and personally – across the everyday early-educational practice. The central concern then is not what education is, but where, when, and how it is made visible, presented, and ascribed to the child. In the final contribution, Dominik Krinninger exceeds the realm of publicly organised care and education, focussing instead on the family as an important, yet often neglected, setting where education is constituted. His article sheds light on the interplay between theoretical and empirical perspectives in the construction and exploration of the ethnographic research object. Arguing for the use of complex theoretical tools in order to grasp the complexities of the object of study, the author understands the family as a “social figuration”, where different personal, social, and material relations intersect in dynamical ways. The ethnographic observation in this case focuses on the private household only as an entry point into these complex interrelationships, consciously not equating the site and the object of research.

C onclusion The contributions gathered in this volume demonstrate that current developments in educational ethnography have serious consequences not only for educational ethnography itself (this might be taken for granted), but also for the basic understanding of educational phenomena in general. However, by providing this brief and – in this sense – also perspectival and selective inventory of approaches, we do not claim to cover the whole range and variety of MultiPluriTrans-tendencies in educational ethnography. It should also be obvious that the general questions providing the logical structure of this volume, are, in fact, overlapping and cannot easily be separated from each other. The way the field of research is conceptualised, for example, necessarily also influences to whom agency is ascribed and which assumptions are made about the processes considered as ‘educational’ and vice versa. This also applies to the several levels of reflection addressed in this volume. Theoretical assumptions inform methodological decisions while also shaping possible empirical

Approaching the Complexities of Educational Realities: An Introduction

insights, which, in turn, can initiate further theoretical reasoning and so on. The recursive relation between these levels is also reflected in the different entry points chosen by the authors of this volume to develop their arguments. Not least, their papers also open up a wide range of topics and valuable questions, demonstrating both the variety of educational realities and the perspectives under which they can be explored.

A cknowledgements The contributions to this volume are revised and expanded versions of papers held at the conference “MultiPluriTrans. Emerging Fields in Educational Ethnography”, which took place in Luxembourg from November 21-23, 2013. This conference was co-funded by the Luxembourgian National Research Fund (Fonds National de la Recherche, FNR). We thank all participants for the stimulating and productive discussions, and we thank all authors of this volume for the outstanding cooperation. Our goal was not simply to gather unconnected, individual contributions in this volume, but to create the most coherent possible connection between them, while focusing on the overarching research question. This has demanded a lot of patience and commitment from them. The editors would also like to thank Melanie Monzel and Pit Péporté for the technical and linguistic improvement of the manuscript. Their dedicated, meticulous work and their patience greatly disburdened the editors and represent an irreplaceable contribution to the success of this project. Finally, we want to thank the Research Unit INSIDE at the University of Luxembourg and its head, Prof. Dr. Dieter Ferring, for the generous financial support.

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Nadai, Eva/Koch, Martina (2011): “Ein Forschungsobjekt im Zwischenraum: Interinstitutionelle Zusammenarbeit zwischen sozialstaatlichen Agenturen.” In: Zeitschrift für Soziologie der Erziehung und Sozialisation 31/3, pp. 234-247. Neumann, Sascha (2012): “Pädagogisierung und Verdinglichung: Beobachtungen zur Materialität der Frühpädagogik.” In: Rita Casale/Gudrun M. König/Karin Priem (eds.), Die Materialität von Erziehung: Zur Kultur- und Sozialgeschichte pädagogischer Objekte, Weinheim and München: Beltz Juventa (Zeitschrift für Pädagogik, Beiheft 58), pp. 168-184. Neumann, Sascha (2013): “Unter Beobachtung: Ethnografische Forschung im frühpädagogischen Feld.” In: Zeitschrift für Soziologie der Erziehung und Sozialisation 33/1, pp. 10-25. Neumann, Sascha (2014): “Die sozialen Bedingungen der Bildung: Erkundungen im Feld der Frühpädagogik.” In: Christiane Thompson/Kerstin Jergus/Georg Breidenstein (eds.), Interferenzen: Perspektiven kulturwissenschaftlicher Bildungsforschung, Weilerswist: Velbrück Wissenschaft, pp. 243-267. Oswell, David (2013): The Agency of Children: From Family to Global Human Rights, Cambridge: University Press. Pierides, Dean (2010): “Multi-Sited Ethnography and the Field of Educational Research.” In: Critical Studies in Education 51/2, pp. 179-195. Rabenstein, Kerstin/Wieneke, Johanna (2012): “Der Blick auf die Dinge des Lernens: Überlegungen zur Beobachtung der materiellen Dimension pädagogischer Praktiken.” In: Sabine Reh/Heike de Boer (eds.), Beobachtung in der Schule – Beobachten lernen, Wiesbaden: Springer VS, pp. 189-202. Rasmussen, Annette/Gustafsson, Jan/Jeffrey, Bob (eds.) (2014): Performativity in Education: An International Collection of Ethnographic Research on Learners’ Experiences, Gloucestershire: E&E. Reh, Sabine/Fritzsche, Bettina/Idel, Till-Sebastian/Rabenstein, Kerstin (2015): Lernkulturen: Rekonstruktionen pädagogischer Praktiken an Ganztagsschulen, Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Rosenbaum, James E. (1976): The Hidden Curriculum of High School Tracking, New York: John Wiley & Sons. Salzman, Philip C. (1986): “Is Traditional Fieldwork Outmoded?” In: Current Anthropology 5, pp. 528-530. Schulz, Marc (2013): “Frühpädagogische Konstituierung von kindlichen Bildungs- und Lernprozessen.” In: Zeitschrift für Soziologie der Erziehung und Sozialisation 33/1, pp. 26-41. Sluka, Jeffrey A./Robben, Antonius C.G.M. (2007): “Fieldwork in Cultural Anthropology: An Introduction.” In: Antonius C.G.M. Robben/Jeffrey A. Sluka (eds.), Ethnographic Fieldwork: An Anthropological Reader, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 1-28.

Approaching the Complexities of Educational Realities: An Introduction

Smith, Dorothy E. (2005): Institutional Ethnography: A Sociology for People, Lanham: Alta-Mira. Sørensen, Estrid (2009): “The Materiality of Learning: Technology and Knowledge in Educational Practice.” In: Diskurs Kindheits- und Jugendforschung 6, pp. 225-229. Spindler, George D. (2000): “The Four Careers of George and Louise Spindler: 1948-2000.” In: Annual Review of Anthropology 29, pp. XV-XXXVIII. Thole, Werner (2010): “Ethnographie des Pädagogischen: Geschichte, konzeptionelle Kontur und Validität einer erziehungswissenschaftlichen Ethnographie.” In: Friederike Heinzel/Werner Thole/Peter Cloos/Stefan Köngeter (eds.), ‘Auf unsicherem Terrain’: Ethnographische Forschung im Kontext des Bildungs- und Sozialwesens, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, pp. 17-38. Watson, C.W. (ed.) (1999): Being There: Fieldwork in Anthropology, London: Pluto. Wax, Murray/Wax, Rosalie/Dumont, Robert V. (1964): “Formal Education in an American Indian Community.” In: Social Problems: Official Journal of the Society for the Study of Social Problems 11/4, special supplement. Willis, Paul (2000): The Ethnographic Imagination, Cambridge: Polity. Wittel, Andreas (2000): “Ethnography on the Move: From Field to Net to Internet.” In: Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung 1/1, Art. 21. Wolcott, Harry F. (1973): The Man in the Principal’s Office: An Ethnography, Austin: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Wulf, Christoph/Zirfas, Jörg (eds.) (2007): Pädagogik des Performativen: Theorien, Methoden, Perspektiven, Basel: Beltz. Yon, Daniel A. (2003): “Highlights and Overview of the History of Educational Ethnography.” In: Annual Review of Anthropology 32, pp. 411-429. Zinnecker, Jürgen (ed.) (1975): Der heimliche Lehrplan, Weinheim and Basel: Beltz.

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Where is the Field? About the Transnationality, Translocality, and Multi-Sitedness of Education and Ethnography

Ethnography “is not what it used to be” Rethinking Space, Time, Mobility, and Multiplicity Jane Kenway

A bstr act The ghosts of Malinowski and Geertz still haunt the theory and practice of ethnography. This is despite on-going challenges to their sacred norms and forms and despite major attempts to refresh or design anew ethnography and anthropology. These revenants constantly return, via contemporary traditionalists, to insist that the power of fieldwork is best, or only, derived from long-term immersion and encounter with “the natives’ point of view” and “thick description” in, and of, a single, territorially defined, “site” or “field”. Multi-sited ethnography is seen to play fast and loose with such sticklers’ understandings of space, time, and mobility. Those who have taken up the many challenges involved in undertaking multi-sited ethnography have had to fight off the rear-guard assaults of such ghosts’ ventriloquists. But, as I will show, given the many changes related to space, time, mobility, and the multiplicity associated with contemporary times and theory, ethnography should not still “be what it used to be”. I will also show how, in our team study called Elite Schools in Globalising Circumstances: A Multi-Sited Global Ethnography, we have been reworking such traditional ethnographic notions of space, time, movement and multiplicity in our research praxis. In so doing I suggest how this approach advances conventional ethnographic studies of elite schools.

I ntroduction The ghosts of Malinowski and Geertz still haunt the theory and practice of ethnography. This is despite on-going challenges to their sacred “norms and forms” and despite major attempts to refresh or design anew ethnography and, its father discipline, socio-cultural anthropology (Rabinow/Marcus with Faubion/Rees 2008). These revenants constantly return, via contemporary tradition-

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alists, to insist that the power of fieldwork is best, or only, derived from very particular views of time, space, and movement. I begin with George Marcus’s original ideas about multi-sited ethnography and then outline the views of contemporary traditionalists about ethnography’s sacred norms and forms with regard to space, time, and mobility. Next I show how multi-sited ethnographers respond to these charges of ethnographic sacrilege, and how they view space, time, mobility, and, indeed, multiplicity. Then I explain how our project “Elite schools in globalising circumstances: a multi-sited global ethnography”1 is developing the idea of multi-sited global ethnography. Why is such an approach necessary? Much ethnographic research illustrates how elite schools are involved in the production and reproduction of elites. But such research often has a very specific geography, suffers from a form of present-ism, and is locked into a mode of methodological nationalism (Amelina et al. 2012). Conventional ethnographic methods do not help ethnographers of elite schools to address these problems. We offer “multi-sited global ethnography” as an alternative and argue that it invites an understanding of how elite schools in various locations are globalising their practices and the implications for elite formation and reformation in national and transnational terms over time and place. Clearly, the wider implications of this approach for educational research are a matter for inquiry.

The emergence of multi - sited e thnogr aphy Marcus is the central figure in discussions of multi-sited ethnography. His most significant intervention is his landmark essay Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-Sited Ethnography (1995), republished in Ethnography Through Thick and Thin (1998) – my source here. This essay speaks to his long-standing interest in anthropological “studies of the contemporary” using contemporary thinking. His view is that ethnography as “it used to be” is not up to this task. Parts of this essay are constantly invoked and this quotation is one of them. Multi-sited research is designed around chains, paths, threads, conjunctions or juxtapositions of locations in which the ethnographer establishes some form of literal phys1 | The team consists of Jane Kenway and Johannah Fahey (Monash), Fazal Rizvi (Melbourne), Cameron McCarthy (Illinois), Debbie Epstein (Roehampton), and Aaron Koh (NIE), as well as the PhD students Matthew Shaw, Howard Prosser (both Monash), and Mousumi Mukherjee (Melbourne). Funded by the Australian Research Council (DP1093778) and our respective universities.

Ethnography “is not what it used to be”

ical presence, with an explicit posited logic of association or connection among sites that in fact define the argument of the ethnography. (Marcus 1998: 90)

He is talking here about an emergent ethnographic practice, which is producing “composite, multi-method mobile works of scholarship” (ibid: 87) and he is witnessing this, in various stages of emergence, in different people’s work from various disciplines (cultural, development, feminist, science, and technology studies, for example). Marcus is counter-posing such work in relation to, but also against, “world systems” analyses which invoke singular concepts to understand the word at large. But he also indicates that macro analyses of such things as “the world system, historical political economies of colonialism, market regimes, state formation and nation building” (1998: 80) implicitly invite probing on more diminutive scales and in relation less to the systemic than to its associated manifestations, dispersals, and fragmentations. It is thus that “following connections, associations, and putative relationships” is central to multi-sited ethnography. In contrast it insists on changed “spatial canvas” (1998: 82) in which “the global” is variously enacted. He also opposes any notion that multi-sited ethnography is simply comparative because this implies a bounded unit and a “linear spatial plane”. In contrast, he says that in multi-sited ethnography de-facto comparisons develop as a result of “the fractured discontinuous plane of movement and discovery among sites as one maps an object of study and needs to posit logics of relationship, translation and association among these sites” (1998: 86). This essay is methodological, not technical, and he talks of modes of construction through “preplanned or opportunistic movement” and of “tracing within different settings of a complex cultural phenomenon given an initial baseline conceptual identity that turns out to be contingent and malleable as one traces it” (1998: 90). And it is at this point that he identifies research already conducted or underway that “follows” the people, the thing, the metaphor, the plot story or allegory, the life or biography, and the conflict. Clearly “following” is Marcus’s key trope along with “chains, paths, threads, conjunctions and juxtaposition”. But along with these are others – dispersal, circulation, connections, and relations for instance. A relatively new ethnographic identity is also implied, for the multi-sited ethnographer is mobile, working across multiples sites, and also possibly repositioning her ethnographic self in the light of the dynamics and demands of these. She is likely to have many “cross cutting and contradictory commitments and allegiances” (1998: 94) and to be in a certain state of ambivalence. It is also probable that her work in each site will be of different intensities and quality, Marcus suggests.

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The sacred tropes Since the Marcus essay, multi-sited ethnography has been haunted by the long-standing and almost deified tropes of socio-cultural anthropology and its father figures, particularly Malinowski and Geertz. Fieldwork is a central defining feature of the discipline. It involves very specific ways of thinking about space, time, movement, and their intersections. Space. Discussions of space get ensnared in notions of “the site” and “the field” and how these should best be understood. These terms are often used interchangeably or collapsed into one, as in field-site, but it is not necessary to my argument that I tease them apart here. As objects of inquiry, the field and/or the site are implicitly seen to exist as authentic natural entities (Malinowskian naturalism), that they can be understood as a whole, as bounded, and as containing a “community”. From this flows much else, for instance, the idea that the site or field has an inside and outside, thus in relation to it there are insiders or “natives” and outsiders, and that ethnographers go in and out of the field but become provisional insiders through participant observation. Accompanying this is the view that the field or site should be singular not multiple and on a small not extended scale. And, only if this is so can the ethnographer achieve the necessary “intimacy” and depth to produce the most holly of grails “thick description”. It is here that the ghost of Geertz (1973) hovers casting fear that one’s “descriptions” will be regarded as too “thin”. Time. The time the ethnographer spends in the field is seen to be one of the defining features of ethnography. This is to be extended not fleeting, deep time not shallow. Quick time is associated with superficial encounters, with an inability to be part of everyday life at the site, with difficulties in getting to know the “natives’ point of view”. It is a “temporality of slowness patience and gradual” (Rabinow/Marcus with Faubion/Rees 2008: 7-8). Another oft-mobilised trope is that the ethnographer “makes the strange familiar” or “makes the familiar strange”. The process involves displacement, defamiliarisation, being unsettled. Pure time, immersed in situ and without distraction, is regarded as of-the-essence. Without long-term experience in place, how can the temporal rhythms of the field be fully appreciated, it is asked. Of course, along with this, worries exist about the problem of over-immersion and about how to ensure critical distance is retained. Mobility. Clifford’s oft-quoted notions of dwelling and travelling, roots and routes (1997) are relevant here. Coming and going are not regarded as part of the “work” of fieldwork, and neither is movement between sites. Ethnography is seen to involve “intensive dwelling”, concentrated co-residence, and immersed interaction. The ethnographer is expected to examine locally embedded roots, not routes that extend outward and take people away, or bring them in. How, contemporary traditionalists ask, can ethnographers participate in others’ trav-

Ethnography “is not what it used to be”

el? Theirs is not the work of “following” whether it be people, things, metaphors, or whatever else Marcus has suggested. Their focus is meant to be on culture bound. From this outline of what is sacred to traditional ethnographers, it is possible to see why multi-sited ethnography is regarded as profane. It is seen as on the wrong side of every methodological binary. It plays fast and loose with ethnography’s most revered tropes and dilutes the method beyond recognition. Its notions of field/site are seen as sloppy and slippery, as too dispersed, with too few limits. Further, more than one site is regarded as too many to be studied in depth. And the manner in which dispersed sites are selected is seen as capricious. The time possible in each site is too short, thus the encounters are transitory and superficial. And the move to multi-methods and away from participant observation alone is regarded as sacrilegious. In short it will provide descriptions that are thin not thick, shallow not deep. Multi-sited ethnography has spawned many followers (those seeking to practice it), clarifiers (those trying to explain its “norms and forms”), extenders (those seeking to develop it) and scarifyers (its critics). Let me turn, now, to these.

N e w gener ations of multi - sited e thnogr aphy Since Marcus’s 1995/98 papers, multi-sited ethnography has flourished. The collections edited by Mark-Anthony Falzon (2009), and by Simon Coleman and Pauline von Hellermann (2011) show-case new generations of multi-sited ethnographers. But neither is ethnography in general still locked into such earlier ways of thinking and practicing. Further, due to its “persistent naturalism and positivism and its unfortunate links to colonial and neocolonial history” – what Gupta and Ferguson (1997: 14), quoting Rosaldo (1989), call its “imperialist nostalgia” – anthropology has lost some of its lustre and, it is now the case that ethnography and socio-cultural anthropology have changed considerably since these original but lingering insistences about what is good and proper ethnography and who is a “real” ethnographer (Gupta/Ferguson 1997: 14). These reinventions have involved reworking notions of fieldwork, and now there are diverse ways of thinking about the field/site and of practicing fieldwork, while many core concepts have been rethought. But also, developments in theory have challenged these older ways of thinking about space, time, and movement, not to mention culture, community, and subjects. There has also been a surge of thought about how the field/site, the place, and more recently scale are constructed for the purposes of the research at hand, how the ethnographer herself, in part, constructs specific field sites. The notions of place-making and scale-making have for some time been part of this trajectory, as has that of “diffuse time-space” (Marcus 1998: 79). Such thinking

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has been helped along by the spatial turn in the social sciences, which, largely following the arguments of Lefebvre (1991 [1974]), invokes the view that space is not prior to humans but is negotiated, fought over, and produced by them. Despite all this ferment of thought, various new approaches struggle for acceptance by contemporary traditionalists. And multi-sited ethnography seems to attract particularly intense critiques. Thus many who deploy this method adopt a highly reflective approach. Let me return to space, time, and mobility and identify some ways that these are being reconfigured by new generations. To these notions I add multiplicity. Space. This remains an issue, but differently. First there is a common sensitivity to the ways in which space/time altering technologies of cheap transport and instantaneous ICTs potentially compress and reconfigure social relations that would otherwise be stretched out over extended literal space. Given that these constantly changing technologies are involved in ever-emerging forms of life, the manner in which they intertwine in a vast array of circumstances and with what consequences are matters of on-going ethnographic interest. This is in terms of subject matter for inquiry and in terms of ethnographic practice itself whereby new intimacies may emerge in non face-to-face situations (Ferguson 2011). Second, the notion that space is socially and politically produced underpins explorations of how it is “made” or “performed”. For example, questions about how the global is constituted in various places are regarded as central to multi-sited ethnographic studies of globalisation. Place is seen as a node (or point of intersection) of various aspects of the global. On the other side of this same coin, the global is seen as a scale-making project, which, again, is often instigated in certain places and expressed and re-instigated in others. This focus on the making of space potentially decouples the links that are often made between space and identity. Instead, the focus is on the contests involved in the work of spacemaking and imagining and of self and Other positioning. As this implies space is also understood relationally, involving human and other relationships – “a myriad of connections and reconnections, alignments and realignments and various positionings in relations and diverse critical junctions” (Coleman/von Hellermann, 2011: 13). Scale has become a widely used but contested concept. Many questions arise. Does the standard metaphor of nesting smaller scales within larger scales still work? What concepts help us to comprehend the diverse scalar forms of the contemporary that this nesting metaphor does not seem to accommodate? Are such concepts as juxta-position, network and assemblage sufficient, if not what others are helpful? And, ask Jean and John Comaroff (2007), what of scales that are “awkward” and “difficult to capture” (Coleman/von Hellermann 2011: 4)? Are our inferences and imaginations sufficient justification for what we decide to “follow” or “trace” under these awkward circumstances?

Ethnography “is not what it used to be”

Time. Surprisingly, time, temporality and historicity have attracted much less direct reflexive attention from second-generation multi-sited ethnographers. This is despite the focus on mobility across space and indeed shifting space, both of which, of course, are time-related. Yes, in relation to “the contemporary”, time/space compression is acknowledged and some ask what the speed of change means for methods involving slow temporalities of immersion. According to Ferguson (2011: 197), for instance, long-term immersion is irrelevant to short-lived situations. But time itself as a focus of ethnographic inquiry seems limited. I mean here not just changing times but how time is different in different locations and also for different communities, how the social relations of time are constituted and expressed. But also, time continues to be discussed mainly in relation to the apparently tireless criticisms about the dilution of depth due to less time in one place and the supposedly arbitrary nature of sites to follow. However, useful responses include Falzon’s (2009 drawing on Simon 1997). He suggests that we adopt a “satisfice”, rather than “maximise” approach, one that satisfies and is sufficient – is good enough. He says, “here one is guided by the scholarly literature on a particular topic, the current state of methodology, and one’s unfolding ethnographic insights on the ground”. What “satisfices” he says is “thus part of the whole methodological and epistemological complex”. Interpretive depth is the issue, not just time “in situ”. Mobility. “Routes based” or “lives in motion” research has flourished amongst multi-sited ethnographers. Clifford’s argument that “discrepant travel routes and roots” need to be understood has become central. So too have explorations of shifting locations and of the trans-national (Ong 1999). Following transnational lives (migrants, diasporic peoples) and traffic is the most predictable and the most taken-up multi-sited research focus. The notion of fieldwork as dwelling has also become de-centred. Crosscutting metaphors of fieldwork as “travel encounters” (Clifford 1992) are now regularly deployed. But some “objects of inquiry” are more obviously follow-able or track-able than others. As Marcus argues “[t]he non-obvious, disjunctive relationships and connections between sites pose more of a challenge” (1999). But Falzon (2009) suggests that if subjects are mobile, then being mobile ones-self helps with depth. And as many observe a problem remains. Ethnographers still primarily travel from the West to the non-West, the West still tends to examine the rest (Clifford 1997). While the metaphor of “following” threads, strains, tracks, paths, and the like remains at the forefront, some have stepped back a bit from it. For example, Hage (2005) claims that the stress on migrants’ motion is overdone. Others argue that although it is more variegated, multi-siting is still a form of bounding. The multiple. Becoming more prominent are other tropes, the most obvious being the multi or multiple. There is an argument that multiple sites/pathways

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lead to projects being more multi perspectival; that multiple angles of scrutiny are gleaned/arise as a consequence of the researchers movements through very different and dispersed circumstances. In effect the research becomes much more multi-centred and multi-vocal than a single-site ethnography could be. Research subjects and researchers themselves are likewise regarded in a less singular manner, they are seen to belong to several communities simultaneously, thus to be complexly and multiply located, and to have identifications that may complement, may cross-cut, and may even trouble each other. Multidisciplinary teams are regarded as particularly helpful in dealing with such complexity. As Coleman and von Hellermann (2011: 10) say the research also then becomes more “multi-sighted”. Of course the multiple can also obscure the political especially when various post- or neo-colonial margins and centres are involved. So, along with this is the suggestion that this intricacy necessarily leads to multiple responsibilities and might also lead to multiple, and possibly highly conflicting, identifications, loyalties, and political positions. “Multi-frictionality” as Lowenhaupt Tsing (2004) calls it in her acclaimed ethnography of “global connection”. Clearly there is much more to the multiple than multi-sited-ness. There are its flow-on effects. In decentring or de-privileging the primacy of the field or site – in reducing border patrol – other matters have come more to the fore. Multidisciplinary teams potentially lead to a methodological and theoretical plurality and even to redefining fieldwork itself. Other methods and data, including such things as archives, government documents, popular culture, mass media, web logs, statistical reports are no longer regarded as ancillaries to field work, but important elements of it (Coleman/von Hellermann 2011). We belong to the second generation of multi-sited ethnographers. And, in terms of the categories deployed above, we also see ourselves as amongst “the extenders”. In order to illustrate the empirical productivity of our approach I now offer the example of our study of elite schools. Elite schools have long been caught up in various, historically differentiated, processes of globalisation (cp. Kenway/McCarthy 2014, passim). Indeed they were involved in certain processes of empire-building and were established in various colonies around the world. They have also been part of various countries post-colonial independence strategies. While their globalising and nationalising imperatives and manifestations these days are different from earlier times they nonetheless retain traces of these historical moments and our study is designed, in part, to enable us to excavate these historical trends and traces.

Ethnography “is not what it used to be”

M ulti - sited global e thnogr aphy : a ne w approach to e thnogr aphic studies of elite schools Our project on elite schools in globalising circumstances (2010-2014) is designed as a multi-sited ethnography, following Marcus’ (1998) argument that “multi-sited” ethnographies are well placed to explore the “complex connections” between sites associated with globalisation. In addition, Burawoy and his colleagues’ (2000) sociological approach to global ethnography and their collective focus on three axes of globalisation help to capture such complexity. We bring these foci together in what we have called “multi-sited global ethnography”. Shaping our inquiries is the matrix below. It looks at the intersections between two conceptual frameworks: (i) Burawoy et al.’s framework for global ethnographies: global forces, connections and imaginations (Kenway/Fahey 2014) and (ii) our framework for sociological inquiry into elite schools: identity, curriculum, culture, community, and nation. These latter are the key elements identified by research as central to the elite schooling/social class nexus. This matrix focuses attention on both the institutional life of the school and its more extended communities, and on the ways they are interwoven with global forces, connections, and imaginations. Space precludes me from fully populating the matrix, but some selected examples will illustrate some of the issues we have examined in relation to the various cells. Figure 1: A global matrix for ethnographic studies of elite schools The elite school

Global forces

Global connections

Global imaginaries

Identity (students particularly)

Socially selective intakes. Historical and economic sensibilities.

“Flexible citizenship”? trans- or multinational?

“Possible lives” as global leaders envisaged via various activities and representations.

Curriculum

Specialisation in and concentration on high status/ stakes knowledge.

International mobility; linguistic multi-cultural capital; orientation to foreign university entry and curricula.

Attractive imaginings of international study and careers in knowledge driven high-powered employment markets.

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Hot-housing appropriate elite aspirations and orientations to the economy.

Developing crossborder ties and networks and trans-nationalsocial capital: building “integrative” social practices’.

School’s web-based images of success on the global stage and the implied links between the school and global elites.

Community (families and alumni)

Economic capital, social class orientations

Trans-national lifestyle: expensive, exclusive multicontinent, global alumni organisations.

Representations of desirable “communities of sentiment”

National context

Colonial legacies, national location in the global economy.

Participation in international elite school associations and developing international school/university partnerships.

Activities that motivate the school itself to become more globally agential.

What does this theoretical matrix and our version of multi-sited ethnography mean for the sacred tropes of ethnography? Broadly, it has built into it particular ways of thinking about space, time, mobility, and multiplicity. Space. One thing that holds the project together is the type of elite schools we focus on. They are all based on the British public school model, and all the countries in which our schools are located were part of the British Empire in one-way or another. One of our schools is in England, obviously the centre of the former Empire. The others are in countries that have been colonies of different sorts. All were involved in what is conventionally called “exploitation colonialism”. But, more particularly, Australia was a penal colony and involved white settler colonialism; Barbados, India, South Africa, and Hong Kong were constituted through various forms of colonial capitalism/merchant capitalism, involving trade in people and things and – with the exception of Hong Kong – usually the British East India Trading Company. Cyprus was for a short period a British protectorate and then annexed by the British Empire. Argentina was never a colony but was part of Britain’s “informal empire”. The school “sites” were chosen in relation to the ways in which we think about global forces and, in particular, British colonialism, its links to early global capitalism (via trading companies, trading routes, commercial centres, and the private – and later – state-sponsored military protection of these) and its lingering presence in the so-called post-colonial countries and in the schools themselves. Clearly then, the choice of sites was not random in terms of its multi-sited-ness. There is a strong “logic of associations” as Marcus (2011) calls it.

Ethnography “is not what it used to be”

This is not a comparative study or a “world system” analysis. It identifies the implications for elite schools and elite formation and reformation of various enactments of colonialism, postcolonial nationalism, and contemporary modes of globalisation and the manner in which capitalism is woven through such enactments. And, as we have found, sundry dispersals and spatial manifestations are involved. So what does this say about the school as a “site” in traditional ethnographic terms? First, each school individually is seen as a primary focus for inquiry in relation to which we are exploring various grounded expressions of global forces, connections, and imaginations. In the traditional ethnographic sense, then, each is seen to have its own identities, curriculum, culture, community, and national milieu, which are variously experienced and reconfigured in relation to the global. Each provides us with “informants”. Of course, we recognise that the schools are linked to various sorts of borders (Shaw 2014); indeed, they usually have very tightly secured walls and patrolled gates (Prosser/Kenway 2015). Each has a definite in- and outside. But for us the so-called outside matters more than it does for conventional ethnographers of elite schools. This is not just in terms of contrasts; sometimes the contrasts between inside and the immediate outside are stark in terms of the extremes of wealth and poverty, grand and humble dwellings for instance. It is also in terms of what we feel it is necessary to follow and observe outside, which include school activities and events that are conducted beyond school walls: sport, for instance, school tours and charitable activities. We have also included in our ethnographic itinerary visits to other schools of different orders of wealth and standing. These allow snapshot comparisons between our research schools and others in their locale. Collectively these enable us to develop a broader sense of the elite school market both within each nation state and also trans-nationally (Kenway/Fahey/Koh 2013). But the matter does not stop there, for our multi-sited global ethnography, as such, is of the nine schools collectively. The lines of inquiry that arise in one school also provoke fresh lines of inquiry in others. Each school site is generative for the others, and this allows us to identify connections between the schools, as well as patterns of convergence and divergence across the various schools and their locations. This is clearly a multi-scalar project but not only in the sense of nesting the smaller scales within the increasingly larger (the local, national, regional, and global), but also in the sense of diverse connections, conjunctions, juxtapositions, and disjunctions. For example, the connections may be through the global organisations of elite schools that some of our schools belong to (Round Square, the G20) or through the global curricular that some adopt (International Baccalaureate, Cambridge exams). The conjunctions may involve schools in different countries simultaneously invoking the same educational mantra

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even when there are no apparent connections between them (e.g. “educational entrepreneurship” or “21st century learning”). The juxtapositions may arise from national curriculum reforms, leading students to move from elite schools in one country to elite schools in another in the hope of securing entrance to top universities. The disjunctions may arise when local factors require a school to adjust in such a way as to put it out of step with its peers internationally; for example with regard to national language policies. The school “site” then is regarded as a junction point for the intersections of multi-scalar processes. Unlike Marcus’ original idea that multi-sited ethnography necessarily involves “literal physical presence”, ours does not. We also undertake field-work in virtual space keeping up to date with our schools, between our annual visits, via their websites, relevant Facebook pages, and local digital news items, interviewing students (once they have left school and scattered around the world) via on line video-chat and staying in touch with their activities, where possible, via their social network pages, following the activities of relevant elite school organisations on their websites, and also conducting project team meetings via on line video chat. Space/time altering technologies have allowed our notions of “the site” to be more fluid and have altered our notions of what constitutes the field and fieldwork. Time. Time is a central concern. We are interested in the manner in which the schools are situated in the (spatio)temporal with regard to global forces, connections, and imaginations; and, in relation to these, how and why they have changed over time. For example we are seeking to see how they carried forward and “indigenised” the traditions of the British public school model, in part through the proselytising Christian church and through head teachers and other teachers travelling from the “mother country” to the colonies. We are also identifying the historical forces that connected these schools, in former British colonies, protectorates/annexations, and outposts to each other and to different parts of the world. To assist us, we use school archives, museums, displays, and official and unofficial school histories, along with relevant scholarly historical studies of their broader contexts, showing for example how history has shaped geography and the implications for elite schools (Fahey 2013). However, we are not seeking to offer conventional “school histories”. Neither do we understand the schools’ history in terms of their own dominant narratives. We are not in search of the one “true” history of each school. We are considering time in other ways too. These help us to read conventional school histories from more critical perspectives. Our second temporal concern, then, is with matters of representation – how and where, wittingly and unwittingly, the schools represent their history, identifying what they emphasise and occlude, what lingers, and what is lost and trying to explain why. Our focus then is also on how the history of the school is represented. It is also on the history of the schools’ representations of history,

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which involves struggles over representation itself. We are showing how the school has represented itself to itself and others over time and how and why its representations have changed (Kenway/Epstein 2012). Our third interest in historical time is the manner in and the purposes for which the schools use their histories. For example, their history may be reframed as heritage and used as part of the schools’ status claims and its marketing strategy. Here, judicious blends of tradition and innovation are mobilised, particularly in countries where new “elite” schools are competing with old elite schools for students and reputation (Rizvi 2014). History and heritage become part of the schools’ brand and its “semiotic ecology” (Koh 2013). On a more practical level, we do not obsess about time in the field in the manner of the traditionalists. Our approach includes three weeks per year over three consecutive years of “fieldwork” in each school. These have been staggered over the five years of the project with research starting in three schools in 2010. In each school, two or three members of our research team generate data through conventional multi-method techniques, including intensive observations of various institutional practices and its semiotic ecology as well as interviews and focus-group discussions involving students, teachers, the school principal, and leading members of the school’s governing body, alumni and parents’ associations. As indicated, we examine each school’s historical records. Certainly we might be seen to “drop in” to each school for short periods and this has its limitations in terms of rapport and intimacy. But we have found it beneficial to return to each school over this three-year period. This signals our serious commitment to the schools over time and allows us to witness how they change year by year over three years. For example, as we have found, some programmes that are lauded as emblematic successes one year may prove less so in the following years. But also, what has been seductive in early rounds may has become less so with the greater familiarity of later rounds, and the reverse. Mobility. A focus on time allows us to consider the roots of the schools, but, as indicated, the roots involved major routes. These routes were part of the project of the British Empire as its ideas, institutions, practices, and people travelled from the centre of the Empire to its various outposts and were variously adopted, adapted, and resisted in relation to the type of colonialism involved and the local circumstances. In all locations, the schools were imported/alien institutions serving the needs and reflecting the values of Empire; part of the Empire’s grand scale-missionary project. The British public school model, the travelling British teachers and clergy can all be thought of as colonial carriers of certain forms of “English”, white eliteness (Epstein 2014). The British expat teachers – who continue to staff such schools, although in decreasing numbers – can be thought of as part of a colonial hangover. And the colonial practice of sending the children

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of the most privileged to elite schools in England is also indicative of the role that movement/mobility played, and continues to play, in signalling wealth and status in some former colonies today. These days, the schools individually and collectively are involved in their own transnational scale-making projects, although some are more developed than others, and, as we are finding, mobility is central to these (Kenway/Koh 2013). The schools’ principals, teachers, and students are “on the move”, for conferences, forums, and meetings around such things as curriculum, school to university transitions, student and teachers exchanges, service projects, educational tourism (languages, the arts, history, cultural events), cross-institutional networking and bonding events, reunions, and in the formation of elite school global organisational chains. Ideas in education now move across borders with ease, and it is of interest to us which particular educational ideas are manifest in different sites and why certain ideas carry particular weight. In addition students and families are migrating to attend these schools. Some of those who move today are in, certain ways, carriers of particular class making-through-globalisation projects in a manner similar to that of earlier teachers, principals, and clergy. Others who relocate for their education experience may experience a racial ceiling to their class capital accumulation strategies (Kenway 2013). While we are not in the position to follow these mobile people actually, as might be suggested by Marcus, we are able to follow their movements through their travellers’ tales and their stories of their travel encounters. In each site we have often mixed with students and teachers from other elite schools who are on exchange visits. Through these we are able to get a sense of their travel patterns and also the types of mobility that attract the most status and offer the most valued experiences and connections. Through a consideration of who is moving, where, and why, we are also able to see each school’s most significant and strategic global and national affiliations. One part of our research design is to trace ten to fifteen students from each school as they move from school to their post-school lives. In their second year out of school, we follow them up through interviews and social media, to see what they are doing, if, where and why they have moved and which routes they are taking, socially and geographically. We have tracked their routes out of/or back to their home countries, or between sub-national units such as states and provinces. We have also seen how global power geographies are implicated, the manner in which they are moving from the majority to the minority world. And we have been able to see the extent to which they are moving in the same social/ locational circles at home and away or whether they are branching out socially (McCarthy et al. 2014). Overall, through a focus on mobility we are able to identify the schools’ unifying principles, those that seem to assist elite national and trans-nation-

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al classes to renew or reinvent themselves. We are able to see how they have continued to build class identities, solidarities, and distinctions, and how they helped to pass on class power, privilege, and prestige over place as well as time (Koh/Kenway 2012). As multi-sited global ethnographers we are, in a sense to quote Clifford, “dwelling in travel”, and our travels to, from, around, and between these school sites also form part of the study (Epstein/Fahey/Kenway 2013). Our movement between the schools allows us to experience elite schools in different places in the majority and minority worlds – to comprehend different expressions of eliteness. Further, dwelling locally, when we undertake our fieldwork, provides us with opportunities to move about in the school’s neighbourhood, its suburb, and its city and, through such movement, to get a sense of the school “in place”. In turn this helps us to gain a relational experience of the more immediate geographies of inequality of which these schools are part. Multiplicity. This ethnography is multi-sited and multi-method and multi-perspectival. The research team includes specialists in sociology, philosophy, and cultural studies of education and, within these broad fields, expertise in education and globalisation, post-coloniality, youth, policy, and gender and sexuality studies. This theoretical and methodological plurality has provided multiple angles of scrutiny and enriched our analyses. The team includes researchers from universities in the UK, the USA, Australia, and Singapore, but certain team members were born in and have deep on-going attachments to and contact with Barbados, Singapore, Hong Kong, India, South Africa, England and Australia. Our project design deliberately puts two people together in “the field”. One is somewhat familiar with the particular country in which the school is located; they may have been born there or currently work there. The other is a stranger to it. For one person, the “familiar is made strange”, not only by the exercise of the ethnographic gaze, but also by the very presence of the other person. For the other, the strange is introduced through the eyes of the (more or less) familiar person. The two researchers see things differently and, indeed, see and miss, different things. This is not the same as a “native’s point of view” as the team member, who is better acquainted with the country, also has had very particular encounters with it and these impact on their ways of seeing and being in the site. Our view is that multi-sited ethnography also implies that, as ethnographers, we all have multiple practical and ethical responsibilities. For us each site is pivotal and this thus means dealing equally with very diverse dynamics and demands. It also means that at any one time we are dealing with many “cross cutting and contradictory commitments and allegiances”, as Marcus says, this has not resulted in ambivalence so much as a deep sense of ethical complexity.

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I mentioned earlier that traditionalist ethnographers accuse multi-sited ethnographers of producing thin description, and it is ultimately this which is regarded as most unforgivable. Coleman and von Hellermann (2011: 12) observe that such critiques often involves a “field work fetish and the erasure of theory”. Our view is that what our study might lack in terms of description we add in terms of analysis; that what we offer is “thick” because of our multiple angles of theoretical and empirical scrutiny. These speak to what we call our scoping optics which themselves are multi-sighted. But we activate the term “scoping optics” metaphorically not literally, in contrast with Pink (2009) in her account of “sensual ethnography” and Read (2005) in her account of “scopic regimes” and visual ethnography. Both are literal in their use of the term scopic. Clearly our study is not only about ethnographic sight, the visual and the sensual (cp. however, Fahey/Prosser/Shaw 2015). Metaphorically we are deploying an ethnographic microscope to indicate that we are considering the fine grain of relevant aspects of each school, an ethnographic telescope to indicate that we are taking a more distant examination over time and space, and an ethnographic periscope. A periscope is a long tubular optical instrument that uses lenses, prisms, and mirrors to allow a viewer to see objects not in the direct line of sight. In our multi-sited global ethnography much is not in “the direct line of sight” – and thus it fits Marcus’ “non-obvious paradigm” (1999). The periscope metaphor reminds us to look for what cannot be seen in just one school or country. It points to the necessity of seeing things from where we are not, in terms of our multiple sites and in terms of circulation. As Marcus says, multi-sited ethnography is designed to “examine the circulation of cultural meanings, objects and identities in diffuse time-space” (1998: 79-80). It is concerned with the complex ways in which different sites are connected through these processes of circulation. The periscope metaphor allows for just such a 360-degree perspective from multiple points of entry. But also, the lens, prism, and mirror mechanisms of the periscope point to the significance of searching for different reflections, refractions, and polarisations in our ethnographic inquiries.

C onclusion As second generation multi-sited ethnographers of the “extender” variety, we are not just trying to exorcise the ghosts of ethnographers past but to do something different with multi-sited ethnography, within the context of what is called an “anthropology of globalisation” and in relation to studies of elite schools. But more broadly – given the globally interconnected, inter-dependent and highly mobile world – we urge other educational ethnographers to resist the ghosts’ and the traditionalists’ exhortations and to consider the potential

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benefits for their own enquiries of multi-sited global ethnography. Surely, once they do, they will agree that ethnography cannot still “be what it used to be”.

R eferences Amelina, Anna/Nergiz, Devrimsel/Faist, Thomas/Glick-Schiller, Nina (2012): Beyond Methodological Nationalism: Research Methodologies for CrossBorder Studies, New York: Routledge. Burawoy, Michael (2000): “Introduction: Reaching for the Global.” In: Michael Burawoy/Joseph A. Blum/Sheba George/Zsuzsa Gille/Millie Thayer (eds.), Global Ethnography: Forces, Connections, and Imaginations in a Postmodern World, Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 1-40. Clifford, James (1992) “Traveling Cultures”. In: Grossberg, Lawrence/Nelson, Cary/Treichler, Paula (eds.), Cultural Studies, New York: Routledge, pp. 96116. Clifford, James (1997): Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Coleman, Simon/von Hellermann, Pauline (eds.) (2011): Multi-Sited Ethnography: Problems and Possibilities in the Translocation of Research Methods, New York: Routledge. Coleman, Simon/von Hellermann, Pauline (2011): “Introduction: Queries, Collaborations, Calibrations.” In: Simon Coleman/Pauline von Hellermann (eds.), Multi-Sited Ethnography: Problems and Possibilities in the Translocation of Research Methods, New York: Routledge, pp. 1-15. Comaroff, Jean/Comaroff, John (2007): Ethnography on an Awkward Scale: On Qualitative Method in the Social Sciences, Boulder: Paradigm Publishers. Epstein, Debbie (2014): “Re-membering Class and Race-ing Ladies: Travels Through Time in an Elite South African School.” In: Globalisation, Societies and Education 12/2, pp. 244-261. Epstein, Debbie/Fahey, Johannah/Kenway, Jane (2013): “Multi-Sited Global Ethnography and Travel: Gendered Journeys in Three Registers.” In: International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 26/4, pp. 470-488. Fahey, Johanna (2013): Histories Make Geographies, Geographies Make Class: British Colonialism and Class Making in an Elite School in India, Historical Materialism Australasia Conference, Sydney. Fahey, Johannah/Prosser, Howard/Shaw, Mathew (eds.) (2015): Social Aesthetics of Elite Schools: Exploring the Sensory Dynamics of Privilege, Asia: Springer. Falzon, Mark-Anthony (ed.) (2009): Multi-Sited Ethnography: Theory, Praxis and Locality in Contemporary Research, Surrey: Ashgate.

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Falzon, Mark-Anthony (2009): “Introduction: Multi-Sited Ethnography: Theory, Praxis and Locality in Contemporary Research.” In: Mark-Anthony Falzon (ed.), Multi-Sited Ethnography: Theory, Praxis and Locality in Contemporary Research, Surrey: Ashgate, pp. 1-24. Ferguson, James (2011): “Novelty and Method: Reflections on Global Fieldwork”. In: Simon Coleman/Pauline von Hellermann (eds.), Multi-Sited Ethnography: Problems and Possibilities in the Translocation of Research Methods, New York: Routledge, pp. 194-208. Geertz, Clifford (1973): “Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture”. In: Geertz, Clifford: The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. New York: Basic Books, 1973, pp. 3-30. Gupta, Akhil/Ferguson, James (1997): Anthropological Locations, Boundaries and Grounds of a Field Science, Berkeley: University of California Press. Hage, G. (2005): A not so Multi-sited Ethnography of a not so Imagined Community. In: Anthropological Theory 5/4, pp. 463-75. Kenway, Jane (2013): Travelling With and Unravelling Bourdieu: Elite Schools and the Cultural Logics and Limits of Trans-nationality, Bourdieusian Prospects Conference, Newcastle University, Australia. Kenway, Jane/Epstein, Debbie (2012): History and Ethnography: The Case of an Elite Girls’ School in South Africa, Paper presented at the Australian Association for Educational Research, Sydney. Kenway, Jane/Fahey, Johannah (2014): “Staying Ahead of the Game: The Globalising Practices of Elite Schools.” In: Globalisation, Societies and Education 12/2, pp. 177-195. Kenway, Jane/Fahey, Johannah/Koh, Aaron (2013): “The Libidinal Economy of the Globalising Elite School Market.” In: Peter Aggleton/Claire Maxwell (eds.), Privilege, Agency and Affect, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 15-31. Kenway, Jane/Koh, Aaron (2013): “The Elite School as a ‘Cognitive Machine’ and ‘Social Paradise’: Developing Transnational Capitals for the National ‘Field of Power’.” In: Tony Bennett/John Frow/Ghassan Hage/Greg Noble (eds.), Journal of Sociology, Special Issue “Working with Bourdieu: Antipodean Cultural Fields” 49/2-3, pp. 272-290. Kenway, Jane/McCarthy, Cameron (eds.) (2014): “Special Issue: Elite Schools in Globalising Circumstances: New Conceptual Directions and Connections.” In: Globalisation, Societies and Education 12/2, pp. 165-320. Koh, Aaron (2013): The “Semiotic Turn” in Ethnography: Analyzing the Semiotic Ecology in an Elite School, Symposium on the Theory and Practice of Global Ethnography and Multi-Sited Ethnography in the Context of Elite Schools, Bristol University. Koh, Aaron/Kenway, Jane (2012): “Cultivating National Leaders in an Elite School: Deploying the Transnational in the National Interest.” In: Interna-

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tional Studies in Sociology of Education, Special Issue: International Education 22/4, pp. 291-311. Lefebvre, Henri (1991 [1974]): The Production of Space (Translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith), Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Lowenhaupt Tsing, Anna (2004): Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection, Princeton: Princeton University Press. McCarthy, Cameron/Buluta, Ergin/Castroa, Michelle/Goela, Koeli/GreenhalghSpencera, Heather (2014): “The Argonauts of Postcolonial Modernity: Elite Barbadian Schools in Globalizing Circumstances.” In: Globalisation, Societies and Education 12/2, pp. 211-227. Marcus, George (1995): “Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-Sited Ethnography.” In: Annual Review of Anthropology 24, pp. 95-117. Marcus, George (1998): Ethnography Through Thick and Thin, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Marcus, George (1999): “What is at Stake – and is not – in the Idea and Practice of Multi-Sited Ethnography.” In: Canberra Anthropology 22/2, pp. 6-14. Marcus, George (2011): “Multi-Sited Ethnography: Five or Six Things I Know About It Now.” In: Simon Coleman/Pauline von Hellermann (eds.), MultiSited Ethnography: Problems and Possibilities in the Translocation of Research Methods, New York: Routledge, pp. 16-34. Ong, Aihwa (1999): Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality, Durham and London: Duke University Press. Pink, Sarah (2009): Doing Sensory Ethnography, London: Sage. Prosser, Howard/Kenway, Jane (2015): “Distinguished Spaces: Elite Schools as Cartographers of Privilege.” In: Johannah Fahey/Howard Prosser/Mathew Shaw (eds.), Social Aesthetics of Elite Schools: Exploring the Sensory Dynamics of Privilege, Asia: Springer. Rabinow, Paul/Marcus, George with Faubion, James/Rees, Tobias (2008): Designs for an Anthropology of the Contemporary, Durham and London: Duke University Press. Read, Rosie (2005): “Scopic Regimes and the Observational Approach: Ethnographic Filmmaking in a Czech Institution.” In: Visual Anthropology 18/1, pp. 47-64. Rizvi, Fazal (2014): “Old Elite Schools, History and the Construction of a New Imaginary.” In: Globalisation, Societies and Education 12/2, pp. 290-308. Shaw, Matthew (2014): “The Cyprus Game: Crossing the Boundaries Into a Divided Island.” In: Globalisation, Societies and Education 12/2, pp. 262-274.

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Experiences with Multi-Sited Ethnographies in Transnational Studies Stephan Wolff

A bstr act My contribution is inspired by and based on many years’ experience with multi-sited ethnographic studies, gained through the supervision of doctoral dissertations on transnational social support. By reflecting on my involvement with these ethnographic research studies, I attempt to reconstruct the methodical, methodological, and practical challenges faced by those who embark on transnational research. In addition, I will address the question of what lessons this experience may contain for ethnographic practice in general. This article is concerned with experience and learning in several respects: experience and learning in the field of transnational phenomena (by economic migrants, development aid organisation workers, individuals on volunteer abroad projects, and NGO managers), learning from the field (by doctoral candidates conducting ethnographic research), and learning about learning in the field (by supervisors of ethnographic research dissertations).

I ntroduction As is well known, education studies have broken away from their traditional attachment to educational sites in the narrow sense, and have increasingly come to attend to non-academic fields of learning and support. This development has been accompanied by a growing interest in various forms of and projects for non-traditional learning in the relevant domains of education studies and the social sciences, such as school pedagogy (key word: deschooling), learning studies inspired by the social sciences (key word: informal or situated learning), and organisational pedagogy (key word: organisational learning). There has been a growing appreciation of the fact that concentrating on established educational institutions allows only certain forms of pedagogical activity to be

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brought into view. Insofar as educational and learning processes are nowadays not only (re)interpreted as social and situated activities, but also investigated in new and unfamiliar1 social fields, ethnographic approaches have come to take on a special practical and strategic significance. These developments have left their mark on discussions regarding the appropriate relation to the objects of study in ethnographic research and education studies, with the effect of undermining the traditional ethnographic understanding of its objects of study and research fields as discrete socio-cultural unities: “Even though these [field sites] are ‘at home’, they are primarily treated like distant worlds, closed off from other spaces and times” (Nespor 2010: xi). There is now increasing agreement that “educational sites have never been silos with pre-constituted objects waiting to be found, ethnographically or otherwise” (ibid). In view of this, educational ethnography has in many respects become more multifaceted, first, in that it takes into account non-traditional sites, and second, in that it explores the complexity and interconnectedness of situations and the development and constructed character of states of affairs. “Multifaceted” means here that the researchers are no longer concerned with self-contained cultural or institutional islands, but with complex networks of social situations. For this reason, the social, material, and temporal contexts in which educational ethnographers operate and to which they must adapt have not only become more complex, their dynamics have also become more unpredictable. In my view, there is much to be said for the idea that transnational stud2 ies in particular provides a form of laboratory in which the effects of various challenges to contemporary ethnography can be observed, as it were, under strict conditions. It is no coincidence that in this tradition the methodological and epistemological criticism of antiquated social-science methods has been 1 | In their classic study on situated learning, Lave and Wenger (1991) observed, among others, midwives in Yucatan, tailors among the West African Vai and Gola, quartermasters on US Navy helicopter carriers, trainee butchers, and new members of Alcoholics Anonymous. 2 | Glick-Schiller and Levitt (2006: 5) define the scope of transnational studies as follows: “The term transnationalism or transitional processes emphasizes the ongoing interconnection or flow of people, ideas, objects, and capital across the borders of nation-states, in contexts in which the state shapes but does not contain such linkages and movements.” Unlike research into globalisation, which is concerned with developments beyond the nation state level, research on transnational processes focuses on social relations, experiences, and developments that remain rooted in, but cross the borders of, nation states. Its typical areas of interest, which are also important for education studies, include migration, identity construction, knowledge transfer processes, social movements, and transnational social support systems.

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elaborated in a particularly decisive manner, for here the question of the kinds of research strategies that should be employed in dealing with fluid social phenomena that are at once local and widespread has arisen with particular urgency (cf. Faist/Özveren 2004; Pries 2001). Furthermore, important representatives of transnational studies, such as Glick-Schiller (2003: 100) are – in spite of everything – convinced that ethnography is “the most appropriate methodology for the study of transnational migration”.3 My contribution is based on many years’ experience with multi-sited ethnographic studies, gained through the supervision of doctoral dissertations4 in a German-Research-Foundation-funded research training group [DFG-Graduiertenkolleg] which deals with transnational social support.5 By reflecting on my involvement with these ethnographic research studies, I attempt to reconstruct the methodical, methodological, and practical challenges faced by those who embark on transnational research. But I would also like to address the question of what lessons this experience may contain for ethnographic practice in general. This article is therefore concerned with experience and learning in several respects: experience and learning in the field of transnational phenomena (by economic migrants, development aid organisation workers, individuals on 3 | Particularly important in this regard is the criticism of “methodological nationalism” (Amelina et al. 2012; Beck/Grande 2010; Wimmer/Glick-Schiller 2002). For another contemporary, but more ethnomethodologically inspired challenge, cf. Meyer/ Schareika (2009) and Pollner Emerson (2001). 4  |  In comparison to the Anglo-American sphere, the supervision of dissertations in the German university system is more heavily based on personal supervision by individual “Doktorväter” and “Doktormütter” (literally: “doctor-fathers/mothers”). 5 | Research Training Groups [Graduiertenkollegs] are created by universities to support young researchers. The German Research Foundation (DFG) funds them for a period of up to nine years. Their key role is to enable doctoral researchers to gain the qualifications they need by means of a focused research programme and a structured training strategy. This research training group (RTG) is located at two sites: the University of Hildesheim Foundation (Faculty of Education and Social Sciences) and the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz (Institute of Social Work and Education). Its aim is to conduct empirical research on transnational social support, which will be analysed with respect to the field of transmigration and in the context of transnational organisations, within three research areas. The research area Transnational Family Care focuses on analysing the transnationalisation of family relationships with respect to assistance, nursing, and care. The research area Transnational Networks addresses forms and processes of social support developed by transnational communities and migrant transnational organisations. The research area Transnational Professional Support focuses on the transnational challenges faced by local social services and will study professional concepts of social support in the context of transnational organisations.

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volunteer abroad projects, and NGO managers), learning from the field (by doctoral candidates conducting ethnographic research) and learning about learning in the field (by supervisors of ethnographic research dissertations). I shall concentrate on the mentioned concept of multi-sited ethnography, which plays a central role in the methodological debate on research into transnational and global phenomena. After outlining this concept, I shall use four examples in the following section to show both the potential of this research strategy and the limitations and obstacles to expect in its implementation. The reconstruction of these four research pathways [Bildungsgeschichten] will shed light on which multi-sited ethnography practically consists and will outline the pedagogical challenges (in the widest sense) faced by supervisors of such projects.6 In regard to this heuristic approach, I am in agreement with George Marcus, who recently defended the thesis that “the dissertation and the process that produces it today is the most strategic site not only for seeing new norms and forms of multi-sited research in the making, by means of muddling through, mistakes and successes as well, but also for bringing about reforms of meta-method in anthropology” (2011: 26).

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7

At least since the 1990s, ethnography has been attempting to relocate itself within the tension between the local and the global. Typically, ethnographic research – not only in education studies – still tends to approach its objects in the classical Malinowskian manner: it focuses on discrete sites, such as classrooms, schools, boarding schools, and other institutionalised educational spaces, and treats them as social worlds with their own distinct and relatively stable cultures. The study sites are thus seen as representing, or even as being more or less identical to, the relevant social or cultural fields. The limits of such an approach make themselves felt particularly keenly in the investigation of transnational objects, i.e. processes which play out at the same time in different localities, and which are spread over at least two nation states. An anecdote from our work in the research training group may serve to shed some light on the distinctive interpretative challenges presented by transnational processes. The first round of interviews for the internationally advertised positions in the “Transnational Social Support” research training group were conducted over video chat. In a single day we interviewed, one after anoth6 | I would like to note here that in this undertaking I shall draw upon material and reflections that I have developed elsewhere in collaboration with Stefan Köngeter and Kay Ehlers (cf. Ehlers/Wolff 2012; Köngeter/Wolff 2012). 7 | In regard to the following cf. Jane Kenway’s article in this collection.

Experiences with Multi-Sited Ethnographies in Transnational Studies

er, candidates from Indonesia, Thailand, India, Ethiopia, South Africa, Spain, Ghana, and Canada. The interviews were conducted in English, using a fixed set of interview questions. Apart from a few technical difficulties, these conversations took place just as they might have done in a face-to-face setting. At least for us interviewers, the experience was one of immediate contact. Only once was this atmosphere significantly disturbed when, during the interview with the candidate from Chennai in India, an older lady moved across the picture behind the interviewee without showing any reaction. Suddenly we interviewers experienced the simultaneity of the non-simultaneous. Where no interpretative link can be made between the here and now and what is simultaneously taking place elsewhere, this results in confusion or, in our case, spontaneous laughter, without our knowing quite why. Many, if not most, research projects dealing with transnational questions employ the ethnographic approach first advocated by George Marcus (1995) in his frequently cited article in the Annual Review of Anthropology, “Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-Sited Ethnography”. Marcus’ reflections were based on the observation that a growing number of ethnographic studies broke away from individual sites and situations, attempting instead to capture the circulation of cultural meanings, objects, and identities over space and time. In contrast to classical ethnography, these studies do not first investigate the local in order then to place it in the context of the global system; they follow cultural phenomena through multiple sites and across national borders. This is why it is essential to bring to light, methodologically and methodically, the different networks and relations involved. Multi-sited ethnography thus does not set out from a particular site or a set of similar sites, but rather from the construction of particular social phenomena (such as transnational social support) within a relational network that connects several sites. This yields a new definition of the ethnographic field. Multi-sited ethnographies are primarily concerned with investigating the movement of people and objects within the relevant social or transnational space. Accordingly, Marcus proposes a number of research strategies consisting of various forms of “following”: follow the people, follow the things, and follow the metaphors. These are, in his view, the dominant research strategies. He supplements them with the respective strategies of following histories, biographies, and conflicts (cf. Marcus 1995: 90 ff.). For Marcus, the goal of multi-sited ethnography should be to bring into relation with one another those multiple locations that are often seen as separate worlds. The unity of such geographically dispersed but socially connected spaces can of course only be reconstructed if the geographical distances can be bridged, not only by the actors involved, but also by the researchers themselves (Amelina 2010). The theoretically plausible departure from the time-honoured “single-site, one year in the field, one-tribe-one-scribe, objectivist or God-trick

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model” (van Maanen 2006: 9) in favour of the expansion of the research field and the researcher’s greater mobility nevertheless comes at a significant cost. For it remains unclear whether and how the demand for multi-sitedness can be methodologically and practically implemented. As I noted above, I would like to address these questions not in abstract terms but on the basis of my practical experience with four typical investigations from our research training group.

R ese archers and their difficulties with multi - sitedness The wandering researcher in search of an object What makes multi-sited ethnography initially so attractive is the prospect of systematically linking observations from what are often very distant geographical and cultural fields. Nevertheless, a purely practical disadvantage of this research strategy lies in the fact that, if the overall duration of the field research remains the same as in single-sited research, it will only be possible to visit and investigate each site comparatively briefly and superficially. One of the key strengths of ethnographic field research is thus in danger of being lost. This dilemma may result in the spectre of a host of confused ethnographers wandering the earth in search of their object. In light of this, Ghassan Hage has raised doubts as to whether multi-sited ethnography has any practical possibility of delivering the insights it promises. This is not only because the constant travelling involved is unhealthy and detrimental to family life. In addition, the agitation that necessarily arises in this process leads to rather superficial contacts with those in the field and correspondingly thin descriptions and insights. If, however, the researcher’s relations with those she studies become indeed more intensive over the course of time, this has the effect of slowing her down: the more fully she is immersed in such relationships, the less mobile she becomes (Hage 2005: 465). The first researcher I discuss investigated the phenomenon of the transnational family, using the example of domestic workers in Singapore (Bach 2013). She wished to find out how these women stayed in touch with their families, the forms of support that were exchanged within the families, and how the family structures changed as a result of the women’s migration. To this end, she interviewed the domestic workers in Singapore, accompanied them in their free time, and took part in their group activities. Through her relations with the workers, she made contact with their families in rural Java, which she then visited – either alone or together with the workers during their holidays. Through participant observation and interviews with the family members, she attempted to determine the form and extent of their supportive relations. Due

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to the short time available and the great distances between the families’ places of residence, there was – as so often in multi-sited ethnography – little opportunity for extended observation periods. Many multi-sited ethnographers are familiar with the resulting feelings of distress and frustration at how superficial their contacts with those in the field remain. Like these ethnographers, our researcher displayed a natural preference for “quick” research methods such as interviews (conducted, when possible, in a lingua franca such as English or Bahasa Indonesia) and for ostensibly “hard” that is, situation-independent and thus (ostensibly) unproblematic, quantitative data (e.g. remittances). As is well known, interviews with those who have not grown up in a highly developed “interview society” (Atkinson/Silverman 1997), i.e. with those who are not deeply familiar with the interview as a mode of questioning and being questioned, can take a startlingly different course to the one originally planned. As was the case here: the family members attempted to use the interview situation in order to find out about Singapore and their relative there. In this way, the ethnographer herself became a form of transnational medium. She linked those sites whose links she wanted to investigate. The young researcher complained about this in a letter to her supervisor after two months in the field: […] One problem I am really wrestling with is that I have had very few conversations on the topic of my research: the exchange of support and the relative in Singapore. When I broach these topics with people, they often respond monosyllabically […] When asked about whether and how they keep in touch, they usually reply that they speak on the telephone, they ask about each other’s health and exchange news […] I find these interviews very valuable, even if they are generally short and full of counter-questions. I ask the interviewees about Singapore, and they know almost nothing about it and want to know what I can tell them about Singapore or their relative there […] It sometimes feels as though I’m the exchange process.

The risk is that, as an ethnographer, one will let oneself be put off by such experiences and so strive in a forced manner to conduct “genuine interviews”. A vicious circle is then in danger of developing, a cycle in which the researcher moves from an attempt to conduct an interview to the experience of a misunderstanding, then to a new interview attempt, and so on, while at the same time constantly travelling from one place to another without ever really arriving anywhere. By thinking through her initially quite serious difficulties with her supervisor and with other doctoral candidates in the research group, our ethnographer managed to break out of this vicious circle. From a new, more distanced position, she developed a more nuanced view of the different dimensions of transnational relationships. Only when the ethnographer both addressed her entanglement in the situation and succeeded in using it as a source of information was she able to gain answers to important aspects of her questions on

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transnational relationships, the forms of support that arise within them, and their effects on the family. This was particularly the case with respect to sensitive themes in the interviews and in transnational familial communication, the extent of transnational knowledge transfer, and the strategic use and destination of money transfers to the workers’ families (Bach 2013: 229 ff.).

In-between sites of transnational experience The second investigation involves young German volunteers on overseas social projects (run by the political development volunteering organisation “Weltwärts”, funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development). The volunteers make the conscious decision to leave their familiar surroundings in order to gain new experience in unknown places. Programmes such as “Weltwärts” doubtlessly serve to intensify the usual developmental process through which young people come to take on direction. This intensification forces them – more than would usually be the case – to orient themselves and to determine where they stand with respect to adolescence and adulthood, the familiar and the new, renunciation and indulgence, and – in this case – Uganda and Germany. The researcher wanted to find out whether the volunteers had such formative experiences, and if so, in which situations and conditions (Mangold 2013). She made observations at the preparatory and follow-up events, and particularly during the volunteers’ time abroad. Her ethnography was multi-sited in the sense that she accompanied various volunteers to their geographically distant places of work, took part in their activities, went with them to the capital city, to various parties, official meetings, private gatherings with other volunteers, and so on. She wished to understand how the volunteers perceived their new surroundings, how they saw the significance of their relationships with friends and relatives in Germany, with other volunteers and with the local population, and finally, whether and how all of these aspects came to be condensed into transnational experience. One of the central findings of the study was that the cognitive and emotional processing of important events predominantly took place in hybrid in-between sites, sites in which the volunteers were neither in one place nor in another, such as when eating with colleagues, participating in a group activity in their free time or, much later, when meeting up with their former colleagues back in Germany. These in-between sites are only identifiable through their relation to the trans-local field. They are all sites in which the volunteers are relieved of their otherwise permanent negotiation with the unknown, and in which they can share these uncertainties with trusted acquaintances and thereby turn them into experiences in Dewey’s (1938) sense. Depending on who is involved in constructing and establishing such in-between sites and how the relevant

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events are interpreted, very different experiences may come to be formed: they may be based, for example, either on the differences or on the similarities between “here” and “there”. These conversations in such in-between sites are about taking a position with respect to the other country or to one’s own country, to its inhabitants, and to the different forms of behaviour the volunteers’ find expected of them. In this case, too, the ethnographer plays an important catalytic role. As a participant observer she interrupts the everyday routine: she offers a welcome pretext for such gatherings, and sometimes even ensures that such hybrid in-between spaces come into being at all, for example, by organising group discussions and farewell dinners. Over the course of her research, the focus of the ethnographer’s attention – which was initially on individuals and their (changing) outlooks – came to be increasingly drawn to situations and constellations, in which individuals, histories, expectations, institutions, and emotions encounter and confront one another. Such situational constellations of “inbetweenness” (Mangold 2013) provide the marginal and transitory occasions for the interactive production of transcultural or transnational experience. They thus possess a very different analytical status to the once so prominent key-situations, key-rituals or key-symbols, the “close description” of which interpretative ethnology saw as promising a route, if not the route, into a particular culture and its ‘ethos’ (cf. Geertz 1972; Wolff 2004a).

Multi-sitedness as analytical reconstruction: the organisational structure of cooperative development work The third dissertation (Ehlers 2011) addressed the question of the organisational functioning of cooperative development projects. The doctoral candidate already had several years of work experience as an advisor and project manager in a number of African countries. His data consisted primarily of documents, journals, and field notes from that time, which he had originally collected without the aim of using them later as material for a PhD thesis. This study was therefore not the work of a “professional stranger”, as Michael Agar (1996) characterised the typical ethnographer, but rather that of an “observing participant”. Although the study is based on data produced by the author, it is not what Ellis and Bochner (2000) call “auto-ethnography”. It would be more accurate (though a little paradoxical in regard to a study on cooperative development) to speak of “at-home ethnography”, a term coined by Alvesson (2009) to denote organisational ethnology studies based on the researcher’s own work in the field. The problem one faces as a researcher in such studies is not that of finding a way into the field (and of later preventing oneself from “going native”; cf. Wolff 2004b), but of achieving the right distance from the field and one’s initial view of things, while at the same time cultivating one’s own proximity to the

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field, i.e. using one’s expert knowledge and, insofar as it remains “tacit knowledge” explicating it. In this study, the researcher achieved this by progressively de-constructing his case histories and then re-constructing them from an organisational perspective. It was only at this point that the development aid projects emerged as multi-sited phenomena, insofar as the factual locations of the events did not play an essential role in their comprehension. The analysis showed that the organisations involved in development aid projects – i.e. donor organisations, implementing organisations, and recipient organisations – work to a large extent according to their own operational logics, which must all be taken into account by the various parties (for instance with regard to enquiries, evaluations, and reports) if the project is not to fail. In this respect, the project functions as a boundary object which mediates between actors from different social worlds, i.e. it makes possible communication, cooperation, and coexistence, even among partners with different operational logics.8 Several operational contexts thus emerge, which are both held together and held at a distance by being loosely coupled through their mutual relation to the same boundary object. It would even seem that the success of cooperative development work is based precisely on the project not being clearly localisable and on there being no narrow local and/or organisational coupling of the activities of those involved. Only on rare occasions do representatives of all three organisations come together in one place, such as when, on a state visit, a government minister from the donor country wishes to be accompanied by a representative of the international implementing organisation in order to gain a first-hand impression of a project and to meet and have his picture taken with the aid recipients. These are rather delicate situations, which have little do with the day-to-day activities of the project, and which require tact and planning from all concerned in order to avoid misunderstandings and crossed wires. In this investigation it became clear that producing and managing sites are also sensitive tasks for the employees of the organisations involved. The construction of different sites and the concern that a meeting of all the parties 8 | “Boundary objects are objects which are both plastic enough to adapt to local needs and the constraints of the several parties employing them, yet robust enough to maintain a common identity across sites. They are weakly structured in common use, and become strongly structured in individual site use. These objects may be abstract or concrete. They have different meanings in different social worlds but their structure is common enough to more than one world to make them recognizable, a means of translation. The creation and management of boundary objects is a key process in developing and maintaining coherence across intersecting social worlds.” (Star/Griesemer 1989: 383). For another investigation of development aid projects as boundary objects cf. Light/Anderson (2009).

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in one place might have unforeseen consequences can be seen as an attempt at distance management. Concrete sites continue to play an important role, yet their significance and relevance must be socially specified and assessed. This distance management, in which multi-sitedness plays an important strategic role, nevertheless only became apparent as a result of the analysis. Seen from this perspective, transnationality is not a condition, but rather a complex and variable product of various processes of coordination and demarcation. Geography is no longer the context in which these processes take place, but rather one of their attributes which, moreover, must be socially specified and assessed.

Transnationality without structure or sites: in search of a social movement The last doctoral student I shall discuss had earlier engaged with transnationalisation processes at a general level. He now wished to establish the concrete significance of such processes for the work and organisation of protest movements, NGOs, and other organisations active in the social sphere. How do such organisations free themselves from their local ties in order to exert influence on a global level? How do they work together? What strategies do they employ in order to mobilise support? Using the example of the World Social Forum, he enquired into how such a worldwide protest movement organises and reproduces itself as a social framework (Schröder 2015). The search for fixed structures that could guarantee this (such as buildings, responsibilities, money flows, decision-making rules, development programmes, and so on) was largely unsuccessful. Identifying an organisational core of the WSF is extremely difficult, if only because since 2002 both the regional social forums, such as the European, African, and Asian social forums, and the national and even municipal social forums have been organised all over the world in complete independence from one another. Furthermore, a key characteristic of the WSF is that it actively seeks to avoid taking on a structure but attempts to dissolve structures as soon as they set in, in order not to lose its mobility and thereby “come to an end as an NGO”. In accordance with the principle of “open space”, the WSF feels a responsibility not to tolerate any hierarchical structures. One of the consequences is that, at present (2014), this movement makes do with a single office in São Paulo run by one part-time member of staff, despite having organised at least every other year since 2001 a mammoth event involving between 50,000 and 120,000 participants and up to 1,2000 individual events. The WSF also has no stable financial donations system. For its funding, it remains dependent on the contingent goodwill of donors and the irregular allocation of funds. Protest movements like the WSF clearly have to steer a course between two undesirable, extreme states: disintegration through a lack of binding ties and ossification through institu-

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tionalisation. Despite its serious practical disadvantages, its lack of structure and rootlessness is nevertheless seen as a valuable achievement and is fiercely defended. The paradoxical combination of its high (media) visibility and intentional lack of structure made the task of observing the WSF difficult for our researcher: rather than with roles, routines, and rules, he was confronted with loosely coupled processes, events occurring at irregular intervals, long periods of calmness, vague or missing documents, decisions that were not made, and resolutions that were put up for debate again and again. This plural space seems only to be held together by charismatic individuals and groups, oppositions to rival organisations (such as the World Economic Forum), meetings, metaphors, and histories, which need to be continually recreated or rediscovered in response to the present situation. For this reason, the researcher’s field trip to the WSF office in São Paulo only garnered limited insights, particularly as the official managing director could not even be sure of his own status: his contract was coming to an end and a successor had not yet been appointed. The WSF seeks, finds, and stages itself in the large events that it puts on every one-to-two years, events which cannot be observed in the classical sense, but only selectively experienced and described. Furthermore, in his interviews with WSF activists, the researcher was dealing with highly experienced and reflective interlocutors, and so was confronted not only with multi-sitedness, but also with multi-sightedness.9 And finally, he himself became part of this process of reflection by participating in a working group with other activist-researchers. From out of this wide array of views and perspectives, he aimed to achieve an analytical orientation which would correspond to the loose coupling of the field and the diversity of his data, i.e. which would not hastily and theoretically iron out the latter. The results of the analysis recommend conceiving the WSF as a mobile, collective imagination with a rather low level of coherence; though it recharges itself and redefines its contours at each of its large meetings, its existence remains fundamentally precarious. For both the researcher and those whom he studied, the research object was not objectively given, but rather something that had to be continually and actively constructed and produced before it could be investigated and influenced.

9 | Marcus uses the term “para-ethnography” to describe the phenomenon of ethnographers being increasingly confronted with other qualified observers and interpreters of the relevant situations, and having to address this fact.

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C onclusions The conclusions focus on three points: the methodological question concerning the identifiability of sites; the pragmatic question concerning adequate coherence or justifiable (in)completeness in the collection and presentation of data; and finally the question concerning the pedagogical consequences for supervisors of such projects.

The identifiability of sites The “following strategies” proposed by Marcus (1995) for dealing with multi-sitedness are (mis)understood by some – initially even by Marcus himself – as implying that one could know or determine in advance the people, objects, histories, and sites that play a or the crucial role in the relevant social field, such that one could then track them down and, as our first ethnographer attempted to do, progressively work through them. Whether and to what extent particular sites are to be considered representative of a whole social or cultural field, and which sites one therefore ought to have seen and investigated in order to answer one’s ethnographic research question, remained in the classical model largely unproblematic: site, field, and object were closely related, if not identical (one might think here of Clifford Geertz’s Balinese cock fight). In transnational studies the relation between the site, the field, and the object is far looser, thus requiring continual reconsideration and the fine-tuning of the researcher’s regard. Often there are simply too many sites and too few possibilities of working as intensively on them as would be necessary (as in the case of the families of the domestic workers). Or the sites may be such that all sorts of things could happen in them, though the researcher does not know whether or when they will, and, even if they do, what relevance they would have for the project (as in the case of the WSF office). Then there are sites whose character changes during the course of the research process (as in the case where the interview situation came to be transformed). Or there are sites the relevance or irrelevance of which only emerges through their analytical reconstruction (as in the case of the ministerial visit to the cooperative development project). Finally, there are evanescent, hybrid sites, as it were, located between or beyond conventional geographical coordinates in an in-between space (as in the case of the farewell dinners for “Weltwärts” volunteers, which served to generate experiences). These observations bring to light a fact with which qualitative social researchers are familiar, namely that sites are produced, reproduced, coupled, and sometimes consciously modified or used to exclude or block out one another by the people, groups, and organisations involved in them. In the one case, sites may be (re)designed so as to prevent anything momentous or even

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unusual from taking place in them (as in the case of the precautions taken prior to the ministerial visit). In another case, they are structured in such a way that a form of cooperation which usually remains largely virtual, if it is present at all, suddenly comes to be experienced concretely and has far-reaching consequences (as in the case of the events staged by the WSF). Then there are sites which are insulated from one another, so that they have as little as possible to do with one another, or only communicate in certain respects (e.g. the instances of cooperation between the organisations involved in the development project). Last but not least, ethnographers themselves play a part in site-making by linking different sites to one another (as in the case of the researcher’s visits to the Indonesian families), or by providing – often through their mere presence – the pretext for gatherings at which transnational phenomena come to pass. The studies described above represent different kinds of transnational connections and separations. The Javanese families, for example, keep in good touch with their relatives in Singapore, even though each side seldom, if ever, crosses the geographical, let alone the cultural, divide between the Singapore and the home villages. The family members mutually block out the fact that one of them is living in the Singapore, and thus, despite the significant money transfers from one side to the other, embody a rather “thin” form of transnationality. This can be contrasted with the “Weltwärts” volunteers. In their extra-territorial social spaces, they generate transnational experiences by relating what they have lived through to national differences, even if this coupling also implies drawing a dividing line between cultural spheres. The third dissertation shed light on another form of transnationality. For the organisations involved in the cooperative development project, the pragmatic separation of their fields of activity is valuable in itself. In this context, transnationality is regarded as a challenge and in extreme cases even as a dangerous disturbance that needs to be sensitively managed and sometimes explicitly avoided. “Multi-faceted” research is not carried out in accordance with fixed research plans and does not involve patiently working through classical “notes and queries”, but it is rather a continual process of orientating oneself within the field. As a field researcher one must then be prepared to practice a form of circular ethnography in order, for example, to keep up with certain groups’ circular migration, and thus to move between focussed field trips supported by recording technology, long-term, stationary field research, and “time-out” periods in one’s own home country (Welz 2009; Scheffer/Meyer 2011). Transnational studies also make clear that the contingency of field research is not only due to the researcher no longer being able to follow the objects or subjects she is investigating, but also to the fact that sites and their observability are themselves the result of production processes brought about by the relevant parties (including the ethnographer).

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Adequate coherence and justifiable (in)completeness Today there are no more undiscovered islands. Sites today are not isolated; less than ever can isolation itself be invoked as an indication or guarantee of difference. Social and physical geography are increasingly diverging from one another. In this time of increasing globalisation, on entering the field one experiences more of a déjà vu shock than a culture shock (for example when one becomes aware, in an area that appears little affected by technology, of the huge scale on which mobile phones and social media are used for transnational communication and to keep up relationships (cf. Bach 2013: 229 ff.). On the one hand, the ethnographic approach has the advantage of enabling a more comprehensive understanding of the observed events through their integration into the relevant social context. On the other hand, transnational studies often display a rather paranoid tendency to see connections everywhere (a practice that is encouraged by theoretical approaches such as global ethnography). I have mentioned the uncomfortable and pressing feeling, often experienced by multi-sited ethnographers, of wanting to explore as many as possible of the sites imagined to be in the foreground of the investigation, while never really knowing if one has covered the right sites, or at least enough of them, to gain an accurate picture of the situation. If one focuses only on (theoretically) obvious sites, one often seems to miss what is most essential. A crucial task that transnational studies needs to take up is that of continually calling into question the couplings it posits and their supposed proximity, while also carefully investigating how the field itself deals with the problem of connection and separation. In this respect, Geertz’s warning over the dangers of an ethnographic imagination that is too strongly guided by the notion of coherence is especially valid where multi-sited ethnography is concerned: Cultural systems must have a minimal degree of coherence, else we would not call them systems; and, by observation, they normally have a great deal more. But there is nothing so coherent as a paranoid’s delusion or a swindler’s story. The force of our interpretations cannot rest, as they are now so often made to do, on the tightness with which they hold together, or the assurance with which they are argued. Nothing has done more, I think, to discredit cultural analysis than the construction of impeccable depictions of formal order in whose actual existence nobody can quite believe. (Geertz 1973: 17 f.)

Everett Hughes’ (1960: X) remark that “[…] the situation and circumstances in which field observation of human behaviour is done are so various that no manual of detailed rules would serve” is particularly relevant to multi-sited ethnography. In the latter one cannot know in advance how to address the existing relations in the field or what exactly one should find. Many multi-sited ethnographers, and not only those who are writing a dissertation, are familiar

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with the nagging feeling of “incompleteness and arbitrariness, the obsessive feeling of missing out, of vagueness and unjustifiable indeterminacy, of never being in the right place at the right time” (Candea 2007: 174). Transnational research predominantly takes place in weak situations, i.e. situations in which it is difficult to orient oneself due to a lack of unambiguous expectations or interpretative clues.10 This does not only require one continually to begin anew in methodological and practical terms, it also encourages the tendency, when in doubt, to “take away” all the data one can gather. The data piles up, without it being clear what exactly can be done with it. Usually, it is not the data that is lacking. On the contrary, one is in danger of being overwhelmed by anecdotes, events, acquaintances, observations, documents, and travel options. The trick is not to get lost amidst this chaos and to remain capable of learning what produces results (Rabinow et al. 2008: 81). In weak situations, uncertainty and ambiguity grows, but so does the scope accorded to the researcher’s discretion. Insights and developments thus depend more on chance occurrences, individuals, successful “impression management”, situational resources, and the accumulation of opportunities than on great syntheses, structured schedules, fixed structures, and calculable, progressive solutions. George Marcus thus recommends that one be guided by the “theorem of sensible and responsible incompleteness”, i.e. not to let oneself be intimidated by the expectations of traditional, holistic conceptions of field research.

Some pedagogical consequences for research super vision Today, transnational field research increasingly takes the form of projects that have to be individually designed in response to given material, temporal, and social conditions. As is well known, however, the world is not structured like a project. When designing multi-sited projects, it is therefore necessary to narrow down and impose shrewd restrictions with regard to what should be collected where, how, and when, and to determine the kinds of results one is looking for pragmatically. Certain limits need to be placed on the duration and content of the field trips, the evaluation and analysis to be undertaken, so as to prevent doctoral researchers from losing direction or drowning in an ocean of aspects, points of view, and data. In order to describe ethnographers’ working, learning, and experiential practices in today’s multi-sited and multi-sighted context, David A. Westbrook 10 | Unlike strong situations, weak situations exert little pressure to act in a certain way. They “are not uniformly encoded, do not generate uniform expectancies concerning the desired behaviour, do not offer sufficient incentives for its performance, or fail to provide the learning conditions required for successful genesis of behaviour” (Mischel 1977: 347).

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(2008) uses the metaphor of a navigator who attempts, within the limited social, material, and temporal conditions she finds herself in, to unravel the meaning of what she perceives. Her perspective shifts as she moves. Many of the things she sees also move. The navigator plots and logs her voyage, recording encounters along the way, but no single encounter serves as a destination, that is, the report of an encounter does not constitute the study. The ethnographer is one who learns how to find her way among the swirling crosscurrents of contemporary social knowledge, exchange, life, and describes her particular journey to those of us who have not traveled that route. It is her journey. (Westbrook 2008: 104)11

There is much to suggest that contemporary multi-sited ethnographic projects require a particular style of supervision. One of the supervisor’s primary tasks – particularly where ethnographic dissertation projects are concerned – is to enable doctoral students to have a sensible and responsible degree of individuality (or wilfulness) and to accept a certain level of incompleteness. In classical, holistic ethnography, there are very few examples that the students might use as a guide in such an undertaking. As we have seen, the acquisition of knowledge in multi-sited ethnographies cannot be planned ex ante; nor can it be guaranteed through the rule-based application of standardised theory and canonised methods. It is rather by combining knowledge and reflective non-knowledge with the ability to place oneself in those situations and positions in which something happens that experience can be acquired and learning can take place (Wolff 2009). In contexts that are themselves ambiguous or unclear, learning and sensemaking cannot simply go according to plan, but must rather be a consequence of unforeseen disturbances, careful testing, the evaluation of (near) failures, participation in activities in the field from its periphery, or experimentation with concepts and metaphors.12 Successful fieldwork thus requires an awareness of and a readiness to expose oneself to the confusions that might arise in the field, or, in other words, a disciplined subjectivity in the Ericksonian (1984) sense. In order to develop such a disposition, one first needs to learn the “tricks of the trade” (Becker 1998), i.e. creative and reflexive tactics for dealing with the 11 | Weick uses a very similar metaphor to describe managers working in complex organisations: “In the final analysis managing may be more like surfing on waves of events and decisions […] People who surf do not command the waves to appear, or to have a particular spacing, or to be of a specific height. Instead, surfers do the best with what they get.” (Weick 2001: 53 f.) 12 | On the concept of sensemaking see in particular the work of Karl Weick and his collaborators (Weick 1995; Weick/Sutcliffe/Obstfeld 2005).

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standard problems that arise in the research process. Such tricks have nothing to do with making incompleteness tolerable by way of simplification, reduction, or acceptable imprecision. They rather take the form of systemic interventions with respect to the researcher, the research situation, and the researcher’s interactions with those who are being studied or providing information (cf. Wolff 2005). What the tricks do is suggest ways to turn things around, to see things differently, in order to create new problems for research, new possibilities for comparing cases and inviting new categories, and the like. All that is work. It’s enjoyable, but it’s more work than if you did things in a routine way that didn’t make you think at all. (Becker 1998: 6 f.)

The manner in which ethnographic novices are able to employ the tricks they have mastered will remain dependent on the stabilisation and control strategies they themselves have applied or that have been externally imposed. They thus require a pedagogical arrangement of the form described by Donald Schön (1987): “real-time coaching and encouragement to think carefully (about what they do while they do it).” The job of the academic coach is to demand from the student a certain sensitivity and a certain attitude toward learning, and then to support these qualities in an interactive and organisational manner. Such assistance is concerned more with supporting the student in dealing with uncertainty and inconclusiveness, and preventing her from losing her way, than with checking and correcting methodologically deficient research practices. Its aim is less to help the student achieve certainty, than to help her survive in a context from which uncertainty can never be entirely banished. Perhaps even more than with ethnographies based on one or only a few sites, as a supervisor one should urge multi-sited ethnographers to think of themselves as hybrid research instruments, and to see that it is in in the practical and analytical difficulties they encounter in carrying out their research and making sense of things that the structures and processes of the research object itself come to manifest themselves. This is all the more the case the more the researcher herself becomes a part of the phenomenon she is investigating, which she can hardly avoid when striving to pursue something that is difficult to pin down13 and to remain on its heels as she traverses many sites.

13 | Using Marcus’ (1995) “following strategies” mentioned above.

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R eferences Agar, Michael H. (1996): The Professional Stranger: An Informal Introduction to Ethnography, New York: Academic Press. Alvesson, Mats (2009): “At-Home Ethnography: Struggling with Closeness and Closure.” In: Siek Ybema (ed.), Organizational Ethnography: Studying the Complexities of Everyday Life, London et al.: Sage, pp. 156-174. Amelina, Anna (2010): “Searching for an Appropriate Research Strategy on Transnational Migration: The Logic of Multi-Sited Research and the Advantage of the Cultural Interferences Approach.” In: Forum Qualitative Social Research 11/1, Art. 17. Amelina, Anna/Nergiz, Devrimsel/Faist, Thomas/Glick-Schiller, Nina (2012): Beyond Methodological Nationalism: Research Methodologies for CrossBorder Studies, New York: Routledge. Atkinson, Paul/Silverman, David (1997): “ Kundera’s Immortality: The Interview Society and the Invention of the Self.” In: Qualitative Inquiry 3, pp. 304-325. Bach, Yvonne (2013): Frauen in der Arbeitsmigration: Eine ethnographische Studie zu transnationalen Familien zwischen Singapur und Indonesien, Berlin: regiospectra. Beck, Ulrich/Grande, Edgar (2010): “Jenseits des methodologischen Nationalismus: Außereuropäische und europäische Variationen der Zweiten Moderne.” In: Soziale Welt 61, pp. 187-216. Becker, Howard S. (1998): Tricks of the Trade, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Candea, Matei (2007): “Arbitrary Locations: In Defence of the Bounded Field-Site.” In: Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 13, pp. 167184. Dewey, John (1938): Experience and Education, New York: Macmillan. Ehlers, Kay E. (2011): Projekte der Entwicklungszusammenarbeit: Zur Funktionsweise eines organisationalen Ensembles, Hamburg: Kovac. Ehlers, Kay/Wolff, Stephan (2012): “Development Cooperation as a Field of Transnational Learning.” In: Arianne Chambon/Wolfgang Schröer/Cornelia Schweppe (eds.), Transnational Social Support, London: Routledge, pp. 43-62. Ellis, Carolyn/Bochner, Arthur P. (2000): “Autoethnography, Personal Narrative, Reflexivity: Researcher as Subject.” In: Norman K. Denzin/Yvonne S. Lincoln (eds.), Handbook of Qualitative Research, Second Edition, Thousand Oaks: Sage, pp. 733-768. Erickson, Frederick (1984): “What Makes School Ethnography ‘Ethnographic’?” In: Anthropology and Education Quarterly 15, pp. 51-66.

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Faist, Thomas/Özveren, Eyüp (2004): Transnational Social Spaces: Agents, Networks and Institutions, Aldershot: Ashgate. Geertz, Clifford (1972): “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight.” In: Daedalus 101/1, pp. 1-37. Geertz, Clifford (1973): “Thick Description: Toward an Interpretative Theory of Culture.” In: Clifford Geertz (ed.), The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays, New York: Basic Books, pp. 3-30. Glick-Schiller, Nina (2003): “The Centrality of Ethnography in the Study of Transnational Migration.” In: Nancy Foner (ed.), American Arrivals: Anthropology Engages the New Immigration, Oxford: James Currey, pp. 99-127. Glick-Schiller, Nina/Levitt, Peggy (2006): “Haven’t We Heard This Somewhere Before? A Substantive View of Transnational Migration Studies by Way of a Reply to Waldinger and Fitzgerald.” In: The Center for Migration and Development: Working Paper Series 2008. Hage, Ghassan (2005): “A Not So Multi-Sited Ethnography of a Not So Imagined Community.” In: Anthropological Theory 5, pp. 463-475. Hughes, Everett. C. (1960): “Introduction: The Place of Fieldwork in Social Science.” In: Buford H. Junker (ed.), Field Work: Introduction to the Social Sciences, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. V-XV. Köngeter, Stefan/Wolff, Stephan (2012): “Doing Ethnographical Research on Transnationalism.” In: Transnational Social Review 2/1, pp. 47-64. Lave, Jean/Wenger, Etienne C. (1991): Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation, New York: Cambridge University Press. Light, Ann/Anderson, Theresa (2009): “Research Project as Boundary Object: Negotiating the Conceptual Design of a Tool for International Development.” In: Ina Wagner/Hilda Tellioğlu/Ellen Balka/Carla Simone/Luigina Ciolfi (eds.), ECSW 2009: Proceedings of the 11th European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (September 7-11, 2009, Vienna, Austria), London: Springer, pp. 21-41. Mangold, Katharina (2013): Inbetweenness: Jugend und transnationale Erfahrungen, Weinheim: Beltz Juventa. Marcus, George E. (1995): “Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-Sited Ethnography.” In: Annual Review of Anthropology 24, pp. 95-117. Marcus, George E. (2011): “Multi-Sited Ethnography: Five or Six Things I Know About It Now.” In: Simon Coleman/Pauline von Hellermann (eds.), Multi-Sited Ethnography: Problems and Possibilities in the Translocation of Research Methods, New York and London: Routledge, pp. 16-32. Meyer, Christian/Schareika, Nikolaus (2009): “Neoklassische Feldforschung: Die mikroskopische Untersuchung sozialer Ereignisse als ethnographische

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Methode. Mit vier Kommentaren und einer Replik.” In: Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 134/1, pp. 23-69. Mischel, Walter (1977): “The Interaction of Person and Situation.” In: David Magnusson/Norman S. Endler (eds.), Personality at the Crossroads: Current Issues in Interactional Psychology, Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 333-352. Nespor, Jan (2010): School: Politics, Space, Bodies, and Signs in the Educational Process (Sociocultural, Political, and Historical Studies in Education), New York: Routledge. Pollner, Melvin/Emerson, Robert (2001): “Ethnomethodology and Ethnography.” In: Paul Atkinson/Amanda Coffey/Sara Delamont/John Lofland/Lyn Lofland (eds.), Handbook of Ethnography, London et al.: Sage, pp. 118-135. Pries, Ludger (ed.) (2001): New Transnational Social Spaces: International Migration and Transnational Companies in the Early Twenty-First Century, London: Routledge. Rabinow, Paul/Marcus, George E. with Faubion, James D. and Rees, Tobias (2008): Designs for an Anthropology of the Contemporary, Durham: Duke University Press. Scheffer, Thomas/Meyer, Christian (2011): “Tagungsbericht: Tagung: Soziologische vs. ethnologische Ethnographie – Zur Belastbarkeit und Perspektive einer Unterscheidung.” In: Forum Qualitative Social Research 11/2, Art. 25. Schön, Donald A. (1987): Educating the Reflective Practicioner, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Schröder, Christian (2015): Das World Social Forum: Bewegte Organisation oder organisierte Bewegung? Bielefeld: transcript. Star, Susan Leigh/Griesemer, John (1989): “Institutional Ecology, ‘Translations’, and Boundary Objects: Amateurs and Professionals on Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology.” In: Social Studies of Science 19, pp. 387420. Van Maanen, John (2006): “Ethnography Then & Now.” In: Qualitative Research in Organizations 1/1, pp. 13-21. Weick, Karl E. (1995): Sensemaking in Organizations, Thousand Oaks et al.: Sage. Weick, Karl E. (2001): “Sources of Order in Underorganized Systems: Themes in Recent Organizational Theory.” In: Karl E. Weick (ed.), Making Sense of the Organization, Malden: Blackwell, pp. 32-57. Weick, Karl E./Sutcliffe, Kathleen M./Obstfeld, David (2005): “Organizing and the Process of Sensemaking.” In: Organization Science 16, pp. 409-421. Welz, Gisela (2009): “Sighting/Siting Globalization: Gegenstandskonstruktionen und Feldbegriff einer ethnographischen Globalisierungsforschung.” In: Sonja Windmüller/Beate Binder/Thomas Hengartner (eds.), KulturForschung: Zum Profil einer volkskundlichen Kulturwissenschaft, Berlin et al.: Lit Verlag, pp. 195-210.

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Westbrook, Davis A. (2008): Navigators of the Contemporary, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. Wimmer, Andreas/Glick-Schiller, Nina (2002): “Methodological Nationalism and Beyond: Nation-State Building, Migration and the Social Sciences.” In: Global Networks 2/4, pp. 301-334. Wolff, Stephan (2004a): “Clifford Geertz.” In: Uwe Flick/Ernst von Kardorff/ Ines Steinke (eds.), A Companion to Qualitative Research, London et al.: Sage, pp. 47-52. Wolff, Stephan (2004b): “Ways Into the Field and Their Variants.” In: Uwe Flick/Ernst von Kardorff/Ines Steinke (eds.), A Companion to Qualitative Research, London et al.: Sage, pp. 195-202. Wolff, Stephan (2005): “Standards in der sozialpädagogischen Forschung.” In: Cornelia Schweppe/Werner Thole (eds.), Sozialpädagogik als forschende Disziplin, Weinheim: Juventa, pp. 115-134. Wolff, Stephan (2009): “Organisationstheorie und Erfahrung.” In: Michael Göhlich/Susanne M. Weber/Stephan Wolff (eds.), Organisation und Erfahrung, Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag, pp. 17-28.

The ‘International Preschool’ as Translocal Field An Ethnography of the Production of ‘International’ Education in Japan Yuki Imoto

A bstr act This paper gives an ethnographic description of one “international preschool” in metropolitan Japan. “International preschools” are private institutions that provide care and education for local children in the presence of English-speaking teachers, in an English immersion environment. The case study of ACS international preschool provides a window into understanding how a private, peripheral educational space operates in a society where a nationally standardised and ethnically homogenised educational system remains dominant. In order to make sense of the ethnographic data, I employ the concept of “translocality” to consider how individuals of diverse class and ethnic backgrounds with varying interests come together at one field site, under the overarching banner of “international” education. The description provides hints for understanding the “local” meanings of “international” education, as well as the transnational flows on which such educational contexts are created and sustained. The ethnography demonstrates how the “international preschool” is produced and consumed not only by the parents but also by the teachers and directors, utilising the powerful symbols of “English” and Western approaches to “early childhood education”.

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I ntroduction In this chapter, I aim to describe the field of international preschools in central Tokyo, to demonstrate how it can be understood as a translocal social field, and to suggest that the use of this concept enables a more complex understanding of ‘inter/national’ education that is sensitised to structural difference of power, as well as the agency of individual identities. I begin with a brief account of the social context, followed by a discussion of the analytical and methodological concept of translocal social field. This will lead to an ethnographic description and analysis of one international preschool where I conducted fieldwork for a period of ten months. “International preschools” are private, non-regulated institutions that offer care and education for children in an English-speaking environment in the presence of foreign teachers. They have received media attention as a phenomenon reflecting the “English fever” of parents keen to provide an early start in English education for their child. According to research by one of the leading companies in the English education industry, ALC, there were 18 international preschools in Japan in 2002 and, by January 2010, their number had multiplied to 312 (ALC 2010). The reasons for their emergence seem straightforward; English is the global language necessary for success in a globalising world. The Japanese government has, for decades since the postwar, propagated the importance of reforming its English education curricula and teaching methods. In recent years, drastic policy changes have been implemented to accelerate the globalisation of education in Japan – including the lowering of the age from which English is taught, and the increased emphasis on communication skills in place of the more traditional teaching style that focuses on grammar and translation. Such heightened national interest in English language abilities is further exacerbated by the growth of the commercial education and language teaching sector – although sceptics question to what degree English language is actually of practical use in everyday working lives of the majority of individuals living in Japanese society. Despite the rapid growth of English-medium international preschools in Japan, their presence remains marginal and concentrated in specific areas; over 60 per cent are located in the Tokyo metropolitan area, and they serve less than 1 per cent of its preschool-age population. This stands in stark contrast to the dominance of the Japanese state-regulated preschool and day-care institutions, which have a near-universal attendance rate of over 95 per cent for 5 year olds (compulsory education in Japan begins at the later age of six). The “peripheral” nature of international preschools means that they are charged with meaning. Japan has a history of borrowing and assimilating Western educational models in constructing the “Japanese education system”, including the Japanese kindergarten, but the international preschool is different in that it is set against

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these forms of education, often consciously produced and consumed as a “foreign” cultural and social space. This liminal, peripheral nature of international preschools also means that they are a site of translocality – in other words it is situated on the “border” of Japanese education, where various cultural flows intersect. As Bricknell and Datta (2011: 9) point out, translocality draws attention to “the local as situated across a variety of scales; body, home, urban, regional or national”; migrant and non-migrant experiences are brought together in one site, so that in one locale experiences of multiple scales and multiple understandings are found. Methodologically, rather than “following” the movement of migrants and non-migrants across boundaries (Marcus 1995), I have focused on a spatially bounded site1, and the method I take is to explicate the arrays of intersecting cultural flows that come together in this one site. In this sense, the term “field” is used here to indicate the wider context of the discourse and the industry of international preschools while the term “site” stands for the place where things happen. I believe that the main strength of ethnography remains in the description of individual stories, the interactions of individuals, and the cultural convergences and conflicts that arise from those interactions. Though such individual experiences can never be generalised, they speak to the larger structures and significances of the “field” of globalising Japanese education and society. Greiner and Sakdapolrak point out that in translocal fields, “mobile and immobile actors negotiate and struggle over power and positions through the exchange of various capitals which are valued differently across different scales” (2013: 379). This chapter will describe the types of individuals who are involved in constructing and maintaining the translocal social field of the international preschool. Rather than focusing on the parents who are the consumers of the field2, I will focus on the production of the field, explaining the underlying workings of the sustenance of the field.

1 | Since the 1980s, anthropological discussions of the “field” has shifted away from the notion of “field-as-location” (or a field as a spatial “site”) to be replaced by the idea of “field-as-network”. In other words there has been a deconstruction of the previously taken-for-granted link between “space” and “culture”. While consequent methodological and conceptual developments such as Appadurai’s “global ethnoscapes” (1996) and Marcus’ “multi-sited ethnography” (1995) have revealed the complexities and fluidity of “culture”, my aim in describing a spatially bounded “field-as-location” is to bring the spotlight to how individual stories and trajectories intersect and how a “global/ international culture” is constructed and variously consumed. 2 | See Imoto (2011) for a more detailed account of the parents’ experiences.

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The field site This research is based on twelve months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Tokyo from December 2006 to December 2007. From the end of March, I placed the focus of my fieldwork on one preschool, ACS international preschool. I worked three times a week in the Preschool Class and Kindergarten Class of ACS as a Japanese bilingual assistant – which mainly involved cleaning, changing nappies, or taking children to the toilet, setting out the lunches and supervising children at the park – for eight months. ACS is located in town T in the Minato-ward, which is one of the most affluent wards in Tokyo and perceived to be one of the most “international” with 49 foreign embassies situated within it. In 2007, 11.1 per cent of the Minato-ward population were foreign, of which 76 per cent were temporary residents on business, and 61 per cent American or European3. Town T is within walking distance from the core “international” area where the embassies are most concentrated, and where there has historically been a strong presence of a Western expatriate community. The most prestigious international schools are located in this area, and numerous international preschools have sprouted around them, some serving as feeder schools for entry into prestigious international schools, while others are targeted towards Japanese families seeking an “international” environment.

Student composition and constructing an “international” educational environment There were 71 students from 16 months to six years of age enrolled full-time when I left the school in December 2007. Sixteen were foreign children whose parents’ native language was not Japanese, eight children had one Japanese and one non-Japanese parent, and 49 were children whose parents were Japanese, or were of Korean nationality but spoke Japanese as their first language. One of the issues regarding student recruitment at international preschools is how to or whether to maintain an “international” student body. Japanese parents and teachers generally desire a significant proportion of foreign children to be present in the class for the successful enforcement of an English language environment, as well as for gaining a “true” international experience. In accordance with its no discrimination, open-door policy, ACS accepts children of all nationalities and linguistic backgrounds without setting quotas, resulting in the majority of the children being Japanese. Due to its location in 3 | The foreign population decreased substantially after the Lehmann Shock in 2008 and the nuclear disasters in 2011. In 2012, the foreign population of Minato Ward was 8.01 per cent with 18,648 residents (Nikkei 2013).

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the Minato ward, the school has always catered for foreign families, and around 20 per cent of the children proceed to international schools upon graduation each year, but particularly in the past few years, the enrolment of foreign children has declined while enquiries from Japanese families continue to increase4. When the classes reach their maximum number of children and applicants are put on a waiting list, such as in the case of the Kindergarten class, the school gives priority to non-Japanese children who are considered to be “in need of an English-speaking environment” and also give consideration to gender balance. In both classes there were more boys enrolled than girls.

The “producers” of the field ACS is part of a real estate company based in the Minato ward, which will be called A Corporation. The members of staff at ACS are therefore employees of A Corporation from where they receive wages and benefits. The link between A Corporation and ACS is, however, de-emphasised, to stop the image of “business” seeping into an educational institution. The separation of business and education is reflected in the presence of two directors; the “school director” is a Japanese woman in her mid-thirties – Ms. Eiko, who deals with the business side and takes care of the liaison between A Corporation and ACS. The “director” is an Australian woman in her mid-forties – Ms. Janet, who takes care of the education side and the general welfare of the staff, parents, and children. As in the case of ACS, many international preschools employ a foreign director to be its symbolic head, while being owned and run by a Japanese administration.

Staff recruitment The most prestigious international schools that mainly cater for foreign expatriate children directly recruit qualified teachers from Anglo-Saxon countries abroad, but most international preschools hire locally. Hiring locally means that finding qualified early childhood educators who are “white” and “native” is difficult and that often one must compromise either the component of professionalism or the component of nativeness/ethnicity.

4 | The number of foreign children at international schools decreased dramatically after March 11, 2011 – since many foreign companies evacuated their expatriate workers from the risks of radiation. In most cases this was temporary, but in some cases the families did not return. ACS’ foreign student numbers also suffered, but had recovered by the following year – unlike some other international preschools, which had closed down or had shifted to a predominantly Japanese student body.

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A recurrent issue among international preschools is the difference between Asian and Western staff in terms of recruitment, status, and salary. While international preschools that explicitly target Japanese parents tend to be concerned with the value of “native” teachers, ACS did not take this stance and Ms. Janet was committed to a “no discrimination, open-door policy” in terms of nationality and ethnicity in its staff recruitment and contracts. This resulted in a high percentage of Japanese and Filipino teachers and a low percentage of Western teachers, which coincides with the fact that the salaries of ACS teachers are lower than the standard salary at a more “authentic” international (pre) school that recruits native English speakers. Of the twelve teaching members of staff at ACS, five are Japanese, four are Filipino, one is Australian, one is African-Canadian, and one is Ecuadorian. A common trait among all international preschools is the high turnover rate of teachers. Recruitment is a constant process taking place throughout the year through advertisement on the school website, and on online discussion boards for foreign teachers in Japan. Ms. Janet receives at least one e-mail a week enquiring about job opportunities. This often comes from Japanese females who are taking courses in teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) or early childhood education in the United States, Canada or Australia and are looking to find jobs in Japan. Others come from foreigners – both male and female – working at eikaiwa (English conversation) schools. Very few match the desired profile of a native English speaker with ECE background however. Although native English speakers are deemed the most desirable by Ms. Janet and particularly Ms. Eiko, ACS has thus relied considerably on the population of foreign Asian (mostly Filipino and Indian) teachers and bilingual Japanese teachers, since those native English teachers who are thought to be of “good quality” in terms of commitment and professionalism in the ECE (Early Childhood Education) field are a scarce and therefore a costly resource. Teachers are more often hired through informal networks: through teachers introducing teachers they worked with at their former schools, or particularly among the Filipino teachers, members of their family.

I ndividual stories and tr a jectories from the field The Japanese school director Ms. Eiko, the Japanese director, is the daughter-in-law of A Corporation’s president. She has two daughters who both attend ACS. The elder daughter Sara is currently in the first grade of a K-12 international school near ACS and comes to ACS for after-school activities. The younger daughter Mana is in the preschool class. Both girls are regarded as “successfully bilingual” children at ACS, and

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Sara is a rare case where a “Japanese” student was accepted at the K-12 international school, which she now attends. Ms. Eiko had always loved American culture. When she was younger, everyone saw her as the “American” girl and she still retained this American identity, choosing to communicate in English much of the time both with her children and her Japanese as well as foreign staff at ACS. One reason she decided to send her children to an international school was that she wanted to give them all the experiences she could not have when she was a child – she envied her children for the fun-filled experiences they were able to have at international schools which seemed far more “attractive and colourful” than the “bland” Japanese preschool that she had experienced. The dual identity of mother and director that Ms. Eiko held at ACS is a common scenario at international preschools. This blurs the boundaries of the “school staff” versus the “parents” and of the relationship of the consumer and the producer, and can bring forth tensions between the “qualified ECE teachers” that value professionalism and specialised knowledge, and directors or teachers that draw on their experiences as “mothers” in their justification of an ideal preschool environment.

The foreign director Ms. Janet, the foreign director, is Australian, in her mid-forties with two children in their twenties. She first came to Japan in 1979 on a language exchange programme from her high school. This led her to take up a course in Modern Asian Studies and Japanese at university in Australia, and to return to Japan in the early 1980s for another two years of study. It was during this time that she first had the experience of teaching English to preschool children. She went on to take a second degree in teaching Japanese and English as a foreign language, and upon completion, returned to Japan once more where she married her first husband and worked as an English teacher at a private Japanese kindergarten. After her divorce she returned to Australia and worked as a tour guide and interpreter for Japanese companies to support her two children financially. She decided to move once more to Japan in 1990 having been offered a job as an English teacher at a childcare centre that was soon to open in Yokohama. The childcare centre suffered from poor management, however, and Ms. Janet soon left the position to work for an educational publishing company which, at the time, ran numerous English language schools both for adults and for children. Here, she taught, managed, and designed curricula for English classes for primary and pre-school children. As the eikaiwa (English conversation school) business in Japan reached saturation point and management became increasingly difficult, the company withdrew its operations in English language teaching in 2000, and Ms. Janet joined ACS as its director.

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Ms. Janet’s story reveals the effects of Japan’s internationalisation on individual lives through the eighties and nineties; Japanese Studies became a popularly taught subject at universities in Australia, and English language exchange programmes were increasingly established in Japan. Demand for Japanese speakers in Australia grew, leading Ms. Janet to her job as a bilingual tour guide. The demand for native English teachers in Japan, increasingly so for teaching young children, led her to numerous English teaching jobs and her interest in English immersion programmes. Ms. Janet had a strong network externally, actively attending and organising seminars related to early childhood education and international schooling. The parents regarded Ms. Janet very highly and saw her as an approachable, warm, and down to earth character – an image that emanates from the combination of her large build, middle-agedness, fluency in Japanese, and ‘foreign’ appearance. The relationship between Ms. Eiko and Ms. Janet is a complicated one; symbolically, Ms. Janet is the head of the school, but in practical matters she is employed by Ms. Eiko who decides on her salary. And, while Ms. Janet felt that many things could be done for the school with an increased budget – including more classroom space, a new gate for more security, and better pay for the teachers – demands rarely seemed to be met and there were many compromises on her part. Ms. Eiko once pointed out that the reason Ms. Janet was a good director was that they worked well together as a team and that she was “not like the usual foreigner who always wants her own way”. This was a problem she had had with the several short-lived directors who had preceded her. The secretary pointed out that Ms. Janet was “more Japanese than foreign”, because she wanted to take responsibility and take care of all the work – she was “quite a workaholic and perfectionist” which is symbolic of how ideas of national character and work ethics are played out at the school.

“Western” teachers Few foreign teachers in Japan enter English teaching with prior experience or teaching qualifications, and most enter as workers in commercial eikaiwa (English conversation) schools.5 Most of the teaching positions at eikaiwa schools are designed to be temporary (lasting one to two years on average), with only a day’s training and little expectation in terms of intellectual service. Some eikaiwa teachers who stay on for longer periods and who have interest in teaching 5 | See Seargeant (2005) for a discussion on the cultural construction of the eikaiwa industry. Bossaer’s (2003) article provides insightful interview data on the disparity in the perceptions on English teaching between the Japanese managers and foreign teachers of eikaiwa schools.

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professionally and/or in starting up businesses may continue to become partners in established language schools or, more often, open their own schools. Instead of or in addition to opening their own school, some teachers look for professionalised teaching positions in established educational institutions such as universities, high schools or accredited international schools, and often take correspondence courses in TESOL (Teaching of English as a Second Language) to improve their chances of such upward mobility. The ethnic breakdown of the teachers at ACS is diverse and recruitment and salary status is based on “professional qualifications” in ECE rather than ethnicity. There was only one teaching member of staff other than Ms. Janet with a “Western” appearance. Ms. Emma was a thirty-year-old Australian teacher who taught full-time in the kindergarten class. She obtained a university degree in primary education in Melbourne in 1999. Seeking a job, she went to London where she taught at various schools on short-term contracts; some only lasted for three months and some lasted for up to a year. After having lived in London for three years, she returned to Melbourne, where again, she struggled to secure a long-term teaching post. Ms. Emma had always wanted to travel and see Asia – somewhere that would be completely different from Anglo-Saxon countries – and out of the Asian countries, Japan was the most attractive in terms of earning money. She came to Japan in 2004 to work at a children’s English language school in Yamaguchi prefecture. She stayed here for two years, but feeling restless in a small town with few foreigners and a light workload of a few hours starting at 4pm each day, she decided to go to Tokyo. She searched for job openings on the online site Gaijinpot and sent out e-mails to over ten international preschools that she found on its directory. She was called for interviews at four preschools in Tokyo and was accepted by ACS. Ms. Emma’s trajectory fits the typical profile of Western teachers which can be further classified as the “sojourner” type – those who generally identify themselves and are identified by others as having come to Japan as English teachers for a “cultural” experience in an Asian country. In most cases, these are accompanied by economic motivations – although Japan is becoming less attractive destination in terms of economic return compared to Taiwan, South Korea, or China, where the commercial language-teaching industry is still growing. Another issue behind the “cultural” motivation of moving to an Asian country for English teaching jobs is retaining/attaining social status, for those who may have had difficulty in securing a permanent job in their home country. Although Western teachers are given symbolic status within the field of the international preschool that comes from the inherently embodied cultural capital and may enjoy a higher salary, they often do not perceive themselves to be enjoying a comfortable or privileged life. Many constantly seek

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opportunities of mobility as well as holding on to several teaching jobs simultaneously.

Filipino teachers Increasingly, international preschools are composed of a majority of “non-native” and “non-Western” foreign teachers – in particular Filipino teachers and to a lesser extent Indian teachers. International preschools such as ACS are a useful place to observe the ambiguities that lie between the dichotomy of “Japan” and the “West”, in the rhetoric of internationalism and English education, which until the 1980s, has predominantly been an extension of the rhetoric of modernisation and westernisation. Discussions at some international preschools revealed that a frustration for many Filipino teachers was the devaluing of their class status and professionalism in the Japanese context, even though many held higher degrees and considered themselves to be from upper class backgrounds in their home society. In the case of the ACS work environment, however, the teachers were aware of the range of professional and class backgrounds among the Filipino teachers. One Filipino teacher, Ms. Lara who had experienced discrimination from the Japanese administration at her former workplace D International School, explained how she appreciated working at ACS where her extensive professional experience, which included teaching ECE at a private Catholic university in the Philippines, was respected by Ms. Janet and the teachers. Another teacher, Ms. Christine, whose husband worked for the Philippine Embassy and who specialised in the Montessori method, distanced herself from Ms. Lydia, the assistant Filipino teacher, who had no educational qualifications and had initially joined the school as a janitor. As the inexperienced student assistant, I spent most of my working hours at ACS working with Ms. Lydia. Ms. Lydia had come to Japan nine years before, under the visa sponsorship of the Hungarian embassy, which is still her main employer. She goes to the Hungarian embassy on special occasions when they need extra help with cleaning, but her main job is working as an assistant at ACS. She has been working at ACS since 1999 and is therefore its longest standing member of staff. Ms. Lydia comes from a large family of seven brothers and sisters and several of them have lived in Japan at one time or another. She lived with her sister who worked for the Australian embassy, and who had previously been a janitor at ACS but was dismissed in September 2007 for not fulfilling her work duties. Ms. Lydia’s niece had also lived in Tokyo and worked at ACS but was dismissed in 2006 after being found out that she had been borrowing money from teachers and parents. Ms. Lydia and her sister lived in Kamata in South Tokyo which is a town with a large Filipino community and was once a thriving entertain-

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ment district for Filipino entertainers, before restrictions on entertainment visas for Filipino immigrants were implemented in 2004. Ms. Lydia was 42 with four children and two grandchildren. She regularly sent back money to her family in the Philippines, slipping out to the bank during the lunchtime breaks. She often talked to me about money and stressed the fact that her earnings in Japan (she earned 1,500 yen per hour) was worth a lot in the Philippines – in the Philippines, she was so rich that she could never tell her friends how much she was earning in Japan. She talked of her large house in the Philippines, where the family had recently put on an extravagant wedding party inviting 60 guests. In our interactins, she stressed her identity and sense of belonging with her family in the Philippines and with the members of the Filipino church community in Tokyo. Ms. Lydia, through her many years of affiliation with the school, had established a wide network with the parents whom she would babysit for. She had also taken care of Ms. Eiko’s children from when they were babies and were therefore seen by them as their second mother. In addition, she cleaned Ms. Eiko’s and her parents’ house. The preschool teachers too, despite their complaints and accusations against Ms. Lydia as being “rude” and “rough” in her handling of children, relied on her efficient skills in cleaning and nappy changing for the smooth running of the classroom. While “educational professionalism” is what is most valued and discussed among teachers, “cleaning skills” and “efficiency” which is equally a point of tension and differentiation, was less openly discussed.

Foreign wives of transnational professionals Kurotani (2005: 4) points out that transnational professionals – who reside abroad for an extended period in a corporate job assignment, government service, or for other professional services – often behave more like sojourners than migrants, because they almost invariably expect to return to their home country after a period of residence overseas. Concerning the experiences of women who follow their husbands abroad as expatriate wives, Yeoh and Khoo suggest that “(w)hile international circulation often represents “career moves” for men, their spouses often experience a devalorization of their productive functions and a relegation to the domestic sphere” and that “as an adaptative strategy, expatriate women often turn to the social and community sphere to reach for grounding in their lives” (1998:159). For the wives of transnational professionals whom I met at ACS, the “internationalism” of the international preschool was a social sphere in which they and their children could anchor their lives, where they could function in an English environment, making use of their experience and qualifications they have gained in their home country.

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Ms. Paula came to Japan from Ecuador in 2005, because of her husband’s business. She was 28 years old and had a three-year-old son, Sebastien who attended ACS. As a preschool mother, she had actively participated in helping at ACS’ school events, and unlike most of the Japanese mothers, she had no hesitation in talking to Ms. Janet about issues beyond school matters. Ms. Paula, who is fluent in English since many of her relatives are North American, told Ms. Janet that if the school ever needed an extra hand, she would be happy to join the classroom as a teacher – she had a degree in ECE from a private Catholic university in Ecuador and eight years of teaching experience. Thus when in October 2006, one of the teachers, was to be away for two weeks to visit her family in Canada, Ms. Paula came to help in the Kindergarten classroom. Ms. Paula’s husband is the CEO of the Japan office of an Ecuadorian trading company. Ms. Paula and her family live in one of the luxury apartments for expatriates in the Minato-ward, to the envy of Ms. Emma, who visited her house after work several days a week. Coming from an upper-class family, she complained of the housework that she needed to carry out in Japan; in Ecuador her family had maids, cooks, and chauffeurs, but in Japan she only had a cleaner who came once a week, although the apartment provided a variety of room services. In our interactions, Ms. Paula strongly identified herself with “Latino culture” and the importance of the family and motherhood, expressing her attachment to her son, and describing to me her close-knit extended family household in Ecuador, which she sorely missed. She recounted how she had felt lost in a foreign Asian land and had cried every night on the phone to her mother during her first months in Tokyo. With no Japanese language skills or connections to Japanese society, Sebastien’s preschool therefore soon became the central social arena in her life. Through joining ACS as a member of staff, she explained that she felt she was able to feel part of a society and that the school was her family and Ms. Janet was her mother in Japan. She regularly organised gatherings at her house, and her presence in the school led to a more active social interaction among the teachers outside of school hours. Some teachers were critical of her laid back attitude, however, and saw her as not being able to separate the role of mother and teacher within the school context, thus problematising her supposed lack of “professionalism”. The cases of expatriate wives indicate how, as Piper and Roces point out, one cannot easily categorise migrant women into “wife” or “worker” since these are blurred and overlapping categories, among others such as “mother” (2003: 4).

The ‘International Preschool’ as Translocal Field

Japanese teachers and the gendered profession of the children’s English teacher While the foreign teachers are the essential symbolic commodity of an international preschool, all schools are supported and sustained by the Japanese teachers who are increasingly becoming the dominant source of labour within the field. Japanese teachers who work at international preschools are females in their twenties to early thirties who have some form of “international” cultural capital which is most often acquired through experiences of studying abroad and/or working abroad. They share similar “international” experiences to some of the Japanese mothers who send their children to international preschools, and both groups can be seen as being involved in the act of consuming the “international” environment and image of the international preschool. Their social status is clearly different, however, in that most of the teachers are single and childless, and living on relatively low wages with support from their parents. One of the most pertinent preoccupations of the teachers then is the issue of marriage in order to secure their social status. There were two Japanese teachers who had left ACS the year before my arrival for reasons of marriage – one had married an Australian and had moved to Sydney to start a family, while another had married a Japanese architect and had quit her teaching job when she became pregnant. There were also stories of those who had left ACS in recent years to find opportunities abroad in developing their career as well as in finding Western partners. Ms. Kanako was 28 years old and a part-time student at Japan Women’s University majoring in primary education to obtain her certificate for teaching at preschool and elementary school level. Her first degree from the same university is in international relations, and she spent one year on an exchange programme at the University of Pennsylvania. Upon graduating from university, Ms. Kanako taught English to young children at an eikaiwa school, while living at her American boyfriend’s luxury flat in the Minato-ward. Ms. Kanako first came to ACS in the summer of 2006. She worked for three months as a volunteer, later being hired as a part-time teacher in the preschool classroom. Ms. Kanako’s thoughts regarding her job as an international preschool teacher fluctuated, and she reflected constantly on whether working with children is a job suited to her. She saw a considerable discrepancy between what she had studied at university and what was being practiced at ACS, and was critical of the attitudes of foreign teachers and the quality of education being implemented at the school. At ACS, the Japanese teachers considered themselves to be superior to Western teachers in terms of commitment to work and to the children, asserting the “realities” behind the cult of the Western native teacher through their regular complaints, which they made in Japanese. At the same

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time, Ms. Kanako adhered to a western-oriented international “taste” in terms of fashion, music and social activities, largely influenced by her American boyfriend, who was a fashion designer, and his circle of foreign friends. The “authentic West” in this context refers to the US and to American English, and Ms. Kanako complained about Ms. Emma and her “unrefined” Australian accent, which she somtimes found difficult to understand. Ms. Kanako worked almost the same number of hours and fulfilled the same roles as a full-time teacher, but received a lower salary of 1000 yen per hour due to her present lack of teaching qualifications. However, she appreciated the privilege of being able to say that she taught at an international school and enjoyed being in an international environment. The sudden break-up with her boyfriend in April left her in deep confusion regarding what she wanted to do with her life. She felt that she did not want to stay in Japan for much longer and was ready to seek a new partner and a new career in the US.

The Japanese teachers’ comparative perspective What is most significant about the Japanese teachers’ experiences is that while the foreign teachers are themselves the symbols of internationalism and often take for granted the “internationalism” of the school and the English language medium, the Japanese teachers are aware of its exoticism in the Japanese context. This difference in the level from which they frame the school’s “international” culture can be seen, for example, in the different ways in which teachers at ACS express their views on the children. Ms. Norika has the experience of working as a youchien6 (preschool) teacher for five years. Her comparative perspective between a Japanese preschool and an international preschool illuminates the meanings of an international preschool in the local context. Ms. Norika has a two-year degree in ECE from a vocational school (senmongakkou) and worked in a private Japanese Buddhist preschool (youchien) from when she was 20 to 25. She stressed that the reason why she chose to study at a senmongakkou and did not take the option of going to university – although her parents had told her that this was an option open to her – was that she wanted to go out into society as soon as possible and become independent. From a young age, she had wanted to become a preschool teacher; she had a brother ten years younger than herself and had always felt that taking care of young children was her specialism. However, she had always thought she would teach at a preschool (youchien) and not a day-care centre (hoikuen), partly because she herself had gone to youchien and, more importantly, because she saw her job as being 6 | See Imoto (2007) for further explanation of the cultural meanings of youchien and hoikuen.

The ‘International Preschool’ as Translocal Field

an “educator”, rather than a “caregiver”. She wanted to “teach the children what they should know to become members of society”. Japanese youchien are notorious for the hierarchical relationship among staff, and Ms. Norika points out that this is why so many young women quit their jobs after a few years. She explains: If the senpai (senior) teacher says go right, there is no left, only right. If the senpai is doing some work, you cannot just do your own, but must go up and ask her, ‘senpai shall I help you?’ And you cannot back down when she says, ‘no it’s ok’. You have to say, ‘Oh no, please, I will do it’ and offer help three times. And she will say ‘Oh alright’. So, I learnt this kind of hierarchical relationship at youchien.

Wanting a change of environment from the hierarchical and competitive workplace, Ms. Norika decided to go to Canada to study English. This was a natural move for her since she had always loved English and it had been the one subject that she had excelled in at school, having attended eikaiwa from when she was in fourth grade of primary school. In Vancouver she completed a language course, then another course in TEFL, and upon returning to Japan she landed a job at a preschool called D International School after seeing an advertisement in the local newspaper. Ms. Norika explains that one of the differences between an international preschool and a Japanese preschool is the time and effort given to the preparation of school events. She felt that events at international preschools are iikagen (rough and unprepared) and felt anxious that she should be doing more preparation for the Winter Carnival. The Sports Day preparations at her former youchien had been such an ordeal, that she did wonder why they had to put so much effort into it; practicing the dances over and over again till perfection.7 Everyone would be so serious about it, and when it was all finished, the teachers would cry with the overwhelming feeling of satisfaction. Of course, such emotional effort and 7 | Lewis describes the affective functions of school events which are preceded by weeks of preparation and which are times when students learn about what it means to “do their utmost”. She writes: “in planning and reflecting on these various school events, teachers ask themselves questions, many based on the goals of the national curriculum. Did the event build a feeling of cohesiveness within the school? Did the event help children develop persistence and responsibility? Did children of different ages and different classes work together well? Did we create happy memories?” (1996: 83). Ben-Ari describes the significance of the cultural concept of gambaru (to place effort and persevere) that is inculcated at Japanese preschools and is a prerequisite for functioning as adults in workplaces, becoming a “source of satisfactions and frustrations and a source of self and other evaluation” (1997: 90).

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There are many aspects of ACS that Ms. Norika wanted to change, such as the class size and the number of Japanese children, but she accepted the fact that after all, the school is a “business” and that there was no point in complaining to the school. She was grateful for the opportunity of being in an international preschool, and being in an environment where she could improve her English.

C onclusion This chapter has described the backgrounds, experiences, and perceptions of international preschool teachers in Tokyo. The trajectories of these individuals demonstrate the various forms of migratory flows and the diversity of meanings that the international preschool brings together under the all-encompassing discourse of “international” education. At one level, the international preschool in the Japanes context presents an institution that is sustained by an ideology of internationalism that places the “West” (and “authentically” western international schools) as the superior and authentic Other, and the production and consumption of ACS is based around this model. The profiles of the teachers, however, reveal that this value system is contested and gradated. Unlike the larger, internationally-accredited schools that generally hire qualified teachers directly from abroad through their established recruitment systems, international preschools hire foreign teachers locally, and in the recruitment process, they negotiate between branding an authentic internationalism and keeping down the costs by hiring non-western, non-native teachers. “Western” teachers are given high symbolic cultural value, but at the local level of interaction, their abilities and attitudes are sometimes questioned or resisted by “Japanese” teachers. Concerning their social status, “Western” teachers are able to manipulate their embodied cultural capital to a certain degree, but many are also faced with realities of lower wages, demanding labour, and high living expenses that did not match their initial expectations of living on lucrative English teaching jobs in an affluent city. For Filipino women, working at an international preschool can be a means of upward mobility and empowerment, and some are utilising the stereotyped image of Filipinos as having English abilities and of being “caring” women to gain work as preschool teachers (Docot 2009). Filipinos and other Asian migrant groups are often placed in a structure of inequality in terms of pay

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based on their “international” cultural value of ethnicity as perceived by some Japanese mothers and directors. However, the range of trajectories among “Filipino teachers” suggests that their experiences must be understood in terms of socio-economic class differences within and across the “Filipino” category. The wives of elite “expatriates” have a substantial presence within the labour supply of international preschools, which indicates how this industry is sustained by certain gendered patterns in family migration where women often follow the corporate male “breadwinner”, remaining in a relatively invisible private sphere within the host society. The international preschool provides a space of social interaction and self-realisation for such expatriate wives who become teachers, utilising their experience as mothers as well as any teaching qualifications they may have gained abroad. The supply of bilingual Japanese teachers is crucial to the international preschool – because of the lower costs, and also because of their professional qualifications and experience which are increasingly being refined as the interest in early childhood English education leads to the development of a new professional field. This flow of supply is ultimately sustained by the young female teachers’ attraction to “internationalism” and the English environment which brings prestige and self-fulfilment. This compensates for the dissatisfactions held regarding the perceived inequalities of the symbolic value system of the international preschool market. I have focused on one educational site as a translocal sphere where one finds the intermingling of practices of travel, production, discipline, consumption and accumulation (Ong 1999: 244), and the description has been of how the international preschool produces an “organised diversity”. Ethnography is a microscope that can shed light on understanding individual stories within, as well as a sense of the system as a larger whole. I wish to end by extending the imagination to the perspectives of the consumers of this site. When the “organised diversity” is placed as a commodity within the educational strategies of the Japanese parents who are its primary consumers, and hence in relation to the larger structure of Japanese education, internationalism and English are often tools to meet ends within a national frame, or ideals to escape from the national frame rather than tools to extend its boundaries. Translocality is thus a process and a concept of multiple layers, identities, ontological perspectives, and circulations; but while movement across borders accelerares, dichotomous tensions and unequal symbolic and economic power relations are what is revealed and questioned through this ethnography of translocality.

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R eferences ALC (2010): “Zenkoku no Purisukuuru (Preschools across the country)”, (http://www.alc.co.jp/). Appadurai, Arjun (1996): Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Ben-Ari, Eyal (1997): Japanese Childcare: An Interpretive Study of Culture and Organization, London: Kegan Paul International. Bossaer, Alan (2003): “The Power of Perceptions: A Look at Professionalism in Private Language Schools in Japan” In: JALT Hokkaido Journal 7, pp. 13-23. Bricknell, Katherine/Datta, Ayona (eds.) (2011): Translocal Geographies: Spaces, Places, Connections, Burlington: Ashgate. Docot, Ma Ledda (2009): “On Identity and Development: Filipino Women Entertainers in Transit in Japan.” In: Derrick M. Nault (ed.), Development in Asia: Interdisciplinary, Post-neoliberal, and Transnational Perspectives, Florida: Brown Walker Press, pp. 107-135. Greiner, Clemens/Sakdapolrak, Patrick (2013): “Translocality: Concepts, Applications and Emerging Research Perspectives.” In: Geography Compass 7/5, pp. 373-384. Imoto, Yuki (2007): “The Japanese Preschool in Transition.” In: Research in Comparative and International Education 2/2, pp. 83-101. Imoto, Yuki (2011): “Producing the ‘International’ Child: Negotiations of Language in an International Preschool in Japan.” In: Ethnography and Education 6/3, pp. 281-292. Kurotani, Sawa (2005): Home Away From Home: Japanese Corporate Wives in the United States, Durham: Duke University Press. Lewis, Catherine (1996): Educating Hearts and Minds: Reflections on Japanese Preschool and Elementary Education, New York: Cambridge University Press. Marcus, George (1995): “Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-Sited Ethnography.” In: Annual Review of Anthropology 24, pp. 95-117. Nikkei Newspaper (2013): “Tonai gaikokujin 38 man-nin (Foreigners in Japan 38 0000)”, August 28, 2013 (http://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXNZO59 034020Y3A820C1L83000/). Ong, Aihwa (1999): Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality, Durham: Duke University Press. Piper, Nicola/Roces, Mina (2003): Wife or Worker? Asian Women and Migration, Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield. Seargeant, Philip (2005): “More English Than England Itself: The Simulation of Authenticity in Foreign Language Practice in Japan.” In: International Journal of Applied Linguistics 15/3, pp. 326-345.

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Yeoh, Brenda/Khoo, Louisa-May (1998): “Home, Work and Community: Skilled International Migration and Expatriate Women in Singapore.” In: International Migration 36/2, pp. 159-186.

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The Multiple Geographies of Early Childhood Education and Care An Ethnographic Approach to the Places and Spaces of Young Children’s Care Arrangements Sabine Bollig

A bstr act This contribution demonstrates how child-centred research on day care childhoods could benefit from ethnographic research strategies that include a wider and more fluid understanding of the field. This topic is discussed on the basis of the on-going research project CHILD that is currently conducted at the University of Luxembourg. The article presents the context and objectives of the study and shows how the research questions are transformed into a multi-sited research design that investigates the genesis, conditions, and everyday conduct of the care arrangements for 2-4-year-olds as an interplay of certain time-space geographies of early childhood education and care. Those time-space geographies represent a methodical and analytical construct, which helps to reveal how child-care policies, local structures and affordances, parents’ beliefs and choices, institutional orders and children’s activities interplay and assemble in the everyday making of their day care childhoods. This particular assemblage is how we understand care arrangements. How this conception on practiced care arrangements is worked out gets demonstrated on examples from three ethnographic case studies, which highlight the diverse places and spaces which come into play in the localised interconnections of day care practices of 2-4-year-olds. In the final section these examples are discussed with regard to the question of how the presented multi-sited ethnographic research strategies can help to overcome the traditional notion of children as ‘colonisers of small places’.

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I ntroduction – children in day care as ‘ colonisers of small pl aces ’ ? The social construction of childhood and the actual lives of children have so far always been considered in their spatial dimensions. This is due to the fact, that what we may call modern childhood cannot be understood without considering the processes of spatial separation, which have produced own places of childhood; most notably, the ‘relegation’ of children away from the streets and the labour market into schools and youth centres (Zeiher 2001), and into the sphere of ‘the home’, where the nuclear family is centred around its children and obliged to create an intimate space of care and socialisation (James/Prout 1997). The ‘educational moratorium’ of modern childhood, thus, is characterised by age and spatial segregation, locating children in particular places, which are heavily imprinted with particular conceptions of ‘proper childhood’ and the respective relation between children and society (Kjørholt/Qvortrup 2011). For the growing field of early childhood education and care, for example, this spatial segregation has always led to viewing day care facilities as a “‘bridge’ between the private and the public worlds, between the child and the family and the wider society”, as Kernan (2010: 199) put it. But, this perspective on the relationship between the ‘indoor’ of day care and ‘outdoor’ of its social environments is intrinsically tied to the notion of day care as a “separated, protected and ‘containing’ space” and a “safe haven” (ibid), especially for the youngest one. Consequently, this conception of early childhood education and care (ECEC) as intimate and separated places for young children was not only driven by child-care policies and practices, but also by the mostly ‘indoor-focusing’ research on children’s life in ECEC. This is equally true for research in line with the so called ‘new social studies of childhood’ (Qvortrup/Corsaro/Honig 2009), although this perspective on the discursive and spatial emplacement and displacement of young children has been highly influential for scholarly works on the ‘making of the day care child’ (Loseke/Cahill 1993; Kjørholt/Qvortrup 2011). However, this does not mean that there are no studies concerned with the spatial conditions of young children’s positioning in ECEC (Gulløv 2003). The recent few years in particular have brought about a growing body of research which investigates the spaces and places of ECEC with a special regard to how children’s learning and (self-)socialising processes are embedded in and facilitated by its surroundings and related spatial practices (Harrison/Sumsion 2014). In line with the so called ‘children’s geographies’, an interdisciplinary field which aims on studying the physical, social, political and emotional geographies of children and childhood (Holloway/Hubbard/Jöns/Pimlott-Wilson 2010), those studies relies on the basic assumption that social processes have a fundamental spatial dimension and that all spatial ‘entities’ like places, spaces, and scales are socially produced, engineered, and constructed, or as Robert-

The Multiple Geographies of Early Childhood Education and Care

son (2009: 3) encapsulates it, “space is social, real, produced and socially constitutive”. With such a non-Euclidian conception of space, this scholarly work emphasises not only the importance of spatial approaches to understand the daily accomplishment of care and education in day care facilities (Sumsion/ Stratigos/Bradley 2014), it also highlights children’s active role in this and the unique spaces and places they produce in their peer-cultural activities in day care (Gallacher 2005). Rutanen (2012), for instance, draws on Lefebvre’s approach to spatiality to highlight the interrelations between the institutional production of space in Finnish kindergartens and children’s lived spaces within them. Likewise, Gallacher (2005) found, in her study on toddlers’ life in Scottish day care centres, that even toddlers are highly engaged in peer-cultural routines to reconfigure the spaces in the nursery and gain control and power through them. By using the differentiation between smooth and striated places by Guattuari and Deleuze, she explores how children constantly ‘move’ between multiple and intertwined structuring’s of space in the day care centre, like the over-determined and sedentary striated spaces of institutional routines and the more free and nomadic smooth spaces of free-play. Consequently, children and adults are constantly engaged in manoeuvring both (for day care homes, see Sumsion/ Stratigos/Bradley 2014). Although those studies have made important contributions for understanding the “polymorphic spaces of childhood” (Jones 2000) in the field of ECEC, there are still some remarkable limitations, likewise to what the human geographer Ansell (2009) noted for the field of children’s geographies in general. First of all, there is a significant tendency to investigate children’s geographies as ‘intimate geographies’, bound to the bodily and sensual perception and production of ‘indoor’-spaces, which the mentioned studies also document. Ethnographic methodologies, with its traditional focus on the local, has made some own contributions to that conception of children as “colonisers of small spaces” (Ward 1978, cited in Ansell 2009: 191). But there is also a body of research which focuses on wider geographies of ECEC, often bound to another strand of research in children’s geographies that intersects with respective endeavours in the sociology of education (e.g. Robertson 2009). Those studies focus on the changing topographies, landscapes, and geographies of care and education (e.g. Milligan/Wiles 2010; Holloway/ Hubbard/Jöns/Pimlott-Wilson 2010), and this includes the spatial dispersion of ECEC-services as well as the spatialising effects of respective ECEC-policies. Millei/Jones (2014) for example, analyses how national ECEC-policies are more and more bound to a “global educational space”, and Gallagher (2012) emphasises the production of certain kinds of care spaces as part of the changing governance of these sectors, exploring how recent ECEC-policies in Ireland can be understood in achieving a re-spatialisation of the “governable spaces of child

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care”. According to that focus on ECEC-policies, however, less attention is paid to the question of how children are involved in those wider societal spaces of early childhood education and care (exceptions are provided by Zeiher/Devine/ Kjørholt/Strandell 2007). In this article, I will examine how child-centred studies in the field of ECEC could profit from integrating those ‘wider geographies’ into their research endeavours and what kind of ethnographic research methodologies and strategies are connected with this. My interest in such spatial analyses arises from a research project that is realising 12-15 ethnographic case studies on contrastive care arrangements of 2-4-year-olds in Luxemburg.1 My aim is to conceptually ‘free’ children from the small spaces we normally grant to them in child-centred ECEC-research, an aim rooted in empirical considerations about children’s ECEC-lives, as well as on more theoretical and methodological thoughts about how those can be conceptualised with regard to the several sites and actors which are involved in the children’s everyday accomplishment of their respective “day care childhoods” (Honig 2011). Regarding the first point, I will argue that research on children’s day care childhoods has to take into account that those are not only performed in the confined spaces of particular day care facilities, but in care arrangements, which include individual schedules and patterns of use as well as a combination of several care settings (e.g. Claessens/Chen 2013). Regarding my second point, I will refer to practice/arrangement-analytical approaches (Schatzki 2002) to highlight that those care arrangements are to be understood as the enacted places and spaces where day care policies, local structures, parents’ beliefs and choices, institutional orders and children’s activities interplay and merge – or to say assemble. Both previously mentioned bodies of research, the more welfare- and governance-related studies on the changing landscapes of ECEC as well as the more culture- and practice-analytical research on the local and bodily production of multiple and polymorphic spaces in ECEC-organisations, are in that perspective not only reference points for the actual limiting of our studied scope on children in ECEC, but also promising starting points. This is due to the fact that both help to overcome our traditional thinking about children as ‘colonisers of small places’. And this because they remind us to think about ECEC-systems not merely as the container of children’s everyday lives, but as the complex spaces which are produced and productive in the everyday accomplishment of day care childhoods.

1 | The research project “CHILD – Children in the Luxembourgian Day Care” (20132015) is funded by the Fonds National de la Recherche Luxembourg and led by Michael-Sebastian Honig and Sabine Bollig.

The Multiple Geographies of Early Childhood Education and Care

Ethnographic research, then, has to reach out for more than local situations. This is in line with a multi-sited approach, which has gained more and more weight in recent years (see Wolff, Kenway in this volume). How this multi-sitedness is maintained in our research project is the main concern of this paper. It will be discussed in close relation to the subject, methodology, and research design of our study and some preliminary findings. First, however, I would like to start with some details on the Luxembourgian context.

The rese arch conte x t : the he terogeneous ecec - system and the diverse socie t y of luxembourg Luxembourg is a fairly small country with approximately 560.000 inhabitants, but it contains a rather heterogeneous society. Besides its economic and regional diversification, it is shaped by a high degree of multiculturalism as reflected by the highest ratio of immigrants in the European Union (44,5 per cent without Luxembourgian citizenship) and the three official languages – Luxembourgish, French and German – spoken alongside several other common languages, such as Portuguese and English (see Seele in this volume). According to its long-standing, mainly family-conservative welfare state, Luxembourg never paid much attention to extra-familial childcare until the end of the last century. The last fifteen years, however, have brought an enormous increase of day care facilities with very flexible structures – and ever since the implementation of childcare vouchers (chèques-service d’accueil) in 2009, the mixed economy of childcare has proliferated. The chèque-service is a universal allowance for which Luxembourg residents up to the age of 12 are eligible. In essence the system entitles parents to book a certain number of hours of free care (depending on parents’ earned income) and to top up the free care with additional hours at a reduced rate, all with a provider of their choice. By 2013 more than 54 per cent of the hours billed with the chèques-services were provided by market-based day care providers, such as professional child-minders or for-profit day care centres, the remainder were provided by the few municipal day care centres (mostly ‘after school clubs’) or privately-run but state-funded ones (ibid: table 3.1). The childcare vouchers are therefore a central instrument of what Honig, Schmitz, and Wiltzius (ibid) call the ‘quasi-marketisation’ of childcare in Luxembourg, which has been crucial for the development of a childcare sector sufficient to accommodate demand, but which also scattered its profile, leading to a variety of local landscapes of childcare comprising a wide range of diverse day care settings, providers, and services offered. But the heterogeneity of the Luxembourgian ECEC-system arises not only from plurality of day care services. The ECEC-system in Luxembourg is addi-

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tionally divided into separate sectors of education and care. Compulsory schooling starts with a two-year preschool at the age of four, but children can enter the so-called éducation précoce (literally translated: ‘early education’) one year before, at the age of three. This kind of ‘pre-preschool’ was implemented in 1998, mainly as an educational offer to promote Luxembourgish for immigrant children and to help children from socially and educationally disadvantaged families with their transition to compulsory school. But children from more affluent and Luxembourgish-speaking autochthone families also attend it, because their parents view the éducation précoce as a kind of infrastructure in early education. There are, however, some regional variations. But, as the éducation précoce is free of charge, it attracts parents’ attention not only for educational reasons. The income-related childcare vouchers do not cover the whole expense of day care. Thus, extended day care is still expensive and families can lower the costs by taking advantage of the free pre-preschool. For all those reasons, the éducation précoce is commonly used and attended by over seventy per cent (71 per cent, Honig/Schmitz/Wiltzius 2015) of three-yearolds, even though it is only a part-time solution, which operates only four hours (8-12) each weekday morning in addition to two hours in the afternoon (14-16) on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. As only very few pre-preschools offer care services for the times between and after lessons, many day care centres and most of the child-minders take over children’s care during the hours not covered. For this, both kinds of working parents, those who seek the best (‘schoolish’) educational option and those who want to reduce their day care costs, end up combining several ECEC settings into what are known as “concurrent multiple child care arrangements” (Claessens/Chen 2013). Hence, we have to assume that a day care childhood in Luxembourg can have different meanings because of the super-diverse society of Luxemburg and its heterogeneous ECEC-systems, or put differently, there are certain kinds of care arrangements. Observed from the “vantage point of children” (Thorne 1999), these care arrangements form the distinct structuring and enactment of children’s everyday realities in ECEC, not only because they cause various horizontal transitions during the course of a child’s day/week, but also because those ‘take place’ in certain spaces of care arrangements as arrangements, which by themselves create distinct spaces of positioning and actorship/agency for children (de Groot Kim 2010).

The Multiple Geographies of Early Childhood Education and Care

The multiple geogr aphies of ecec : the spatial approach and the rese arch design of the child - study Places, spaces and interconnected localisations of care arrangements To highlight those care arrangements as the spaces where day care policies, local structures, parents’ beliefs and choices, institutional orders and children’s activities and positioning’s interplay and merge, we prefer spatial approaches which stress that space is fundamental relational. Or as Löw (2008:26) puts it out, “the activity of experiencing objects as relating to one another”. Space is thus to be understood as a “product of interrelations […] as constituted through interactions, from the immensity of the global to the intimately tiny” (Massey 2005: 9). As these relations are necessarily embedded in the on-going flow of carried-out practices, space is always in the process of being made. In consequence and as pointed out in practice-theoretical conceptions of space (Massey 2005), the ceaseless and closed production and experience of space always occurs in actual places that “manifest many unique qualities, which are located and bounded” but which “cannot be understood from within a fixed local context”. Instead, they have to be understood as the “products, or better moments, of coalescing and colliding chains of events and movements” (Lagendijk et al. 2011: 164). Given these practice/arrangement-theories of space, related studies are thus concerned with tracing the events and movements that come into play in the socio-material processes of meaning-making in particular times and local sites and, therefore, in the “ever mobile power geometries of space-time” (Massey 2005: 166). We should be aware, however, that within this conception of space, ‘place’ is not similar to ‘location’ or ‘communities’. Rather, place “emerges out of the fixing of particular meanings on space” (Robertson 2009: 8) and is therefore, “the outcome of efforts to contain, immobilise, to claim as one’s own, to include and therefore exclude” (ibid). Consequently, places are seen as those complex entities where humans, non-humans, symbols, and discourses assemble in a meaningful way and “where meanings are constituted out of dwelling, of affinity, of performativity” (ibid). As a result, places such as ‘national ECEC systems’, ‘the preschool’, ‘the local’, or ‘the home’ are tidily involved in the production of identities, or, in other words, a sense of place (Sumsion/Stratigos/Bradley 2014). If we take seriously this relational view on spaces, places, and identities, it provides a radical break with ‘micro/macro, global/local, and structure/activity-dichotomies, replacing them with a multiplicity of time-spaces which allow “various inhabitants to hang together in event-relations by virtue of their activities” (Marston/Jones/Woodward 2005: 425). This is the reason why Schatzki (2011: 4) notes that, although his ‘site ontology’ is heavily based on bodily practices, “it follows, pace the widespread assignment of practice theo-

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ry to ‘local’ or ‘micro’ phenomena, that the above ontology grants no priority to the local situation. The activities, entities, rules, understandings, and teleologies that are at work in any local situation are elements of phenomena – practices, arrangements, and bundles thereof – that stretch out over time and space beyond such situations. Indeed, these items come to be at work in local situations because they are components of practice-arrangement bundles”. Spaces and places are therefore always folded into the socio-material orders (arrangements) which coevally emerge within the practices they constrain and enable. Therefore, Marston/Jones/Woodward (2005: 109) conclude that “we can talk about the existence of a given site only insofar as we can follow interactive practices through their localised connections.” Analysing the distinct spatiality of children’s care arrangements, therefore, means – conceptually – that the children’s day care practices have to be recognised as the nodes, where different bundles of practice-arrangements are linked together in the on-going practices of ‘place-making’. Methodically, this implies to follow the interplay of the certain kinds of ‘geographies of ECEC’ through their localised connections within the daily practicing of care arrangements.

The geographies of CHILD’s research design To capture in detail those localised connections of children’s care arrangements, we chose a research design based on particular kinds of ‘time-space geographies’ of day care. The term ‘geographies’ here is used in a metaphorical sense to indicate that these are certain spatial arenas which come into play in the set-up and everyday conduct of care arrangements, but which are also produced by the specific kinds of ‘data’ we gather. Therefore, this time-space geographies consists of the diverse materials, orders, knowledge, desires, and practices that assemble in care arrangements and which we follow into the sites of their production: these are the (trans)local geographies of care cultures, the individual geographies of care arrangements, and the organisational geographies of care settings. At the first level, the (trans)local geographies of care cultures, we study the socio-spatial conditions in the particular local environments of care arrangements and the possibilities that parents rely on in the actual set-up and reshaping of their children’s care arrangements. Therefore, we conduct expert interviews with providers, educators, politicians, and administrative staff, while reviewing statistics and socio-demographic data that inform us about the local patterns of provision of day care in certain regions of Luxembourg. But, as this ‘objective’ information is only relevant to us, because it helps to understand the concrete spacings of ‘the local’ within parents search for proper day care, we also conduct family interviews to take into account the family’s ‘placing’ of ‘knowable’ and assessable day care, their knowledge strategies, and the local

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networks and resources they refer to. With those strategies we, therefore, aim to trace the importance of local care cultures (Holloway 1998) which are part of what Vandenbroeck/de Visscher/van Nuffel/Ferla (2008) call the dynamic relationship between availability and desirability in parents’ set-up of their young children’s care arrangements. However, we add the prefix ‘trans’ to Holloway’s term of local care-cultures because parents’ making of the local is often not only bound to the area where they live, but includes the surroundings of their work place or that of relative care-givers, and therefore comes with spaces which include multi- or trans-local care cultures. Figure 1: The time-space geographies of our research design

Second, we enquire into the individual geographies of care arrangements. Here we ask about the temporal and spatial ordering of children’s actual day care days. We collect data on the children’s daily and weekly schedules and their everyday maintenance via interviews with the parents and the professional caretakers. However, most importantly we accompany the children through their entire days and conduct participant observations (Emerson/Fretz/Shaw 1995) and camera-ethnographic recordings (Mohn 2006) of their daily day care practices. Here it is important for us to single out those practice, which rely on the children’s actual care arrangements, such as their daily entering and leaving of day care settings at certain times and their respective (transitional) practices of making day care settings ‘their place’. If possible, we accompany the children in different field phases over a longer time-period (up to 1-1.5 years), so that we get insights into their daily horizontal transitions between home and different kinds of ECEC-settings, as well as into the changes in their care arrangements over time and the shifting places and spaces. Third, we are interested in the organisational geographies of child-care settings, which include the temporal, spatial, and socio-material routines and

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orders in the care settings and children’s involvement in them. As a first step, we are interested in how those organisational features come into play in the positioning of children as organisational related ‘day care children’ (Corsaro 1990; Gallagher 2005), by looking at adult-child ratios, the age-related grouping of children, as well as by asking the care-providers about the duties, routines, procedures and the respective logistics of providing care and education for a group of children in the particular day care settings (day care home, centre, etc.). But mostly we are interested in the children’s peer-cultural and intergenerational relations and practices in the respective care settings. These organisational geographies of each care setting are accounted for in mid-term participant observations of each setting included in a care arrangement and in ethnographic interviews, informant talks, and dialogues with both carers and children (Spradley 1979).

Three short ex amples — children’s practices as the localised inter - connections of different care arrangements and their enacted spaces In the following empirical part, I will give you a short overview on how this methodical construction of certain geographies of ECEC helps us to identify the interconnected localisations of children’s care arrangements in our recently started field research. For this, I will briefly describe the places and spaces distinguished so far in three on-going case studies. Obviously, these descriptions do not reflect the complex ‘thick descriptions’ on the spaces and places of children’s care arrangements that we aim to realise. Nevertheless, they will be instructive enough to show how our methodology ‘works’ and allow us to discuss it later on with regard to the productiveness of our ethnographic research design and its particular reference to the concept of multi-sited ethnography.

‘Roaming the hood’: private and public places and the private/ public spaces of ECEC The first example is from the case study on the care arrangement of Maik 2, an almost four-year-old boy who is cared for by a professional childminder in the capital of Luxembourg. His ‘day care mum’, as it is called in Luxembourg, is a French-speaking woman with two adult children still living in her home, where she cares for at least six children with very individual schedules. Maik has attended the home-based day care for almost two years. Before this, he attended a 2 | This example results from the fieldwork of Joëlle Weiland. All names are made anonymous.

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day care centre, but, because his parents had been displeased with that service, they took Maik out of it and enrolled him with the childminder. As his mother tells us, Maik was very often ill when he was in the centre, and so he failed to integrate well into the children’s group. As the parents report, the educators in that centre were not very supportive either, so they decided to bring him to the more intimate home-based care setting. Maik’s mother knew the childminder by sight, because they live in the same area and the childminder is very often outside with the children. This public life of the day care mum originates from the situation that these childminders are somewhat the flip-side of the split ECEC-system, because they mostly offer to accompany children between (pre-) preschool and day care when required. This can happen several times a day, especially if parents work full-time and the children attend the day care home during most of the day. In consequence, and even though Maik’s parents decided not to enrol him in the éducation précoce, Maik is nonetheless very familiar with the pre-preschool because he accompanies the children who have to be brought there and fetched from it every day. The organisational geography of the childminder’s place in Maik’s care arrangement is therefore highly structured by the schedules of the surrounding schools, which divides the day in several inside and outside phases. Since Maik is so often outside in his neighbourhood, a lot of his daily day care practices involve – what we call – ‘roaming his hood’: wandering the sideways, playing on playgrounds, petting the dogs they usually meet, strolling through the preschool, and greeting school kids and educators. Thus he knows his neighbourhood very well and he is well-known by its inhabitants. But changing permanently between inside and outside the day care home also implies that he has to switch between the socio-material orders of the private premises of the childminder’s house which are maintained for several hours a day as places of public day care and the public places outside which are maintained as the private places of professional day care. His care arrangement, therefore, implies a space where public and private are interwoven in complex relations, and we can view Maik’s roaming practices as part of the particular interplay between the local, the individual, and the organisational geographies of his care arrangement. These private/public space of Maik’s care arrangement is remarkably different from the more private and inner-organisational spaces that, for instance, Ann-Sophie, the child from our second example, is involved in.

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‘Stand-by practices’: contained places and the transitional spaces of ECEC Ann-Sophie3 is a three-year-old girl, who lives in a fairly wealthy part of Luxembourg City. In contrast to Maik’s care arrangement, hers includes a state-funded day care centre, a so-called maison relais crèche. State-funded here means that it is run by a private non-profit organisation that has an extra contract (convention) with the Ministry of National Education, Children and Youth (MENJE), which stipulates some extra quality standards and an additional funding for the organisation besides the childcare vouchers they are eligible to accept. The maison relais crèche is located near to both her mother’s and her grandparents’ home, which is important as the latter usually bring and fetch their granddaughter. Ann-Sophie attends the day care from 9 am to 5 am for three days and part-time (9 to 12:30) for two days a week. This have been the only times the centre could offer to Ann-Sophie’s single-parent mother, because that specific schedule is a counterpart of an arrangement with another child, who is enrolled in the éducation précoce. Therefore, and because the mother has long working days, the grandparents do not only organise the daily transportation but also care for Anne-Sophie during the uncovered afternoons. The maison relais crèche cares in sum for approximately 45 children under the age of four and has well organised schedules, where special activities, such as literacy programmes, sports, and walks take place during the entire day. To make sure that these activities will not be disturbed through occasional drop-ins and dropouts, the staff decided that children can only be brought and fetched at specific times. These include the slot from 7-9 in the morning, 11.3012.30 at noon, and from 5-7 in the afternoon. These times in the morning and in the afternoon are conceptualised as free play, when the children can play with their peers, and child after child drops in or out. But at noon, there is no freeplay time, because only few children are to be fetched and the main part of the group is normally busy with preparing lunch. Therefore, on the two days when Ann-Sophie gets fetched at noon, she does not eat with the other children and therefore gets separated from the group. The educators then want her to be busy by herself, mostly placing her alone in the play area in the group’s room where also lunch takes place. Ann-Sophie normally accepts that now is not her turn to sit down with the group, instead she sometimes plays a bit, but mostly she just strolls around while orbiting the eating area and the door waiting for the doorbell to ring. We call these activities ‘pure stand-by practices’, which create ‘individual transitional spaces’: in the same room as the other children, but separated and given individual waiting tasks. These ‘transitional spaces’ emerge in practices 3 | This example results from the fieldwork of Sylvia Nienhaus.

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where individual and organisational time-orders create frictions, and in consequence, children like Ann-Sophie are positioned much earlier into the transitional spaces than the pick-up actually occurs. These stretched transitional spaces also occur during the collective waiting routines in the afternoon, in the so-called free-play time, where ‘time and space of playing’ and the ‘time and space of waiting’ converge for all children. As all the children, including Ann-Sophie, are in the same situation and the free-play time allows them to play like all the others while waiting to be fetched, we call these practices ‘permeable stand-by-practices’. In contrast to the pure stand-by-practices, those are characterised by all children engaged in occasional playing, strolling around, or playing pick-up-games, such as collectively running to the door when the bell rings and competing in shouting the name of the child whose parents arrive loudest or involve the parents in a role-play that actually takes place. These transitional spaces are of course part of every non-familiar care setting, because all children commute between home and school, but there are remarkable differences with regard to how this commuting is embedded in the organisational geographies of the day care settings. This becomes even more obvious when comparing the pre-preschool, centre or home-based care. But the actual performance of these transitional spaces can also vary with regard to the individual geographies of the children’s care arrangements. If you are, for example, the first child to be fetched, these transitional spaces are established in a very different manner than if you are the last one. And if the children have irregular schedules, like Ann-Sophie, they find themselves more often in individual than in collective transitional spaces. Therefore, you can say, that these practices of producing the transitional spaces of day care childhoods take place at the interconnected localisations of the organisational geographies of care settings and the individual geographies of care arrangements.

‘Linguistic commuting practices’: liminal places and the (de)bordered spaces of ECEC The case of Kim reveals the different kinds of spaces produced by the everyday enactment of more complex care arrangements that include several care settings. Kim is a four-year-old boy and the only child of a Vietnamese family living in the densely populated south of Luxembourg. His parents are well-educated academics, who immigrated to Luxembourg in 2013. They chose to enrol him in the éducation précoce so that he would learn the Luxembourgish language before entering compulsory school. At home the family speaks mainly Vietnamese, and as the parents have no command of Luxembourgish, they use French in their public life. French is a very common language in their part of the country and also the lingua franca in most of the widespread for-profit day care services there. This is also the case in the day care centre where Kim

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attends the school-kids group when the part-time éducation précoce – the pre-preschool – is closed. Thus, he commutes every day from the pre-preschool to the day care centre and on three days a week back to the pre-preschool after having had lunch in the centre. In the pre-preschool, Kim is part of a very stable group of children of the same age who attend the school on a daily basis. None of the seventeen children in class speak Luxembourgish as their mother tongue. But as language acquisition in Luxembourgish is one of the main goals of the éducation précoce, teaching is conducted in Luxembourgish and teachers generally demand the children to speak it with their peers as well. The children contribute to this monolingual standard with their own language policies. This becomes especially obvious during the frequent periods of free play, where the children tend to divide themselves into gendered groups, and the few boys usually play together in the construction corner. There, Kim and his playmates mostly use French words to communicate, but in a lower tone of voice. These soft-spoken conversations are very common among the class, because all of the children frequently use ‘forbidden languages’. Therefore, the children perform a daily distinction between a legitimate and a non-legitimate speech practice by lowering or raising their voice in communication. In the day care centre, however, the speech order in the age-heterogeneous school-kids group is made up in a different way. There is also a distinction between the speech that is used in adult-child communication and that which is used in peer talk, because the main educator only speaks French. But since other languages are not forbidden, the communication style within the group is actively multilingual, with the older children in particular switching as they please between French, Luxembourgish, German, Portuguese, and so on. For Kim, commuting between day care and school therefore represents crossing a linguistic border, not only in the sense that he switches between different ‘official’ languages but also between different types of language policies and ways of speaking. His care-arrangement is therefore structured by liminal places, which include not only divergent orders but also boundaries that have to be crossed. When looking not only at the linguistic boundaries but also at the blended spaces which are created through Kim’s language practices, we see that the heterogeneous age-grouping of the children in the school group at the day care centre plays an important role. While the older children usually choose to play together, Kim, one of the two youngest children in the group, makes a fairly stable pair with the other youngster, Carla, his classmate from pre-preschool. As they rarely choose each other as playmates in pre-preschool at the time of observation, we cannot say which language they use in their peer talks there. While playing together at the centre, Kim and Carla prefer to use Luxembourgish words, but interestingly, they mostly do so in the same

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lowered voice used in the éducation précoce. Obviously, this speech style has nothing to do with the use of non-legitimate languages in this setting; rather, it builds up a ‘sheltered place’ in the loud and messy environment of the heterogeneous school-kids group. In Kim’s linguistic commuting practices, therefore, he not only manages the liminal institutional places of pre-preschool and day care, he also produces de-bordered spaces by using the same styles to make up confined spaces of play. If asking for the interconnected localisations that take place in Kim’s linguistic commuting practices his individual schedules play obviously an important role, but it is mostly the interplay between the ‘local care cultures’ and the time-space geographies of the different care settings that interrelate.

C onclusion — the multiple spaces , pl aces , and sites of children ’s care arr angements As these very first examples from our on-going research show, there are multiple kinds of related places and spaces of ECEC that come into play. This multiplicity comes from the divergent practices of ‘place-making’ that occur during the daily conduct of children’s care arrangements and the related diverse spaces of those arrangements. To be positioned as a ‘day care child’ can thus mean something very different, according, for example, to the private/public spaces of home-based care, the individual and collective transitional spaces which occur in between of day care centres and homes, or the (de)bordered spaces between day care settings. As the examples highlight the diversity of spaces across individual care arrangements, it might be not so surprising that we find such a multiplicity of enacted places and spaces, given the structural differences between institutions like the pre-preschool, day care centres, and home-based day care, which are ‘by nature’ marked by divergent time-space orders. By asking for the spaces that are produced by children’s day care practices, we can see, however, that there are many more elements and pathways that come into play, which transcend the organisational structures and boundaries in several ways. There are, for instance, the public spaces of day care, which arise mainly from the strong influence that school schedules and individual care arrangements have on the time-space-order in (some) home-based day care settings. And in regard to the transitional spaces which are produced in stand-by-practices, the children are indeed bodily placed in the care settings but socially positioned in a borderland between home and day care. This affects their possibilities of ‘acting in place’ to a great extent, especially when taking into account their own schedules and those of their playmates. In addition, there are not least the various kinds of fractal and (de)bordered spaces, which are produced in the daily commuting between certain organisations and in which the children use the

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resources of both settings in their actual practices of place-making, as shown by the example of Kim. Going beyond the localism of child-centred ethnographies on early childhood, the examples above also show how the interplay between our methodically constructed geographies of day care sheds light onto how day care practices, day care policies, local care cultures, parents’ beliefs and choices, institutional orders, and children’s activities interact and merge. This also includes, as Kim’s example has shown, the linguistic landscapes of local care cultures to which parental care choices and the children’s linguistic practices are related. This interplay is also illuminated by the diverse ways in which day care settings adapt their space-time-orders to the schedules of each child, may it be in more flexible ways, like in the day care home, or in more strict ways, like in the day care centre. This interplay is not least expressed in the day care practices of the children, which show how children work out their positioning in ECEC along the interplay of those divers geographies of day care. Our on-going research therefore aims at tracing in detail this interplay between the multiple geographies of ECEC in order to work out how these complex interrelations form the enacted day care realities of young children in the Luxembourgian ECEC-system, and how the children get positioned in diverse ways as social actors within the field. Methodologically spoken, inquiring the complex trajectories of the genesis and daily enactment of distinct care arrangements challenges not only the conception of ‘children as colonisers of small places’ but also the understanding of ‘the field’ of our research. Traditionally understood as one place that contains one culture (like villages or organisations), the history of ethnographic research represents a remarkable move from such a localised understanding of the field, towards what Marcus (1995) prominently coined as a multi-sited ethnography. Here, the field is understood as spatially and temporally distributed, and the researchers are supposed to follow the people, connections, associations, and relationships under study across the different sites where they ‘take place’. Although there are many ways of understanding and producing such multi-sited ethnographies, the concept of a ‘travelling ethnographer’ is the most applied one in these ethnographic research strategies (see Wolff in this volume). But, as Falzon (2009) reminds us, the idea of the multi-sitedness of ethnographic research covers also the idea of integrating different perspectives on the subject under study, techniques of juxtaposition of data and analytical pathways, or the manifold trajectories that are simultaneously present in the co-productive accomplishment of the situations under study (Massey 2005). The latter sheds light on the interplay of small and wider geographies of care arrangements that we are interested in. It also brings us back to the practice/arrangement theory of Schatzki (2002), to what he calls the ‘site of the social’. In Schatzki’s theory those sites are defined as the “specific context of human coexistence: the place where, and as part of which, social life inherently

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occurs (xi)”. As social life for Schatzki only exists in a mesh of practices and socio-material orders, which enable and constrain each other, these ‘sites of the social’ have an irreducible spatial dimension, because they materially relate objects together. However, they are not solely defined in spatial terms. Instead, a site is the complex, fluid, and sociomaterial context of practice-arrangements, or as Marston/Jones/Woodward (2005: 429) call it, “a ‘neighbourhood’ of practices, events and orders that are folded variously into other unfolding sites. Thus, its complexity arises as the result of a number of different interacting practices – each potentially connected to other contemporary sites – and orders.” Given that conception of sites, which then inhabits spaces and places, we apply a multi-sited approach in our research, not only because we are following the children on their daily trajectories through certain day care settings. Much more, we conceptualise their ‘sited’ day care practices as the localisations where certain practice-arrangement bundles interrelate, and whose particular assemblage forms the diverse spaces of day care childhoods. Our aim, therefore, is to elaborate ‘thick portraits’ of the children’s care arrangements, which allow us to ‘trace’ (Massey 2005) this multi-sitedness of the children’s day care practices with regard to the multiple geographies of day care that take place at localised interconnections.

R eferences Ansell, Nicola (2009): “Childhood and the Politics of Scale: Descaling Children’s Geographies?” In: Progress in Human Geography 33/2, pp. 190-209. Claessens, Amy/Chen, Jen-Hao (2013): “Multiple Child Care Arrangements and Child Well Being: Early Care Experiences in Australia.” In: Early Childhood Research Quarterly 28, pp. 49-61. Corsaro, William A. (1990): “The Underlife of the Nursery School: Young Children’s Social Representations of Adult Rules.” In: Gerard Duveen/Barbara Llyod (eds.), Social Representations and the Development of Knowledge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 11-26. De Groot Kim, Sonja (2010): “There’s Elly, It Must Be Tuesday: Discontinuity in Child Care Programs and Its Impact on the Development of Peer Relationships in Young Children.” In: Early Childhood Education Journal 38/2, pp. 153-164. Emerson, Robert/Fretz, Rachel/Shaw, Linda (1995): Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Falzon, Mark-Anthony (2009): “Introduction.” In: Mark-Anthony Falzon (ed.), Multi-Sited Ethnography: Theory, Praxis and Locality in Contemporary Research, Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Limited, pp. 1-26.

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Gallacher, Lesley (2005): “‘The Terrible Twos’: Gaining Control in the Nursery?” In: Children’s Geographies 3/2, pp. 243-264. Gallagher, Aisling (2012): “Neoliberal Governmentality and the Re-spatialisation of Childcare in Ireland.” In: Geoforum 43, pp. 464-471. Gulløv, Eva (2003): “Creating a Natural Place for Children: An Ethnographic Study of Danish Kindergartens.” In: Karen Fog Olwig/Eva Gulløv (eds.), Children’s Places: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, London: Routledge, pp. 2338. Harrison, Linda/Sumsion, Jennifer (2014) (eds.): Lived Spaces of Infant-Toddler Education and Care: Exploring Diverse Perspectives on Theory, Research and Practice, New York: Springer. Holloway, Sarah (1998): “Local Child Cultures: Moral Geographies of Mothering and the Social Organisation of Pre-School Education.” In: Gender, Place, Culture 5/1, pp. 29-53. Holloway, Sarah/Hubbard, Phil/Jöns, Heike/Pimlott-Wilson, Helena (2010): “Geographies of Education and the Importance of Children, Youth and Families.” In: Progress in Human Geography 34/5, pp. 583-600. Honig, Michael-Sebastian (2011): “Auf dem Weg zu einer Theorie betreuter Kindheit.” In: Sandy Wittmann/Thomas Rauschenbach/Hans R. Leu (eds.), Kinder in Deutschland: Eine Bilanz empirischer Studien, Weinheim: Juventa, pp. 181-197. Honig, Michael-Sebastian/Schmitz, Anett/Wiltzius, Martine (2015): “Early Education and the Unloved Market of Commercial Child Care in Luxembourg.” In: Harry Willekens/Kirsten Scheiwe/Kristen Nawrotzki (eds.), The Development of Early Childhood Education in Europe and North America: Historical and Comparative Perspectives, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan (to be published in July 2015). James, Allison/Prout, Alan (1997): Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood: Contemporary Issues in the Sociological Study of Childhood, London: Falmer Press. Jones, Owain (2000): “Melting Geography: Purity, Disorder, Childhood and Space.” In: Sarah L. Holloway/Gill Valentine (eds.), Children’s Geographies: Playing, Living, Learning, London: Routledge, pp. 29-47. Kernan, Margarete (2010): “Space and Place as a Source of Belonging and Participation in Urban Environments: Considering the Role of Early Childhood Education and Care Settings.” In: European Early Childhood Education Research Journal 18/2, pp. 199-213. Kjørholt, Anne T./Qvortrup, Jens (2011): The Modern Child and the Flexible Labour Market, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Lagendijk, Arnoud/Pijpers, Roos/Ent, Geert/Hendrikx, Renée/van Lanen, Bram/Maussart, Laura (2011): “Multiple Worlds in a Single Street: Ethnic

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Entrepreneurship and the Construction of a Global Sense of Place.” In: Space and Polity 15/2, pp. 163-181. Loseke, Donileen/Cahill, Spencer (1993): “Normalizing Daycare – Normalizing the Child: Daycare Discourse in Popular Magazines, 1900-1990.” In: Joel Best (ed.), Troubling Children: Studies of Children and Social Problems, New York: Aldine de Gruyter, pp. 173-199. Löw, Martina (2008): “The Constitution of Space: The Structuration of Spaces Through the Simultaneity of Effect and Perception.” In: European Journal of Social Theory 11/1, pp. 25-49. Marcus, George E. (1995): “Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-Sited Ethnography.” In: Annual Review of Anthropology 24, pp. 95-117. Marston, Salli/Jones, John Paul/Woodward, Keith (2005): “Human geography without scale.” In: Transactions of the Institute of British Geography NS 30, pp. 416-432. Massey, Doreen (2005): For space, London: Sage. Millei, Zsuzsanna/Jones, Alexandra (2014): “The Australian Early Childhood Curriculum and a Cosmopolitan Imaginary.” In: International Journal of Early Childhood 46/1, pp. 63-79. Milligan, Christine/Wiles, Janine (2010): “Landscapes of Care.” In: Progress in Human Geography 34/6, pp. 736-754. Mohn, Bina E. (2006): “Permanent Work on Gazes: Video Ethnography as an Alternative Methodology.” In: Hubert Knoblauch/Bernt Schnettler/Jürgen Raab/Hans-Georg Soeffner (eds.), Video Analysis: Methodology and Methods: Qualitative Data Analysis in Sociology, Frankfurt a. M.: Peter Lang, pp. 173-181. Qvortrup, Jens/Corsaro, William A./Honig, Michael-Sebastian (2009): The Palgrave Handbook of Childhood Studies, Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. Robertson, Susan (2009): ‘Spatialising’ the Sociology of Education: Standpoints, Entry-points, Vantage-points, published by the Centre for Globalisation, Education and Societies, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1JA, UK (October, 1, 2013, http://susanleerobertson.com/publications/). Rutanen, Nina (2012): “Socio-spatial Practices in a Finnish Daycare Group for One- to Three-Year-Olds.” In: Early Years: An International Research Journal 32/2, pp. 201-214. Schatzki, Theodore R. (2002): The Site of the Social: A Philosophical Account of the Constitution of Social Life and Change, University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. Schatzki, Theodore R. (2011): Where the Action is: On Large Social Phenomena Such as Sociotechnical Regimes, Working Paper 1 of the Sustainable Prac-

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tices Research Group, October, 12, 2013 (http://www.sprg.ac.uk/uploads/ schatzki-wp1.pdf). Spradley, James A. (1979): The Ethnographic Interview, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Sumsion, Jennifer/Stratigos, Tina/Bradley, Benjamin (2014): “Babies in Space.” In: Linda Harrison/Jennifer Sumsion (eds.), Lived Spaces of Infant-Toddler Education and Care, Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 43-58. Thorne, Barrie (1999): Pick-Up Time at Oakdale Elementary School: Work and Family from the Vantage Points of Children, Working Paper No. 2, Center for Working Families, Berkeley, December 1, 2012 (https://workfamily.sas. upenn.edu/sites/workfamily.sas.upenn.edu/files/imported/new/berkeley/ papers/2.pdf). Vandenbroeck, Michel/de Visscher, Sven/van Nuffel, Karen/Ferla, Johan (2008): “Mothers’ Search for Infant Child Care: The Dynamic Relation Between Availability and Desirability in a Continental European Welfare State.” In: Early Childhood Research Quarterly 23/2, pp. 245-258. Zeiher, Helga (2001): “Children’s Islands in Space and Time: The Impact of Spatial Differentiation on Children’s Ways of Shaping Social Life.” In: Manuela de Bois-Reymond/Heinz Sünker/Hans-Hermann Krüger (eds.), Childhood in Europe: Approaches – Trends – Findings, New York: Peter Lang, pp. 139159. Zeiher, Helga/Devine, Dympna/Kjørholt, Anne T./Strandell, Harriet (2007): Flexible Childhood? Exploring Children’s Welfare in Time and Space, Volume 2 of COST A19: Children’s Welfare, Syddansk Universitetsforlag.

Who are the Actors? Multiple Actors of Education: From Humans to Networks, Technologies, Organisations, and States

Transsituating Education Educational Artefacts in the Classroom and Beyond Tobias Röhl

A bstr act In this paper a socio-material perspective on education is proposed that takes the local practices of teachers and learners seriously while still accounting for practices that extend beyond the here and now of a given situation. Through this transsituative shift education is not understood as being confined to local sites of instruction but understood as a nexus of practices conducted at various sites connected to each other via material objects and other material entities. This also reconciles ethnographic research with the institutional dimension of education and allows a micro-sociological account of wider societal implications of education. Throughout the article examples from ethnographic research on the epistemic role of material objects in science and mathematics classes in German secondary schools are used.

The materialit y of education and SSTE Education is not only a cultural domain in which humans interact and communicate with each other, but also a socio-material endeavour that relies on a number of material artefacts. Taking cues from Science and Technology Studies, an increasing number of studies acknowledge this material dimension of education (e.g. Sørensen 2009; Bollig/Kelle/Seehaus 2012; Nohl/Wulf 2013; for an overview see Fenwick/Edwards 2010). Material objects are no longer seen as neutral tools facilitating teaching or as symbols representing cultural worlds. Instead, their effects on education are described as transformation processes in which both human practice, but also the material objects themselves are changed. In that vein the Social Studies of Teaching and Education (SSTE) (Kalthoff 2011; Röhl 2013: 24-27) strive to transfer theoretical and methodological findings of the new sociology of scientific knowledge

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onto the field of sociology of education. SSTE go along with the idea that schools are “people-changing” as well as “people-processing organizations” (Hasenfeld 1972: 256) that produce knowledge for and about students. Their primary objects are not forms of abstract knowledge but students themselves. Students are concentrated in a place (“school”), separated in groups (“classes”), continuously confronted with school knowledge and repeatedly assessed and categorised. SSTE trace how this everyday fabrication of school knowledge and human differentiation is practically and materially produced and processed in schools. With regard to the performance of school lessons, several interrelated modes of (re)presentation can be distinguished: knowledge is (re)presented verbally, bodily, via written signs, and with artefacts. In the classroom these different modes refer to each other and are transformed into one another: e.g. teachers and students talk about a phenomenon that is later witnessed in the material form of a demonstration experiment, and this observation of a phenomenon is finally recorded as generalised mathematical formula in written form on the blackboard. Following these transformations SSTE take a close look at the interplay between material entities and their practical use by human actors. In the case of educational artefacts this can empirically be achieved by not only analysing their use in school lessons but also their design: SSTE consequently encourage researchers to leave the classroom and to observe the construction of school knowledge in the manufacturing industry in order to develop a broader theoretical and empirical perspective of learning in school (Kalthoff 2014: 104-106). Consequently, the socio-material perspective of SSTE entails two shifts: (1) Agential shift: If we follow practice theory, our idea of the intentional human actors becomes fragile (Reckwitz 2002). Practices are not seen as the result of meaningful intentions, but as complex arrangement of things, bodies, and bodily activities (Schatzki 2002). In contrast to actor-networktheory (ANT; Latour 2005), Schatzki and other authors within practice theory assume an ontological difference between these entities. While ANT allows research to include a vast number of different human and non-human actors in heterogeneous networks, this symmetrical indifference also creates a sensual desert in which everything is connected indifferently to each other. SSTE is in contrast interested in human practice with its bodies and their sensual and meaningful relations to artefacts and world. Drawing on post-phenomenology material objects are seen as part of bodily human-technology-relations in which they invite certain actions and inhibit others (Ihde 1990; Verbeek 2005). How are artefacts designed to evoke specific bodily sensations? How are they practically and semiotically transformed in situated uses? While the agency of artefacts is acknowledged and thus the agency of human actors put into perspective, the focus of research remains centred on human practices. Material objects are thus not stabilised and closed entities determining practice but ambiguous and

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open entities that require practical knowledge and interpretation in their use (cf. Hörning 2005). (2) Transsituational shift: This agential shift also implies a transsituational shift that reconciles micro-sociological research with wider societal and institutional issues. Different authors argue against a micro-macro divide between local interactions and global structures that dominated classical social theory in general and functionalist accounts of education in particular (e.g. Durkheim 1956; Parsons 1959). It is argued that this results in an artificial gap and fails to explain how these two levels are connected to each other. Consequently, a number of educational researchers propose alternative accounts in which the local and the global are seen as intertwined, for instance, via an incorporated habitus (Bourdieu/Passeron 1990; Helsper et al. 2013). The socio-material perspective of SSTE proposed here assumes that material objects extend an ethnographic focus on situations beyond local interactions and co-present actors (cf. Knorr Cetina 2009). Two authors are of particular relevance here. Latour (1996) proposes a network perspective in which local elements are at the same time locally constrained and globally connected to other places and times. This is enabled via material objects and other “non-humans”: “Any time an interaction has temporal and spatial extensions, it is because one has shared it with non-humans.” (ibid: 239) Similarly, Schatzki’s “site ontology” (2002) sees contexts not as something external to practice but as inherently part of it. These contextual sites are constituted by a “mesh of practices and [material] arrangements” (Schatzki 2005: 473; emphasis in original). Both authors point out that material artefacts link together different sites and thus perpetuate social order beyond idiosyncratic situations. This idea allows us to follow material extensions while avoiding any (metaphysical) assumptions about external structures that inscrutably affect interactions. Instead, we can describe how educational sites are connected to other sites via material objects. Distant locations are indirectly present in the classroom and other places of instruction. By inscribing knowledge into material objects, educational institutions prefigure educational practice and, to a certain extent, structure what happens there. In other words: school lessons can be described as interactions that are “organizationally framed” (Vanderstraeten 2001: 270f.) via material objects. In the following I will show how the socio-material perspective of SSTE can be employed to analyse the connections between the classroom and other sites. In doing so, I will also identify the epistemic consequences of this transsituative endeavour in which several actors across different sites are involved. Throughout the paper I will make extensive use of examples taken from ethnographic research on the epistemic role of material objects in mathematics and sciences classes in German secondary schools.

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The design and use of educational artefacts Mathematics and science teachers in particular rely on a number of material objects in their daily affairs: blackboards not only visualize mathematical operations and scientific formulas, but serve as cognitive tools; experimental setups demonstrate scientific phenomena and laws; science kits grant students hands-on experience of science; plastic models embody geometrical knowledge etc. These objects are of particular importance in teaching these disciplines. They not only represent but also embody disciplinary knowledge. Let us first take a look at the design of a particular technological artefact often used in science classes: a multimeter (see figure 1). This multimeter measures several physical quantities (voltage, current, resistance) in an electric circuit and is specifically designed for educational use. It presents its measurement in an enlarged way so that everyone in the classroom can see the result of an experiment. In contrast to non-educational multimeters, its surface is reduced to a few key elements: a scale, a display, one knob for the physical quantity measured (voltage, current, resistance), another one for AC/DC, the name of the manufacturer, and some connectors. Figure 1: a multimeter

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Furthermore, the multimeter seen here is an analogue measuring instrument that makes use of an indicator needle. While other types of measurement devices often make use of a digital display, this is not the case here. The indicator needle has the advantage that it shows any differences in its measurement as a clearly visible movement, its direction connected to the change: an increase is conventionally associated with a movement to the right, and a decrease with a movement to the left. Such measuring instruments are an example for the educational disambiguation and reduction of material objects. Educational artefacts are specifically designed to match the anticipated needs of school lessons. In the design process these objects are purified and simplified in order to avoid ambiguities. Relevant features are highlighted, others are hidden behind a black box or in another way reduced. When educationally designed artefacts enter the classroom their educational disambiguation and reduction is, however, not completed. Teachers and students have to act upon them locally to transform them into educational objects. First of all they have to be introduced verbally and with a range of pointing gestures as objects of interest: After verbally introducing today’s topic (“refraction of light”) Mr Martin announces “a little experiment”. The teacher points to the experimental set-up on his cart and comments, “here you see a container filled with water, a coin and a copper pipe.” A clamp attaches the copper pipe to the container so that one end points toward the water surface, while the coin lies on the ground of the container.

The teacher introduces the experimental set-up as an object of interest and singles out some of the components. By selecting some of the components and ignoring others (e.g. the clamp and the cart), he signifies some of them as relevant and others as irrelevant. Sometimes teachers have to state explicitly that some components are not relevant: Mr Schmidt picks up a wooden box from the cart and puts it on his desk. On top of the wooden box he places a tuning fork setting it vibrating by tapping on it. The sole purpose of the wooden box, he explains, is “merely to serve as a resonating body”.

By moving conspicuously an artefact in front of the class and placing it on the elevated and central surface of the desk, the teacher draws the audience’s attention (students, researcher) towards it. The teacher consequently has to relegate the thing to a mere functional device in a setting in which the tuning fork and the sounds it emits are supposed to hold the centre stage. And later these artefacts are further transformed into mathematical and scientific objects by recording them as written inscriptions on the blackboard and in students’ notebooks. The statements and formulas on the blackboard reduce concrete

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and contingent artefacts to abstract and generalizable features, omitting “irrelevant” elements like colour, auxiliary components, and so forth. In doing so teachers and students work on a disciplinary vision of these objects. They shape these artefacts as objects that are relevant to a perspective of a discipline like physics or mathematics (cf. Lynch/Macbeth 1998). Without such practical efforts nothing of importance can be seen. For achieving such a disciplinary vision the design of objects is of great importance. Educational practice in the classroom and the design of educational artefacts are tightly intertwined (Kalthoff/Röhl 2011). This becomes especially apparent when one compares educationally designed objects with items from non-educational contexts, like household items that are used to demonstrate scientific principles and phenomena. In a mathematics class two different objects were used to teach geometry on two different occasions (see figure 2). The first object in question was a geometrical prism containing three pyramids. The prism was used to teach students the formula needed to calculate the volume of pyramids. After briefly introducing the object and its components the teacher could easily show (or at least convince) the students that the volume of a pyramid is exactly one third of a prism with the same height. To do so he simply held the object prominently in front of him, retrieved the pyramids from the prism, pointed out that they all share the same height with the prism, slid them back into the prism (“And they all fit in here…”) and announced the respective formula. Whether the students understood the mathematical or geometrical thinking behind the formula cannot be discerned. Most students, however, remembered that three pyramids with the same height fitted into the prism and by simply referring to the demonstration the teacher can invoke the formula in latter lessons (T: “Remember what I brought along last time?” S: “Ah! The three pyramids! The formula is […]”). As educational object the prism worked and ensured that the “speech-exchange system” (McHoul 1978: 187) of the classroom could move along. No one questioned whether the demonstration was about something else than geometry. Figure 2: educational and non-educational design

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In contrast, the airplane model resists such a straightforward educational use. First, the teacher and his class talked about this particular type of aircraft, its airline, general problems in aviation and so forth. By referring to the problem of air conditioning in commercial aviation, he was then able to point out geometrical characteristics of the airplane embodied by the plastic model in the classroom. He concluded this discussion by letting the students figure out what type of air conditioning an aircraft of that size requires. Thus, the pupils had first to decide which geometrical body best fits the plane. Then they had to calculate the volume of that idealized body in order to estimate the volume of the actual plane. During the whole time he held the aircraft model in his hands, reminding the students of the actual body of an airplane and urging them to see the underlying geometrical body. A mundane artefact (a model of an airplane) was thus – step-by-step – transformed into an educational object in a mathematics class on geometry. After having been introduced, the item became a topic of lengthy classroom discussion on practical problems in aviation (air conditioning at large altitudes). Only then could a mathematical problem be formulated (volume of the cabin of an aircraft), which in turn could be tied to the object at hand and thus finally transform it into a mathematical object (aircraft model as a cylinder). As with the prism, this transformation required work from teacher and students. However, the airplane model required much greater efforts by the teacher and his class to achieve this transformation than the prism. The different ways of using these two objects rest on the design of these objects. The airplane model is endowed with a number of details that resemble their real-world counterparts: there are windows, engines, the logo of the airline and so forth. This lifelike appearance creates the image of an airplane for the students. This makes it difficult to see the geometrical problem behind that image. Teacher and students have to take discursive detours in order to reach the geometrical object and the mathematical problem connected to it. This can of course be useful for teaching purposes, since it teaches students how to view different objects geometrically – and this is indeed what constitutes disciplinary vision, i.e. seeing things a specific way, knowing what is relevant about them and what is not. But using these objects for educational purposes makes a range of practices necessary that turn the airplane into a geometrical object. The geometrical model on the other hand is a prototypical exemplar of a prism. There are no signs on its surface, it does not resemble anything else but stands for itself. It is a rather purified artefact created for the purpose of showing a specific feature of a geometrical object. Its transparency lets one see inside and thus the three pyramids it contains. The pyramids are clearly distinguished by their colour – indeed, the sole purpose of the different colours is to identify quickly the shapes of three individual pyramids. Educational artefacts like the multimeter or the prism invite a specific way of looking at them; a selective disciplinary vision is inscribed into them via

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educational disambiguation and reduction. This stabilises a certain way of doing (science) education – in that case transforming ambiguous things into clearly defined entities that become part of the epistemic order of science. Material objects – whether specifically manufactured as educational artefacts or not – are, however, not naturally endowed with educational qualities. Teachers and students as well as manufacturers have to work together in order to create educational artefacts that are subject to disciplinary knowledge. The educational and disciplinary qualities of material objects are a practical achievement. This achievement is not solely brought about by the participants in the classroom, but also by manufacturers and developers of educational artefacts. Consequently, education can be described a transsituative endeavour in which the local situation in classrooms is transcended and connected to different sites that are indirectly involved in it.

L e aving the cl assroom — following the mediators A number of different institutions indirectly govern the classroom by developing material objects and other material entities. Recent developments in social theory argue for an extension of materiality beyond things (e.g. Schatzki 2010). Besides material objects there are a number of other entities that can become part of socio-material arrangements: bodies, architectures, texts (cf. Smith 2001), organisms etc. Instead of treating them as neutral carriers of social forces beyond the situation, a socio-material perspective understands them as “mediators” (Latour 2005) that transform and translate every element connected to them. To name just a few of these institutions and their mediators (see figure 3): ministries of education devise curricula that govern what is taught in schools (cf. Edwards et al. 2009); future teachers are (bodily) trained at universities and in seminars (cf. Alkemeyer/Pille 2008), before they enter schools; academic disciplines like pedagogy and educational science influence how teaching is done through the development of pedagogical concepts and methods set forth in written texts; publishers select curricular knowledge and decide how it is presented in textbooks (cf. Macgilchrist 2012); architects build schools and create spaces where certain forms of teachings are enabled (cf. Grosvenor/Burke 2007; Göhlich 2009); and – as shown by the previous examples – manufacturers of educational artefacts inscribe knowledge into material objects so that they can be used in school lessons. Furthermore, there is a number of interconnections between these different institutions. The ministry of education is, for example, linked to publishers, who have to adapt their textbooks according to the curriculum, or to architects, who need to follow regulations that govern the size or the lighting of classrooms (Burke 2005) etc.

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Figure 3: network of sites connected to school lessons

School lessons are thus not self-contained situations, but part of a transsituative network in which various mediators provide links between distant situations. This transsituative perspective has important consequences for research. If one wants to study education, one has to leave the classroom and other sites of instruction. In contrast to accounts of education that distinguish between structures/contexts and interactions/situations, this allows us to preserve a “site ontology” (Schatzki 2002) through which one can trace how exactly educational sites are connected to other sites without referring to a metaphysical realm of structures. The researcher thus has to follow the different mediators present in the classroom to the sites they are originating from. Such a “multi-sited ethnography” (Marcus 1998) aims to show how school lessons are remotely prefigured. If we follow educational artefacts in such a manner the researcher will sooner or later arrive at a number of manufacturers that develop and produce these objects. Despite a growing number of studies dealing with the materiality of education there is a lack of research on the manufacture of educational artefacts (cf. Oelkers 2010: 20). What I presented above, were first glimpses into the design of objects and how this design embodies certain ways of teaching and modes of knowledge. Taken seriously, however, a transsituative perspective on education must venture deeper into the offices and workshops of manufacturers of educational artefacts. Manufacturers of educational artefacts are important institutions contributing to school lessons. By observing the design practices in this industry, educational research can show how its contribution is accomplished long before the school bell rings. It is here that (ethno)theories of teaching and learning are materially devised and thus distributed to schools. Research on design in other fields shows that the design of artefacts and their

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later use are not clearly separated but intertwined (Yaneva 2009). Anticipating the later use of technologies is an important part of the development process of material artefacts. Designers typically achieve this through different means (Verbeek 2011: 97f.), e.g. simulation, focus groups, or ethnographic research (Julier 2007). With this knowledge about the potential use of technological artefacts, materials are selected and interfaces are designed. For the field of education the following questions arise: What kind of teaching and learning is envisioned by the designers and engineers? How are ideas about education inscribed into these artefacts? What means do manufacturers have to anticipate the use of their objects? And finally, how are the objects actually used in the classroom? Which design elements are relevant; which are irrelevant? Once these educational artefacts have been produced they have to find their way into the classroom. I understand that process not as a simple transmission but as a complex transformation. After production, educational artefacts do not simply appear in schools and fulfil their role as educational tool. Instead they progress through several stages. In between the manufacturing industry and the classroom there are several intermediate sites in which the objects are transformed and subjected to change. Like other material objects educational artefacts are not static but dynamic entities with “biographies” (Kopytoff 1986) during which they change their status. This transformation is brought about by practical efforts of various actors. Figure 4: intermediate sites between school lessons and manufacturers of educational artefacts

There are at least two intermediate sites between manufacturers of educational artefacts and school lessons (see figure 4). The first intermediate site is the marketing of educational artefacts. In economic sociology some authors argue that marketing is not just an addendum to production but a central part of the production process itself (e.g. Cochoy 1998). It is here that artefacts are constituted as economic goods and thus as desirable objects for consumers. In that regard, marketing of educational artefacts provides a promising field of research. It is where educational artefacts become desirable products. Educational artefacts are part of a large industry in which significant sums of money are spent by schools and other educational authorities. In order to compete with other manufacturers, companies have to target teachers, school directors, and educational

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authorities. Important venues for these marketing endeavours are specialised trade shows like the BETT in the UK, or the didacta in Germany. Marketers attempt to create a desirable product for their customers by imagining possible scenarios of use and highlighting their advantages and benefits for teaching. Educational artefacts are shown as being valuable to teaching and making the lives of teachers easier. For example, marketing often points out the durability of the products, thus addressing teachers’ fears of destruction by clumsy or unruly students. This is reflected by catalogues of science kits and other educational artefacts that come into direct contact with students: “All components are clearly arranged and robustly constructed for their use by students.” Some manufacturers even mention vandalism explicitly, as evidenced by this brochure advertising the interactive whiteboards of one particular manufacturer: The danger of damages through vandalism is virtually non-existent – we employ an enamelled, robust and scratch-proof metal surface and give 25 years of warranty. Our highquality projection screens are durable, because they were designed for rough use.1

In order to prove those claims, salesmen even punch their products rapidly in front of prospective buyers at trade shows. In doing so, they demonstrate the trustworthiness of their claims and bring the educational artefacts into existence as durable objects. These examples show that marketing is an important site in mediating between manufacturers and schools. Another intermediate site is the schoolrooms that store an assortment of different educational artefacts (see figure 5). These storage and preparation rooms mediate between the artefact as a product and its use in class as an educational object. Economic goods are transformed into knowledge objects that later can be selected by teachers to process knowledge in their lessons. Figure 5: storage and preparation rooms

1 | Translated from German by the author.

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Usually one teacher is formally made responsible for the administration of these rooms and the storage of a collection of educational artefacts. That person keeps an inventory of all the things stored in these rooms and decides which artefacts are purchased. When a new artefact arrives, that teacher notes down its name and its disciplinary field (e.g. mechanics), the date of purchase, its price and so forth in a list. This action not only creates a list of all the objects stored but also a meaningful collection of possible experiments related to different topics in a discipline. Educational artefacts and disciplinary knowledge are thus closely associated with each other. The experiments are not mere objects in the eyes of teachers but signify possibilities for teaching specific subjects. After the teachers write down all the necessary facts about the object, they can place them into one of the many cabinets. These cabinets are clearly labelled as part of a disciplinary order of knowledge. There are cabinets labelled “mechanics I” and “mechanics II”, “acoustics”, “electricity I” and “electricity II”, and so forth. Thus, teachers not only put these objects in a place where they fit physically but in place within an explicit knowledge order. This disciplinary order of knowledge follows a curricular order in which different topics follow each other during a school year and also in the course of the educational lifetime of a student. Not all cabinets are, however, labelled according to curricular topics: a few are named after the objects they hold. There are, for example, cabinets labelled “power supplies”, nameless hooks on which cables are hung, piles of various components, and so forth. This is evidence of a more pragmatic order of things that is also part of these rooms. In that regard, these storage rooms resemble more a workshop than a museum or archive (cf. Willems 2007: 215-219). And to some extent they are indeed workshops. Before an experiment takes place in class, teachers prepare it in these rooms. They go to a cabinet matching the topic in question and arrange the things needed for their experiment. In doing so, they not only select mere things but a curricular topic and an appropriate method of teaching. For that purpose each teacher has a cart that is assigned to him or her (see figure 6). On these carts teachers arrange the experimental set-up and test if the devices are functioning correctly. Teachers thus translate lifeless items of a collection into well-functioning devices for teaching in front of a class. Moreover, they relegate parts of their conduct with the experiment to a place protected from their students and their gaze. The prep room thus becomes a “backstage” (Goffman 1990) in which a performance is rehearsed. During these rehearsals teachers not only reassure themselves that the devices are working properly but also if phenomena are clearly visible and consistent with curricular knowledge.

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Figure 6: a science teacher’s cart

The carts also serve as a nexus connecting the storage room with the classroom in two ways. First, they have wheels so that they can be easily moved from the storage room to the classroom. Second, the carts also signify a translation between two orders. A curricular knowledge order is transformed into the situative logic of teaching. By arranging items and things on the cart teachers also try to anticipate what can be shown in a single school lesson. In order to allow for unforeseen changes, they may also put future and past experiments as well as spare parts on the lower level of the cart. Similar to a scientist’s lab bench (Lynch/Livingston/Garfinkel 1983), the cart stands for the temporal order of classroom teaching and signifies possibilities that are more or less likely: experiments on the upper level are more likely to be conducted and are made relevant in the eyes of students due to their prominent position; objects on the lower level are less visible and thus less relevant in the eyes of the participants. To sum it up: Marketing and storing/preparing are not practices that are external to education and classroom interaction. Anticipating how the objects are later used, marketing and storing/preparing are geared towards education. They are educational practices that change the status of the object in question and turn it step by step into an educational artefact to be used in school lessons. Material objects change their status several times before they even enter schools. They are processed differently along a discontinuous path by different institutions. Marketing creates desirable products that promise to make teachers’ work easy by, for example, constraining students’ misuse of educational

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artefacts. The storage or preparation rooms serve as a nexus that mediates between manufacturers and the classroom. Economic goods become part of a curricular knowledge order of a discipline. This knowledge order is mingled with a pragmatic order of a workshop-like arrangement in which teachers can transform a curricular order into the situative logic of teaching in school lessons.

C onclusion The rising interest in the materiality of education with its technologies, media, architectures, bodies etc. challenges traditional views that treat material entities either as neutral tool or as external and opaque force. SSTE instead understands education as result of an interplay between humans and things. Neither humans nor things are seen as essential beings but as performative products of the practices and arrangements of which they are (and also were) part. In this paper I argued that such a socio-material approach consequently leads to a transsituative perspective on education. Using school lessons as an example there are at least three ways in which education is a transsituative endeavour: 1. Transsituating education I – following mediators: School lessons are prefigured through different forms of knowledge that are inscribed into material objects during the manufacturing process or into teachers’ bodies during teacher education. Thus, different sites prefigure school lessons through connections established by various material mediators. By following these mediators to the sites they are originating from, research can analyse how educational work is distributed among different sites and actors. Between these sites and schools one can find a number of intermediated sites which gradually transform the mediator itself until it becomes a participant in a school lesson. Educational artefacts, for example, are subject to educational disambiguation in the manufacturing process and later in preparation rooms, before they are further purified during class by performative means. Next to this gradual trajectory one can also identify a discontinuous series of discrete changes in status: an educational artefact can be an engineering problem from a design perspective, for marketers it is a commercial product that has to be bought by prospective customers, in the storage room it becomes part of a collection ordered according to the curriculum, it signifies a temporal order of teaching during preparation on the cart, and in class it becomes an epistemic object embodying the knowledge of a discipline. 2. Transsituating education II – following interconnections: Furthermore, there are a number of interconnections between these different sites that configure school lessons. The ministry of education is, for example, also

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connected to the publishers of textbooks (via the curriculum) and to the office of the architects building schools (via regulations). By tracing these interconnections researchers can sketch hierarchies and relations of power between institutions and actors. 3. Transsituating education III – returning to the classroom and other instructional sites: A transsituative perspective also implies that the local situation is still important. The knowledge inscribed into educational artefacts and other mediators interplays with educational practices and material resistances in the classroom. Here one can observe how local and inscribed knowledge interact. Since practices and material objects are seen as tightly interwoven, one needs to observe both: the use of artefacts in the classroom and their production by specialised manufacturers (Kalthoff 2014: 104106). Only in doing so, one can fully understand the (blackboxed) agency of objects vis-à-vis human participants in the classroom. Such an approach avoids assumptions about the agency of objects that relegate the explanation to a black box. This lets us identify how inscribed knowledge is made effectively relevant in a school lesson. A transsituative perspective on education calls for a multi-sited ethnography in which the researcher follows the material mediators connecting different sites. In other words: in order to learn something about education one has to leave the immediate sites of instructions and trace the epistemic practices at the sites that configure it. This way, researchers can work towards a theoretical account of education that takes the practical efforts of teachers and learners seriously, while still acknowledging the wider environment in which instruction takes place. In contrast to classical notions of structure and context this “site ontology” (Schatzki 2002) still sees social order as a practical accomplishment. By remotely configuring mediators and locally enacting the knowledge inscribed into them, social order is stabilised over time. This is not to say that material objects are always used according to the designer’s intentions: students make fun of objects’ pedagogic intentions or misuse them, technological devices have malfunctions or simply break and thus introduce new instabilities themselves etc. Nevertheless, certain ways of doing education are socio-materially perpetuated and more likely to occur than others. A transsituative perspective thus enables educational research to trace the “trajectories” (Strauss 1993: 52-54) along which practice is aligned across different sites. One of these trajectories could be identified as an educational disambiguation and reduction of things resulting in closed and static entities.2 In that regard wider societal implicati2 | Of course, a number of other trajectories can be identified – some of them complementing or adjoining, and others opposing the trajectory described here. Science kits for elementary education, for example, translate mundane phenomena (like sunlight)

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ons of and for education become available to micro-sociological research. One important question for socio-material research on education can thus be rendered as follows: What kind of education is socially envisioned through and with material objects? In line with more traditional ethnographies a socio-material perspective renders such “seen but unnoticed” (Garfinkel 1967: 118) features of mundane activities visible and thus researchable.

R eferences Alkemeyer, Thomas/Pille, Thomas (2008): “Schule und ihre Lehrkörper: Das Referendariat als Trainingsprozess.” In: Zeitschrift für Soziologie der Erziehung und Sozialisation 28/2, pp. 137-154. Bollig, Sabine/Kelle, Helga/Seehaus, Rhea (2012): “(Erziehungs-)Objekte beim Kinderarzt: Zur Materialität von Erziehung in Kindervorsorgeuntersuchungen.” In: Karin Priem/Gudrun M. König/Rita Casale (eds.), Die Materialität der Erziehung: Kulturelle und soziale Aspekte pädagogischer Objekte, Zeitschrift Für Pädagogik, Beiheft 58, Weinheim: Beltz, pp. 218-237. Bourdieu, Pierre/Passeron, Jean-Claude (1990): Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture, London: Sage. Burke, Catherine (2005): “Light: Metaphor and Materiality in the History of Schooling.” In: Martin Lawn/Ian Grosvenor (eds.), Materialities of Schooling: Design, Technology, Objects, Routines, Oxford: Symposium Books, pp. 125-143. Cochoy, Frank (1998): “Another Discipline for the Market Economy: Marketing as Performative Knowledge and Know-How for Capitalism.” In: The Sociological Review 46/S1, pp. 194-221. Durkheim, Emile (1956): Education and Sociology, London: Collier-Macmillan. Edwards, Richard/Miller, Kate/Priestley, Mark (2009): “Curriculum-making in School and College: The Case of Hospitality.” In: Curriculum Journal 20/1, pp. 27-42. Fenwick, Tara/Edwards, Richard (2010): Actor-Network Theory in Education, London: Routledge. Garfinkel, Harold (1967): Studies in Ethnomethodology, Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall. Goffman, Erving (1990): The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, New York: Anchor. Göhlich, Michael (2009): “Schulraum und Schulentwicklung: Ein historischer Abriss.” In: Jeanette Böhme (ed.), Schularchitektur im interdisziplinären into school science tasks by obstructing the self-evidence and familiarity of these phenomena (Wiesemann/Lange 2015).

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Diskurs: Territorialisierungskrise und Gestaltungsperspektiven des schulischen Bildungsraums, Wiesbaden: VS, pp. 89-102. Grosvenor, Ian/Burke, Catherine (2007): School, London: Reaktion Books. Hasenfeld, Yeheskel (1972): “People Processing Organizations: An Exchange Approach.” In: American Sociological Review 37/3, pp. 256-263. Helsper, Werner/Kramer, Rolf-Torsten/Thiersch, Sven (2013): Schülerhabitus: Theoretische und empirische Analysen zum Bourdieuschen Theorem der kulturellen Passung, Wiesbaden: VS. Hörning, Karl H. (2005): “Lob der Praxis: Praktisches Wissen im Spannungsfeld zwischen technischen und sozialen Uneindeutigkeiten.” In: Gerhard Gamm/Andreas Hetzel (eds.), Unbestimmtheitssignaturen der Technik: Eine neue Deutung der technisierten Welt, Bielefeld: transcript, pp. 297310. Ihde, Don (1990): Technology and the Lifeworld: From Garden to Earth, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Julier, Guy (2007): “Design Practice Within a Theory of Practice.” In: Design Principles & Practices: An International Journal 1/2, pp. 43-50. Kalthoff, Herbert (2011): “Social Studies of Teaching and Education: Skizze einer sozio-materiellen Bildungsforschung.” In: Daniel Suber/Hilmar Schäfer/Sophia Prinz (eds.), Pierre Bourdieu und die Kulturwissenschaften: Zur Aktualität eines undisziplinierten Denkens, Constance: UVK, pp. 107-31. Kalthoff, Herbert (2014): “Ethnographische Bildungsforschung Revisited.” In: Anja Tervooren/Nicolas Engel/Michael Göhlich/Ingrid Miethe/Sabine Reh (eds.), Ethnographie und Differenz in pädagogischen Feldern: Internationale Entwicklungen erziehungswissenschaftlicher Forschung, Bielefeld: transcript, pp. 97-116. Kalthoff, Herbert/Röhl, Tobias (2011): “Interobjectivity and Interactivity: Material Objects and Discourse in Class.” In: Human Studies 34/4, pp. 451-469. Knorr Cetina, Karin (2009): “The Synthetic Situation: Interactionism for a Global World.” In: Symbolic Interaction 32/1, pp. 61-87. Kopytoff, Igor (1986): “The Cultural Biography of Things: Commoditization as Process.” In: Arjun Appadurai (ed.), The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 64-94. Latour, Bruno (1996): “On Interobjectivity.” In: Mind, Culture, and Activity 3/4, pp. 228-245. Latour, Bruno (2005): Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lynch, Michael/Livingston, Eric/Garfinkel, Harold (1983): “Temporal Order in Laboratory Work.” In: Karin Knorr Cetina/Michael Mulkay (eds.), Science Observed: Perspectives on the Social Study of Science, London: Sage, pp. 205-238.

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Lynch, Michael/Macbeth, Douglas H. (1998): “Demonstrating Physics Lessons.” In: James G. Greeno/Shelley V. Goldman (eds.), Thinking Practices in Mathematics and Science Learning, Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 269-97. Macgilchrist, Felicitas (2012): “Global Subjects: Exploring Subjectivation Through Ethnography of Media Production.” In: Pragmatics 22/3, pp. 417445. Marcus, George E. (1998): “Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-Sited Ethnography.” In: Ethnography Through Thick and Thin, Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 79-104. McHoul, Alexander (1978): “The Organization of Turns at Formal Talk in the Classroom.” In: Language in Society 7/2, pp. 183-213. Nohl, Arnd-Michael/Wulf, Christoph (eds.) (2013): Mensch und Ding: Die Materialität pädagogischer Prozesse, Wiesbaden: VS. Oelkers, Jürgen (2010): “Lehrmittel: Rückgrat des Unterrichts.” In: Folio (Berufsbildung Schweiz) 135/1, pp. 18-21. Parsons, Talcott (1959): “The School Class as a Social System: Some of Its Functions in American Society.” In: Harvard Educational Review 29/4, pp. 297318. Reckwitz, Andreas (2002): “Towards a Theory of Social Practices: A Development in Culturalist Theorizing.” In: European Journal of Social Theory 5/2, pp. 243-263. Röhl, Tobias (2013): Dinge des Wissens: Schulunterricht als sozio-materielle Praxis, Stuttgart: Lucius & Lucius. Schatzki, Theodore R. (2002): The Site of the Social: A Philosophical Account of the Constitution of Social Life and Change, University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. Schatzki, Theodore R. (2005): “Peripheral Vision: The Sites of Organization.” In: Organization Studies 26/3, pp. 465-484. Schatzki, Theodore R. (2010): “Materiality and Social Life.” In: Nature and Culture 5/2, pp. 123-149. Smith, Dorothy E. (2001): “Texts and the Ontology of Organizations and Institutions.” In: Studies in Cultures, Organizations and Societies 7/2, pp. 159-198. Strauss, Anselm L. (1993): Continual Permutations of Action, New York: Aldine. Sørensen, Estrid (2009): The Materiality of Learning: Technology and Knowledge in Educational Practice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Vanderstraeten, Raf (2001): “The School Class as an Interaction Order.” British Journal of Sociology of Education 22/2, pp. 267-277. Verbeek, Peter-Paul (2005): What Things Do: Philosophical Reflections on Technology, Agency, and Design, University Park: Penn State Press.

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Verbeek, Peter-Paul (2011): Moralizing Technology: Understanding and Designing the Morality of Things, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Wiesemann, Jutta/Lange, Jochen (2015): “‘Education in a Box’: Die Herstellung schulischer Artefakte in der Lehr-Lernmittelindustrie.” In: Zeitschrift für interpretative Schul- und Unterrichtsforschung 4 (forthcoming). Willems, Katharina (2007): Schulische Fachkulturen und Geschlecht: Physik und Deutsch – Natürliche Gegenpole? Bielefeld: transcript. Yaneva, Albena (2009): “Making the Social Hold: Towards an Actor-Network Theory of Design.” In: Design and Culture 1/3, pp. 273-88.

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Matters of Learning and Education Sociomaterial Approaches in Ethnographic Research Tara Fenwick, Sarah Doyle, Maureen Michael, Jennifer Scoles

A bstr act In this chapter we outline a “sociomaterial” configuration that has been circulating in the broader social sciences with useful potential for understanding dynamics of learning, pedagogy, curriculum, policy, and so forth. This approach seeks to examine critically how the social and material not only are entangled in what some call “assemblages” of the human and nonhuman, but also constitute the practices and knowings that comprise education. The chapter focuses in particular on methodologies for researching professional learning and knowing as sociomaterial practice. We draw examples from three doctoral studies-in-progress of learning in different settings: engineers in project teams developing environmental technologies, artists learning to balance multiple activities of art, market and bureaucracy, and health-care workers learning to implement a new technology in a paediatric diabetes clinic. These examples illustrate the insights as well as the dilemmas in working with sociomaterial approaches to make visible the materialities of learning. One key contribution here is the first hand voices of new researchers experimenting with these approaches. The methods and theories are difficult to apply, and the stories here help to reveal the strategies that student researchers adopted to work through the challenges of sociomaterial approaches.

I ntroduction Materials – things that matter – are often missing from accounts of educational processes such as learning. Materials tend to be ignored as part of the backdrop for human action, dismissed in a preoccupation with consciousness and cognition, or relegated to brute tools subordinated to human intention and design. This treatment still tends to privilege the intentional human subject, which is

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assumed to be different or separate from the material. In educational research, Sørensen (2009: 2) argues that there is a “blindness toward the question of how educational practice is affected by materials”. However, in more recent educational studies (Fenwick/Nerland 2014; Hager et al. 2012; Jensen et al. 2012), researchers have pressed for much more recognition of the ways that materiality actively configures educational practice and knowing, which have tended to be considered as social phenomena. Why this new focus on materials? Materials – objects, bodies, technologies, and settings – permit some actions, and prevent others. They convey particular knowledges and can become powerful. Everyday things such as doors, seat belts, keys, and car parks are, as Latour (2005) has written, political locations where values and interests are negotiated and ultimately inscribed into the very materiality of the things themselves – thereby rendering these values and interests more or less permanent. In other words, material and social forces are interpenetrated in ways that have important implications for how we might examine their mutual constitution in educational processes and events, through ethnographic research. In this chapter, we discuss our methodological work with sociomaterial perspectives. For us, the important question is not what theories say, but the kind of work they can do when we are in “the field” of the research site collecting information, or sitting at home amidst masses of notes, photos, and interview transcripts trying to discern useful patterns. Our particular area of study within educational research is professional learning, and we study this ethnographically in various work sites of professional practice. We present three examples from studies, all conducted by doctoral students, to show how different students theorise this notion of “sociomateriality”, and how they each have operationalised it in their research methods. First we offer a brief introduction to key shared ideas of sociomaterial perspectives. Then each of the three doctoral researchers – Jenny, Maureen, and Sarah – describe their particular study and methodological experiments. One key contribution here is the first hand voices of new researchers experimenting with these approaches. The methods and theories are difficult to apply, and the stories here help to reveal the strategies that these student researchers adopted to work through the challenges of sociomaterial approaches. The chapter closes with reflections about implications and questions for educational research.

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S ociomaterial perspectives Many theoretical approaches could be referred to as “sociomaterial”, as explained further on, but it would be impossible to do justice to their distinctions in this brief chapter. The main intent here is to provide a very brief introduction to certain shared commitments and approaches across these theories. What all of these perspectives tend to share is, first, a focus on materials as dynamic and enmeshed with human activity in everyday practices. This is what Orlikowski (2007) calls “the constitutive entanglement of the social and material”. “Material” refers to all the everyday stuff of our lives that is both organic and inorganic, technological and natural: flesh and blood, forms and checklists, electronic records and databases, furniture and passcodes, snowstorms and dead cell zones, and so forth. “Social” refers to symbols and meanings, desires and fears, and cultural discourses. Both material and social forces are mutually implicated in bringing forth everyday activities. This is an understanding of relationships that pushes beyond assumptions that objects and subjects inter-act, as though they are separate entities that develop connections. Instead, sociomaterial accounts examine what the complexity physicist Barad (2003) describes as intra-actions of heterogeneous elements of nature, technologies, humanity, and materials of all kinds. These elements and forces penetrate one another – they act together – to bring forth what appear to be the solid, separate, immutable objects of everyday life. Things like waves or particles emerge in particular ways according to what Barad calls the “apparatuses” that we use to observe, work with, and make meaning of everyday materials. As we observe and work with them, we create categories that define subjects and objects. These “cuts” in matter create boundaries that define (subjects and objects, activity and phenomena) but also open new possibilities. This is a rethinking of causality as entanglements with surprising effects, not linear relations between causes and effects. This is a second shared understanding: that all materials or, more accurately, all sociomaterial objects, are in fact heterogeneous assemblages. They are gatherings of heterogeneous natural, technical, and cognitive elements. All objects and material settings embed a history of these gatherings in the negotiation of their design and accumulated uses, whether lecture halls, presentation software, testing instruments, essays, pedagogical protocols, etc. In examining particular educational practices, researchers ask how and why particular elements became assembled, why some elements become included and others excluded, and how elements change as they come together, as they intra-act. Third, a sociomaterial perspective tends to views all things – human and non-human, hybrids and parts, knowledge and systems – as effects of connections and activity. Things are performed into existence in webs of relations; they are not independent entities with inherent properties and boundaries. This starting point highlights not individual things, but the practices through which

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boundaries come into being, the practices which define things and identities, the practices which assign value to some while ignoring others. This view also helps us recognise how materials act, together with other types of things and forces, to exclude, invite, and regulate activity. This is not arguing that objects have agency: an essay does not write itself. But its particular production is an agentic assemblage of assignment protocols and literary traditions, books and other content sources (entailing all the materialities of library line-ups, slow internet browsers, fortuitous tweets, etc.), post-it notes and piles of paper and tablet computers, the particular affordances and directives of word processing software – all working in and through human bodies and consciousness. Any educational practice is a collective sociomaterial enactment, not a question solely of one individual’s skills or agency. Fourth, most sociomaterial perspectives – in different ways – accept the fundamental uncertainty of everyday life, as well as of the knowledge, tools, environments, and identities that are continually produced in it. Unpredictable novel possibilities and patterns are always emerging. This may be a familiar notion, but sociomaterial theories offer specific analytic tools that can examine much more precisely just how these new webs or assemblages are emerging – why they come together to produce and mobilise particular effects, and when they do not. These are processes that complexity theory explains in terms of strong emergence (Osberg 2008), actor-network theorists call translation, and Deleuzian new materialists call becoming (e.g. cf. Braidotti 2013). The focus is on the relations between things: how things influence and alter one another in ways that are continuously opening as well as foreclosing new possibilities.

D ifferent interests , different approaches A wide range of perspectives adopting a “materiality” orientation are being employed to understand and reconceptualise professional learning (Fenwick/ Nerland 2014). Those that tend to appear most frequently in contemporary educational research include actor-network theory and “after-ANT” approaches, practice theory, complexity theory, new geographies, “new materialisms”, and activity theory (Fenwick/Edwards/Sawchuk 2011). ANT emerges from post-structural orientations, and is more a diffuse cloud of sensibilities than a theory given its many internal contestations among key writers such as Latour (2005) and Mol (2002). Many terms in the literature, such as “relational materiality”, “material semiotics”, STS (science and technology studies), and “sociotechnical” studies, share core commitments with ANT. Its lasting influences are a networked view of reality and a radical treatment of human and non-human elements as equal contributors to the “networks” that continually

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assemble and reassemble to generate particular activities, objects, and knowledge. In education, ANT and “after-ANT” perspectives have been employed to examine issues of curriculum, teaching and learning, educational policy, and assessment (Fenwick/Edwards 2010). Complexity theory is much different in orientation, and affords a range of competing approaches emerging not from sociology but chiefly from evolutionary biology and physics, cybernetics and general systems theories. Complexity theorists Davis/Sumara (2006) and Osberg (2008) have become particularly influential in educational studies, suggesting that we examine dynamics of “emergence”, diffraction, and connectivity in practices of knowing. Turning to new human and cultural geographies, these theories examine the material spaces and places of professional practice to show how they help produce the social, but are also produced by human activity and meaning (e.g. Massey 2005). It is also important to mention the growing educational interest in “practice theory” which draws from notions of “knowing-in-practice”. That is, practice is understood to be collective, emergent, material and more-than-human; knowing is embedded in and expressed through practice (Gherardi/Strati 2012; Hager/Lee/Reich 2012; Nicolini 2013). Finally, another branch of studies that is gaining much traction in education is calling itself the “new materialisms” (Coole/Frost 2010). These studies often draw from ideas of philosopher Gilles Deleuze – such as immanence, creativity, and assemblage – to examine how particular social and material forces bring forth very different ways of being. The most immediate implication of these ideas for professional learning and practice is to challenge traditional individualist notions of causality, agency, and change: professional activities, including “errors”, are understood to be part of emergent systems. Materiality, as Coole and Frost (2010) explain, is always more than mere matter – it is an excess force, a relationality that makes matter active in what occurs in everyday professional practice. Obviously this chapter cannot address the many additional perspectives relevant to a sociomaterial focus. For example, many educational ethnographers draw methods from the Developmental Work Research protocols that have been developed as part of cultural historical activity theory (Daniels et al. 2009 for DWR methods applied to studies of multi-professional learning). Other educational ethnographers have worked with Knorr Cetina’s (1997) notions of “epistemic practice” and “epistemic objects” to examine professional learning (e.g. cf. Jensen et al. 2012). Also omitted here are discussions of all the limitations that could be ascribed to these different sociomaterial theories, as well as the critical debates amongst them (cf. Fenwick et al. 2011). The intention here is to provide a glimpse or a taste – an introduction showing selected sociomaterial theories in action. These begin with the assumption that learning and practice is morethan-human, and that to understand these educational processes we need to move beyond preoccupations with human meanings and human agency.

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M aps , doubles , and photos : J ennifer S coles In my doctoral research, I was interested in understanding how professional knowing changes and adapts in contexts of high uncertainty, innovation, and volatility, which is increasingly the case for many practitioners. Using ethnographic methods, I chose to focus on the professional knowing of engineers in the emerging sector of renewable energy, specifically that of the wind turbine industry. Over a period of six months, I observed, shadowed, and interviewed engineers in Turbo UK (a pseudonym for a renewable energy firm that installs and maintains wind turbines around the UK). In these observations it became clear that engineers’ knowing emerges with and becomes defined by the specific technologies, discourses, bodies, and objects of their work; nonetheless their training still emphasises disciplinary knowledge of formulas and models. The process of knowing is very hard to study. Blackler et al. (1993) recommend that research on knowledge work should centre on what people do in their work practice rather than what they know. The professionals’ role, in this case as engineers in a renewable-energy organisation, achieves its form as a consequence of the relations in which it is located in day-to-day work. It is by tracing and following the micro-practices of their routines that we can start to understand engineers’ professional knowing. Thus Gherardi’s (2011) “knowing-in-practice” provides an approach from which the researcher can situate their understanding of knowing as relational to the practices as they unfold. In particular, I borrowed approaches from actor-network theory (ANT) to inform my methodology. ANT considers both humans and non-humans capable of bestowing agency and exerting force. It aims to trace and describe the relational practices, or the networks, which underlie a practice in question, for example, how a workplace comes together and consequently stays together. As Latour (1999: 19) argues, ANT is a useful framework to understand work practices, because it aims to relocate the power held by the social scientist to that of the actors as only they “know what they do […] and how and why they do it”. The idea of such an approach calls for the researcher to follow the tiny details of a practice wherever they may lead, and this includes following material as well as human traces. Following objects is not new to ethnography. In fact, it is a crucial factor of traditional ethnography. What is new, and what an ANT approach brings to the fore, are the interactions and relations between and among the humans (employees, customers, and stake holders) and the materials of their environments. What holds, or fails to hold, practices in place are these sociomaterial assemblages: rules, texts, signs, supervisory gazes, processes, office spaces, management documents, meetings and teams. Finally, ANT is a useful sensibility to adopt for a study on emerging sectors, like that of renewable energy, where professionals are working in unpredictable and uncertain environments with highly variable knowledge demands, and “[…] in situations where innova-

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tion proliferate, where group boundaries are uncertain, [and] when the range of entities to be taken into account fluctuates” (Latour 2005: 11). The engineers’ knowing at work is contingent upon spaces and places, political incentives, turbine technologies, tools, materials, software packages and time constraints, all of which are highly volatile in this sector. Therefore, this perspective situates practices as precarious and messy alignments and stabilisations of human and non-human actors amongst a multiplicity of perspectives.

Tracking the sociomaterial in research Following these sociomaterial traces presented me with a theoretical and methodological conundrum: objects themselves cannot speak back and explain their intentions. Conducting observations and following these materials can only lead your data collection so far, so researchers tend to resort to reverting our attention to the humans to provide their views on their entanglement with materials and technology. Thus, humans continue to maintain privilege over objects, a position counter to ANT’s arguments. However, I found it difficult to maintain this ANT symmetry in a study focusing on professionals’ knowing. Given my focus on how this knowledge emerged in volatile environments, I genuinely wanted to know what the intentions of the engineers were, and how they were positioned and positioning themselves in relation to the objects, settings, and technologies through which they worked. This is part of a larger issue that I wrestled with throughout my thesis: my own training as a psychologist kept surfacing and I found it nearly impossible not to keep returning to human experience of materiality as a key informant of the relations. In short, I wanted to hear the voices of the human actors. So, as well as systematically observing and photographing the engineers’ everyday activities, I conducted interviews. In these interviews I experimented with methods of mapping, interview to the double, and photo elicitation to get the engineers talking about the sociomaterial relations of their practice. I will briefly discuss the first two methods below, then spend more time explaining my experiences with photo elicitation in this study.

Mapping relations with objects Over the course of the six months in which I observed participants at work, I interviewed them individually at least three times. In the second interview, I asked participants to draw a mind map, noting all the people and objects with whom they came into contact on an average day to get their work done. These mind maps were to be different from traditional relational maps, as they were to show relations between themselves and objects as well as humans, not just list objects as associated with particular humans. As the participants sketched the

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map (they did this while I was there), they often talked about the links between themselves and the objects they used to get their work done. Most observed that they found themselves writing down objects that they had not thought about in our first interview, during which I had simply asked them to describe how materials affected their everyday work. Here is one example (figure 1). Figure 1: Mapping objects in everyday work – example 1

As you can see, “Chris” (a pseudonym) began to define all sorts of social-human assemblages that compelled his work, and even began to represent certain processes and protocols as material forces. Not everyone found this exercise useful, however, and some found it very difficult to work with this mapping genre to represent the micro-details of their material work (see figure 2). Figure 2: Mapping objects in everyday work – example 2

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Inter view to the double “Interview to the double” is a technique popularised for practice-based studies by Nicolini (2009). Essentially the interviewer asks the participant to narrate precisely what they do to accomplish a particular practice – as if giving detailed instructions to someone who is going to impersonate them without being suspected by colleagues. I tried this in an interview late in my data collection. The instructions I gave were something like this: Imagine that tomorrow, an alien that looks exactly like you – your double – has offered to come to work to take your place (you get a free day off). In order not to betray the switch and alert your colleagues, the alien must conduct himself exactly as you behave, down to the smallest detail of personal habits. Therefore, please give detailed instructions to me as if I were your double, on precisely what I must do from the moment I enter your workplace. Start with “First you must […]”.

Overall, this exercise had varying degrees of success. Most participants began with plenty of detail about how they booted up their laptop, got their coffee, and prioritised their workload. However, by the time they got to their afternoon activities, they often said “and then I just went to meetings and did my tasks on my to-do list”. Many seemed to struggle to remain at the micro-level. Sometimes I directed the participant to describe a particular practice, such as attending a site meeting on the wind farm site. This seemed to work much better, with greater detail and more instructions, perhaps because there was concrete focus and boundaries provided by the delimited time frame. Overall, this exercise was most useful for helping participants to recognise and verbalise a range of small tasks that make up their everyday practices, tasks that they often take for granted when simply asked to describe their work practice.

Photo elicitation Asking participants to show or discuss with me the “things” of their practice is very challenging. Explaining myself to them as being “interested in exploring the relationships between the humans and non-humans of their workplace” often drew blank, and slightly concerned, looks. One way of communicating an understanding of these relationships is to photograph the materials and invite the participants to discuss them in an interview, a method called “photo elicitation”. When taking photos for this type of interview, Harper (2002: 20) encourages the researcher to “break the frame”, avoiding photos of things that participants are used to seeing in their everyday, or altering the angles of photos, towards promoting “a reflective stance vis-à-vis the taken-for-granted aspects of work and community”. I

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then asked the participants also to take photos themselves of the “things” in their practice for our final interview. These practical procedures may seem mundane, but they are in fact very important when we consider how to engage research participants in making more visible the materiality of their work and the emergent sociomaterial systems within which their knowing is entangled. Photo elicitation and object mapping helped participants to realise how “things” affected their activity, whereas their initial conversations tended to focus on their interactions with humans: clients and colleagues. All the participants agreed that, while these methods of interview to the double and photo usage were novel to them, the methods opened new ways of appreciating their practice and their own. People who were used to thinking in terms of plans and decisions began to note the many material influences on what eventually materialises as a plan or a contract. In terms of research process, these methods also helped prompt concrete discussions of professional “knowing” with these engineers, moving beyond abstractions and mentalist orientations of knowing to actually describe specific instances of knowing emerges in their practice – while practice emerges in their knowing.

S eeing sociomaterially with visual me thodologies : M aureen M ichael My doctoral study, “Precarious practices: A visual study of the work of artists”, seeks to understand the knowing of artists and how they learn this professional knowing. I sought to reach this understanding through an image-based attention to what artists do and which objects are involved. Two questions are at the core of the study: What are the sociomaterial practices that come together in the work practices of the visual artist? How does professional knowledge emerge through these sociomaterial practices? I understand sociomaterial practice as the material constitution of social life. I draw from Schatzki’s (2001: 3) “materially mediated arrays of doings and sayings” but more specifically from Knorr Cetina’s (1997) object-centred sociality where professional practices gather around unfolding objects of knowledge. As an artist myself, I decided to employ visual methods in my research using digital photographs as well as drawings, as described by Pink (2011 [2007]). In particular, I tried to use these visual methods not only in data collection but also in analysis. In this approach, the visual medium and the arts-based tools themselves were to become visible as actors in the research process. I began by taking dozens of photos of four artists at work as I observed them in different locations of studio, home, exhibition space, meetings, and travel. Then I drew multiple iterations of selected photos to experiment with interpretations of their content, as well as to play with the whole process of representing lived

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experience through ethnographic methods. This methodology itself is materially inclined, which lends it congruence with the sociomaterial leanings of the underpinning practice theory. The materiality of the artists’ practices cannot be avoided, in part because the materiality of the visual methodology keeps drawing attention to it. For artists, actions of working are entangled with the materiality of their artwork and their social world. The entanglement of these sociomaterial relations is a phenomenon of fascination, but, as we study it, do we risk disentangling, and thus obscuring, the very relations we hope to illuminate? How can these relations be observed in a way that avoids unravelling and concealing the phenomenon? These issues posed concrete struggles for me as I played with various representations of these relations through visual art. The visual approach itself brought analytic predicaments. Drawing an analysis performs different work than expository text-based analysis. Different languages are employed and different orders of analysis emerge. As a written text demands a particular literacy in order to be read, so an image demands a different, visual, literacy in order to be viewed. To illustrate this process, I have selected an example from my work with one artist, Roddy Buchanan. I visited Roddy eight times over six months to observe his learning in practice, taking 236 photos of his everyday practices. Looking across the images, I became aware that Roddy is often depicted sitting at his desk in the “admin room” of his studio (figure 3). The images intrigued me because they are so seemingly static and uninteresting as to be invisible. It is a recurring scene throughout the six months of fieldwork and I felt compelled to understand the moment of practice further. Figure 3: “Roddy 01” photo

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Material and visual process of analysis In my thesis, I described the content of this image in terms of what Roddy is shown to be doing, as well as in all the formal aspects of composition, colour, and perspective. However, in all acts of description there remains what was not described. Just as a written description oscillates between representation and construction of something observed, my drawing of a photograph – even when I trace the lines rather than drawing free hand – oscillates between efforts to mirror what I see and deliberate decisions to interpret and create something new. Figure 4: “Roddy 01” drawn interpretation

Using a fine black pen, I followed contours and edges, tracing shapes and halfshapes through translucent tracing paper. The drawing “Roddy 01” (figure 4) is the first of many such tracings. Mindful of what is traced and what is left untraced or partially traced, these lines began to analyse the image visually. In creating “Roddy 01”, I appealed again to some formal aspects of composition, shape, and line: I became more aware of the diagonal split from the top left, down to the bottom right, a split that I saw more clearly as my eye followed the line of Roddy’s sleeve to the edge of the mousemat. The central rectangles of the monitor are described only in black line and white space. There are no flashes of colour to guide the eye across the image. Instead, the changing relationships between black lines and whites spaces are all that is used to direct, or misdirect, attention. The cabling is shown fused with the monitor, the key-

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board, the mug, the table, and Roddy. When tracing the lines, I chose to create spaces and imply connections; I chose to leave items incompletely traced, but then fixated on the tiny mark-making that might construct the short dark hair of Roddy’s head. It is not a resolved drawing. There are too many things being tried out (the deliberate joining of things, the unfinished objects, the over-attention to details of hair, collar and cuff) and this results in an incoherence that is not deliberate. I expected this drawing to be the means to another drawing, another visual analysis of the visual and material phenomenon that is the work practice of the artist. In this form, the analysis does not translate one literacy into another. Rather, as Pink (2011 [2007: 119]) suggests, it explores the relationship between the visual and the material.

Rethinking visual analysis The drawing is both a new aesthetic production and a visual act of analysis. The act of analysis occurs in the selected drawing of lines and the attention to space, texture, colour, and form to explore particular relations of both knowledge and practice. In the creation of “Roddy 01”, I drew attention to some things and I averted attention away from others. This is no different to analysing field notes or transcripts: the analysis is always subject to the decision-making process of the analyst. This analysis rehearses ideas of visuality and materiality as a sociomaterial methodology for the study of practice. Much like the drawing of “Roddy 01”, these ideas are unresolved, but, in bringing the visual into conversation with the material, I create an innovative methodological space that is enacted through an interplay of material technologies and processes with visual acts of observation and analysis. Even my simple description here of a single photograph and a single drawing performs the unfolding predicaments of a visual approach to the study of practice: from observational fieldwork to managing digital images; from describing images to analytic drawing. There is likely nothing new in this interplay among everyday lived experience, representation, and visual media in the research process. However, for me as a student researcher, the process has been a profound awakening to the sociomaterial ways in which I – my body, mind, hands, and interests – am interpellated with my research participants and with the knowledge that we are producing together. Attending this closely to the visuality of practice as well as the materiality of research, I have come to see how research practices actually constitute the practices and learning that we purport to study.

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D iffr active me thodologies : S ar ah D oyle My doctoral study examined the emergence of professional knowledge in health care for paediatric diabetes. Children with type 1 diabetes need a regular supply of insulin administered either by injections or by an insulin pump (Continuous Subcutaneous Insulin Infusion). Children administer insulin several times each day, with parental support. They also do finger-prick blood tests to measure their blood glucose levels and then record the results. The emphasis in my research was on the work practices and knowledge required on the part of the professionals as they support these children and families. The research took place in a busy Paediatric Diabetes Outpatient Clinic. Data collection comprised observations of work practices including consultations with children and their families, professional meetings and informal interactions; interviews with professionals (transcribed for subsequent analysis); documentary analysis; and examination of artefacts. Here, I show how Barad’s (2007) particular arrangement of theoretical ideas highlights the specific effects of different diabetes treatments and implicates particular technologies as active participants in the emergence of professional knowledge. In paediatric diabetes, professional practice and knowledge are typically understood to be about human relationships. However, as most sociomaterial researchers would appreciate, such health practices are also fundamentally about blood tests, needles, medicines, insulin, injections, hospital clinics, political policies reconfiguring health care services, complex new treatment regimens, and emerging technologies. This recognition does not excise humanness from the investigation, but emphasises that the study of professional knowledge practices does not entail an exclusive focus on the health professional. Spending time in the field, in this case a children’s hospital, opened myriad possibilities for alternative focal points.

Thinking social and material together As mentioned in the introduction to this chapter, Barad’s (2007) goal is not simply to recognise that both social and material matter, but to examine how they matter. Developing her philosophy of agential realism, Barad contends that this way of understanding causal relationships reframes traditional notions of cause and effect. The notion of entanglement denotes the entwining of more than just objects and people, to include also mutually constituted agencies (Barad 2007: 33). It is not that separate, delineated entities come together to interact, rather things already loosely connected participate actively with each other to produce particular phenomena. Technologies and professionals intra-act towards the production of professional knowledge. Using this approach,

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it becomes possible to examine that knowledge by tracing the participation and effects of technologies. Following Barad (2007), I began to discern professionals and technologies working together in dynamic constellations. Early in the study, one particular comment from a senior professional caught my attention. I was told: “Diabetes is a different illness with an insulin pump”. Insulin pumps are increasingly available and offer an especially precise way of administering frequent, small amounts of insulin. Figure 5 shows a small, battery operated digital pump unit, approximately the size of a small mobile phone. A cartridge holds the insulin, and would normally be inserted inside the plastic pump unit. The length of clear tubing attaches the pump unit to the body, usually into the abdomen via another very fine plastic tube called a cannula. A needle would be used to insert the cannula under the skin of the abdomen and an adhesive patch applied to hold it in place. Figure 5: Insulin Pump

I began noticing the insulin pumps and the ripples and waves they created. I became curious about the effects they produced, and the ways they participated in professional work practices. I began to watch not how professionals used insulin pumps, as if they were inert tools with fixed boundaries, waiting to be manipulated, but what happened when insulin pumps played a part. One challenge in assuming a sociomaterially-entangled world is its analysis: how can these tangles be investigated? Barad (2007) emphasises that the theoretical frame is active and creates effects. The methodology itself participates to configure the study. Initially, it seemed as if it would be straightforward to avoid focusing on human thoughts and feelings, and instead to sustain attention to professional work practices. But this it required continual work to achieve, even though it was built into the research design from the

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beginning. For example, ethnographic research seeks direct engagement with the social world and in-depth investigation through observations, interviews, documentary analysis, and examination of artefacts (Hammersley/Atkinson 2007). Involvement in the day-to-day lives of the research subjects is key, and there is a firm commitment to “study situations close-up, intimately” (Marcus 2008: 4). At first glance these commitments appear to support the study of everyday professional practices, but the inherent prioritisation of human perceptions and cultural influences seriously limits the capacity to encounter entangled agencies. It has not uncommon in sociomaterial research to adopt strategies akin to Latour’s (2005) injunction to “follow the actors”, who may in fact be object assemblages. I found that purposefully following the insulin pump instead of the professionals using it helped make a different “agential cut”. This perspective helped avoid slipping into a study of, for example, how professionals use tools or how professionals respond to technologies, which would have reintroduced a human-centred preoccupation and undermined the assumption of equivalence I sought to maintain.

Diffractive analysis According to Barad, the agential cut resolves the indeterminacy of relational entanglements and produces a boundary. Separability emerges even though it continues to be provisional. This concept of the agential cut was especially useful as I grappled with the analysis of the data. I struggled to reconcile the need to make appropriate reductions to the data without losing the essential connectedness that constituted the intra-actions I wanted to examine. Foregrounding the insulin pump and according it agential capacity allowed me to make considered decisions about where to cut the data together and apart. I understood these cuts not as permanent fixes but instead as provisional resolutions. As I came to sense the implications of these ideas, I spent lengthy periods moving back and forth across the data. I was trying to find an analytical method that would respect the mutually constituted nature of entangled agencies and yet still allow me to unravel the intra-actions just enough to examine their workings. A reconsideration of Barad’s (2007) concept of diffraction helped me to move forward. Understanding the essence of diffraction is aided by considering it through another, more familiar, optical process: reflection. Reflection is a process of reflecting a two-dimensional mirror image, whereas diffraction is a process of patterning the effects produced (Barad 2007). A commonly used physical example of diffraction is the rainbow effect produced when light bounces off the surface of a CD or DVD: the light is diffracted and its component parts become visible. This rainbow effect is fundamentally different from the light reflected by a mirror.

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I approached the analysis of my data through the mechanism of diffraction. I looked for ways of patterning the different effects produced by different technologies. My field notes and transcripts contained a wealth of sayings, seeings, and writings about everyday professional knowing in paediatric diabetes, and, as I organised my data according to particular technologies, I began to notice how these particular technologies really mattered in the specific knowledge practices they implicated. Using the idea of the insulin pump as a diffractive mechanism, I sought to pattern the different component dimensions of professional knowing that intra-act when insulin pumps participate. Working slowly, I gathered the strands of data that spoke somehow to the insulin pump. I was able to cut together the professional concerns about insulin pumps being unsafe in inexperienced or inattentive hands and the requirements for numeracy and commitment to make them a viable treatment option. I cut together the different work practices of recording blood glucose levels that accompanied insulin pumps and the different software packages that replaced handwritten diaries. I cut together particular photographic images, especially one that captured little rows of new insulin pumps, ready for eager wearers, packaged in boxes sporting an image of a young woman snow boarding. In this context of paediatric diabetes, insulin pump technology shapes professional knowing in specific ways. The different work practices and demands on professionals that are invoked by the technology produce a knowing that is not the same as knowing the more familiar insulin injection therapies. The professional knowing in everyday clinical work is changed: the technology unsettles existing arrangements and co-produces new entanglements. I have described some of the early but progressively deepening iterations of working with data generated through sociomaterial investigations. Holding the insulin pump at the centre of my data collection and data analysis does not suggest the insulin pump is at the centre of professional health care practice and knowledge. Instead, this provisional foregrounding of the insulin pump enables my sustained attention to sociomaterial entanglements. In this way, the specific intra-actions that really matter in configurations of professional knowing start to become visible.

C onclusions and implications This chapter has provided a glimpse of sociomaterial approaches used in conducting ethnography in educational research. The three doctoral students whose ethnographic work has been featured here have each shown how these approaches offered useful ways to trace the materiality of learning and knowing practices in their own research. These studies are all focused on profession-

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al learning in the activities of everyday work, which is an important branch of educational ethnography. In particular, the researchers are each exploring the relations among professionals’ changing understandings of their work, identities, bodies, and clients with their changing built environments, instruments, and technologies. This chapter has highlighted a very small piece of each study to illustrate new researchers’ experiments with sociomaterial approaches at various points in the ethnographic process: data gathering (Jenny Scoles), data interpretation (Maureen Michael), and analytic theorising of the material (Sarah Doyle). Jenny’s study of engineers’ knowing practices in a new and continuously innovative industry offers some methods to elicit information about actors’ entanglements with their work materials from the research participants themselves. In particular, Jenny experimented with methods of visual mapping, photo elicitation, and “interview to the double” popularised by Nicolini (2009). Maureen’s ethnographic study of artists’ everyday work and learning uses visual arts methods in the actual interpretation of her data. Her juxtapositions of progressive drawings from digital photographs showed nuances of how materiality is interwoven with artists’ changing knowledge and creative processes. Sarah studied professional learning related to the introduction of new technology in health care. After her initial analysis of the data, Sarah used broader heuristics of “intra-action” and “diffraction” to analyse the different sociomaterial worlds that she began to recognise, as practices incorporating the new technology jostled alongside entrenched practices using conventional technologies. All three studies began by interrupting the notion of “human actors” as self-evident, and unsettling any categories that they found themselves adopting. They attempted to focus on what seemed banished from view: what was ignored as if unimportant, and what was made “other” through the foci of their study. Finally, each researcher set about to unpick assemblages, highlighting the role played by different participants whether human or non-human. In each case, these student researchers also had to theorise their own material participation in the unfolding phenomena that they were studying: both in terms of their presence and relationships in the work settings that they observed, and in the knowledge that they produced with their chosen research apparatuses – enmeshed of course in the events that they observed. The value of hearing student voices describe this process is in appreciating just how difficult it is to learn it and to articulate it, as they have tried to do in this chapter. Each found an entry point and a strategy to “hang onto”. These three studies illustrate not only different methodological approaches but also different theoretical traditions that can be described as “sociomaterial”. Jenny works with actor-network theory, particularly drawing on Latour (2005) and Orlikowski (2007) to trace the ways that humans and technologies produce one another, and to examine the performances and boundaries that

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are produced through sociomaterial assemblages. Maureen’s study draws from visual sociology and aesthetics (e.g. Pink 2011 [2007]), but it is located in sociomaterial conceptions from Schatzki’s (2001) focus on practice “bundles” and Knorr Cetina’s (1997) notion of epistemic objects. Sarah’s theoretical bases are entirely different again: she is informed chiefly by the complexity theory and new materialism of Barad (2007). In each case, these researchers have found that sociomaterial understandings of the everyday worlds they are studying offer an important counterpoint to the human-centric traditions of studying professional learning, which tend to emphasise cognitive, emotional, and social dimensions. Although these dimensions are important, they are inherently wrapped up with materialities in particular ways and with particular effects that ethnographic work can help to make visible. Of course, these and other sociomaterial methodologies and conceptions are only valuable in terms of the work that they do to help us examine the educational issues that call for research. In the end, the important thing is not the techniques we use but the questions we ask. For student researchers in educational ethnography, sociomaterial perspectives suggest questions like those below, questions which are manageable and practical in the worlds of professional education and learning: • How are the range of actors – material and virtual, human and non-human – influencing what is enacted in education? • What kinds of learning are promoted through particular sociomaterial assemblages? What kinds of pedagogies? • How do some educational practices become stabilised and durable (and not others)? • When do sociomaterial “black boxes” create problems, and how? (e.g. inclusions and exclusions, etc.) • What material elements limit possibilities for education and learning? When/ why do these resist efforts to change them, and why? When do they escape notice? • How do sociomaterial assemblages produce particular identities, boundaries, centres of power? In conclusion, sociomaterial approaches offer resources to consider systematically both the patterns and the unpredictability that makes educational activity possible. They promote methods to recognise and trace the multifarious struggles, negotiations, and accommodations whose effects constitute the “things” in education: students, teachers, learning activities and spaces, knowledge representations – such as texts, pedagogy, curriculum content – and so forth. Rather than take such concepts as foundational categories, or objects with properties, they become explored as themselves effects of heterogeneous re-

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lations. Finally, sociomaterial perspectives offer important approaches for understanding the power relations and politics that constitute learning: analytic tools not just for picking apart the ways powerful webs become assembled as knowledge, but also pointing to affirmative ways to intervene, disturb or amplify these webs.

A cknowledgments This chapter draws from Fenwick’s keynote presentation to the conference “MultiPluriTrans: Emerging Fields in Educational Ethnography”, November 21-23, 2013, Luxembourg. It also draws from ideas developed in previous publications such as Fenwick (2014) and Fenwick et al. (2011).

R eferences Barad, Karen (2003): “Posthumanist Performativity: Toward an Understanding of How Matter Comes to Matter.” In: Signs 28/3, pp. 801-831. Barad, Karen (2007): Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning, Durham: Duke University Press. Blackler, Frank/Reed, Michael/Whitaker, Alan (1993): “Editorial Introduction: Knowledge Workers and Contemporary Organization.” In: Journal of Management Studies 30/6, pp. 851-862. Braidotti, Rosi (2013): The Posthuman, Malden: Polity Press. Coole, Diana/Frost, Samantha (2010): New Materialisms: Ontology, Agency, and Politics, Durham: Duke University Press. Daniels, Harry/Edwards, Anne/Engeström, Yrjö/Gallagher, Tony/Ludvigsen, Sten Runar (eds.) (2009): Activity Theory in Practice: Promoting Learning across Boundaries and Agencies, London: Routledge. Davis, Brent/Sumara, Dennis J. (2006): Complexity and Education: Inquiries Into Learning, Teaching and Research, Mahwah: Erlbaum. Fenwick, Tara (2014): “Sociomateriality in Medical Practice and Learning: Attuning to What Matters.” In: Medical Education 48/1, pp. 44-52. Fenwick, Tara/Edwards, Richard (2010): Actor-Network Theory in Educational Research, London: Routledge. Fenwick, Tara/Edwards, Richard/Sawchuk, Peter (2011): Emerging Approaches to Educational Research: Tracing the Sociomaterial, London: Routledge. Fenwick, Tara/Nerland, Monika (2014): Reconceptualising Professional Learning: Sociomaterial Knowledge, Practices and Responsibilities, London: Routledge.

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Gherardi, Silvia (2011): “Organisational Learning: The Sociology of Practice.” In: Mark Easterby-Smith/Marjorie A. Lyles (eds.), Handbook of Organisational Learning and Knowledge Management, Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, pp. 43-65. Gherardi, Silvia/Strati, Antonio (2012): Learning and Knowing in Practice-Based Studies, Surrey: Edward Elgar. Hager, Paul/Lee, Alison/Reich, Anne (2012): Practice, Learning and Change: Practice-theory Perspectives on Professional Learning, Netherlands: Springer. Hammersley, Martyn/Atkinson, Paul (2007): Ethnography: Principles in Practice, London: Routledge. Harper, Douglas (2002): “Talking About Pictures: A Case for Photo Elicitation.” In: Visual Studies 17/1, pp. 13-26. Jensen, Karen/Lahn, Leif/Nerland, Monika (eds.) (2012): Professional Learning in the Knowledge Society, Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Knorr Cetina, Karin (1997): “Sociality With Objects: Social Relations in Postsocial Knowledge Societies.” In: Culture & Society 14/4, pp. 1-30. Latour, Bruno (1999): “On Recalling ANT.” In: John Law/John Hassard (eds.), Actor Network Theory and After, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 15-25. Latour, Bruno (2005): Re-Assembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Marcus, George (2008): “The End(s) of Ethnography: Social/Cultural Anthropology’s Signature Form of Producing Knowledge in Transition.” In: Cultural Anthropology 23/1, pp. 1-14. Massey, Doreen (2005): For Space, London and Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications. Mol, Annemarie (2002): The Body Multiple. Ontology in Medical Practice. Durham: Duke University Press. Nicolini, Davide (2009): “Articulating Practice Through the Interview to the Double.” In: Management Learning 40/2, pp. 195-212. Nicolini, Davide (2013): Practice Theory, Work and Organisation, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Orlikowski, Wanda J. (2007): “Sociomaterial Practices: Exploring Technology at Work.” In: Organization Studies 28, pp. 1435-1448. Osberg, Deborah C. (2008): “The Logic of Emergence: An Alternative Conceptual Space for Theorizing Critical Education.” In: Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies 6/1, pp. 133-161. Pink, Sarah (2011 [2007]): Doing Visual Ethnography, London: Sage. Schatzki, Theodore, R. (2001): “Introduction: Practice Theory.” In: Theodore R. Schatzki/Karin Knorr Cetina/Eike von Savigny. (eds.), The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory, London: Routledge, pp. 1-14.

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Sørensen, Estrid (2009): The Materiality of Learning: Technology and Knowledge in Educational Practice, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.

ICT in Classrooms The Practical Side of a Technical Order Christoph Maeder

A bstr act This ethnographic research examines the role of information and communication technologies (ICT) in primary school classes, by investigating how pupils and teachers use desktop computers and electronic white boards in two classes of a public school in a suburb of eastern Switzerland. To this end, I look at ICT as a socially situated practice of performing on tasks with machines. Participant observation reveals how pupils and teachers alike do constantly situated repair work (SRW) on and through the interfaces of the ICT devices. The ICT becomes quite obstinate in daily use on different levels. Mice do not react, touch-interfaces do not respond, keyboards are not plugged in properly, printers produce paper jams, and software freezes etc. In other words, it takes a lot of effort on the individual and social level to put ICT into proper working condition. This observation holds true not only for the physical but also the virtual aspects of ICT technology, where additional semantic challenges arise. The continuous situated repair work (SRW) on different levels is a taken for granted property of ICT-use in classrooms. Hence these activities are very likely to get overlooked even though they are introduced by the technology.

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I ntroduction 1 Digital information technolog y in schools In this micro-sociological ethnographic study, I take a look at technology-use in the classroom. The technology under scrutiny is variously called “digital technology”, “information and communications technology” (ICT), and “computerised technology”, and there are a number of other terms under the “information technology” or IT label. Although it is by no means clear where the boundaries of these technologies should be set, we can say that all of these terms refer to computer-based systems that are used to produce, manipulate, store, communicate, and disseminate data as information. In particular, this comprises computer hardware and software applications (cp. Selwyn 2011: 7). What today is referred to vaguely as “digital technology” or sometimes as “new media” in schools points to a large and ever growing array of artefacts (PCs, handhelds, tablets, smart phones, laptops, whiteboards, voice and/or video recorders, screens, etc.) and the software required to operate these devices. The direct changes in everyday life across the main areas of society as a result of the “digital” (such as in the workplace, media consumption, the family, government, etc.) are evident to most observers. But such changes are empirically hard to pin down and even harder to systematise due to the combination of constantly on-going technical development and the high speed of its absorption into society. The rapid pace of the penetration of the classroom by such devices and the continuous merging of what is called “digital” or “new media” with additional domains, like “social media”, “Web 2.0”, and, since recently, “clouds”, make it fairly hard – at least for social scientific audiences – to track, record, and analyse what precisely is defined, what actually is done, and what finally is achieved by the use of this technology in schools. The school as a particular place, where the production and dissemination of knowledge and information in interaction with others is the core practice, is surely an environment where ICT can and does play an important role. This role is mostly advocated and displayed by way of technological “boosterism”, in which the faith in the beneficial impact of ICT on learning has few limits. And accordingly there are few, if any, doubts about the educational merits of computers and the “new media” in the classrooms by those who sell or introduce them into teaching and learning. The exact opposite on the discursive 1 | An earlier version of this research has been published as: Maeder, Christoph (2013): “You do the Letters, I Take the Mouse: Accounts of Situated Cognition and Cooperation Through ICT use in Classrooms.” In: Fernando Hernandéz-Hernandéz/Rachel Fendler/Juana M. Sancho (eds.), Rethinking Educational Ethnography: Researching online Communities and Interaction, Barcelona: University of Barcelona Press, pp. 47-53.

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spectrum are the “doomsters”, who see ICT technology in school as damaging for the school as an institution and, in particular, as harmful for the young (Bigum/Kenway 2005). While we can presently observe a widespread and taken-for-granted faith in the ability of digital technologies to improve schools and schooling in Switzerland, there is less consent about what this precisely means on the practical level of teaching.2 Some simple but unanswered questions might give us some hints: Why are blackboards replaced by electronic whiteboards so extensively and rapidly? Do schools need to engage with Web 2.0 applications? Are computerised “learning platforms” and “blended learning” environments really as useful and powerful for learning as is now taken-for-granted? Does every child need an own computer? Are tablets or smart phones an alternative to PCs? These “shopping-oriented” questions for school managers and principals can easily be enlarged by more specific practical and pedagogical questions: How can and do children handle a standard keyboard built for adults? Is there a right time to learn the 10-digit handling of a qwertz keyboard? How long can children concentrate and look at monitors in school? What is the appropriate content to learn from ICT: programming, simple software use, or even critical appraisal of the technology? What are the advantages and disadvantages of having PCs in the classroom for both teachers and pupils? How many PCs make sense in a classroom? How should the PCs be spatially arranged? Which of the things done on the PC should be printed? Where should the prints be stored? What software is appropriate and useful for what subject and age? After a short brainstorm on these issues, myriads of questions easily arise. And so do questions of the transparency of pupils’ performance on computerised tasks: what kind of performances by a pupil (standardised, non-standardised) should be stored, transferred, and analysed – and for how long? Whereas questions of the first type are mostly political questions that are negotiated by school boards and administrations taking account of available financial resources, the second type of question constantly occurs during the application of ICT in the classroom. And the second type of question is remark2  |  The British author Neil Selwyn (2011: 13-19) identifies the following specific hopes for schools, schooling, and digital technologies in his review of the arguments for the use of ICT found in UK: better learning, fairer learning, more individualised and informal learning, enhanced teaching and pedagogy, and enhanced management and organisation. I think the register Selwyn presented for UK applies equally well to Switzerland. In Swiss educational policies, one often used argument for the massive introduction of ICT is the “enhancement of employability promise” for those who have learned how to use computers in school (D’Anna-Huber 2011). Given the speed of the current development in ICT technologies this is a daring argument: what is trendy today may be old-fashioned tomorrow.

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ably less obvious to the outsider. The everyday practical challenges of applying ICT in schools are covertly handed over to the individual teachers. They become increasingly involved with ICT questions in a society that is being penetrated ever more deeply by this technology, which in turn is questioned little. In my on-going ethnographic study inside a Swiss school, I want to pursue answers to questions of the second type. I am interested in how teachers and pupils get along with ICT in the classroom. This does not mean that the “big” and political questions of ICT technology are completely ignored, because those questions generally cannot be easily isolated; just think of the control issue arising when the outcomes of computer-based work can be stored for a very long time, handed over to others, be scrutinised over and over again, and distributed widely. So the “big” and the mundane questions of practice become linked in one way or another. But my focus here is on visible ICT practice and computer assisted learning in the classroom. Even more precisely, I restrict myself here to the use of the standard PC and the electronic whiteboard. Learning with computers does involve the acquisition of interpretive schemes, scripts, norms, procedures, and other aspects of the social order by the individual pupil. Such processes become visible and observable only through social practice, where the actors engage in interactions with each other and with their technical artefacts in the environment of the classroom. And last but not least there is a growing interest in what is called the “materiality of education” (Röhl 2012) or a concern with the “sociomateriality” (Fenwick et al. 2011) in learning and education. From such a perspective, ICT and pupils become heterogeneous assemblages in which materials and everyday practices melt into human activity and in which artefacts endow the lifeworld with meanings and cultural discourse. From a pedagogical perspective, the question arises how learning with ICT structures the classroom, and how such changes are favourable for learning or not.

Field and field access The school municipality of the town of Hügeldorf in Eastern Switzerland decided in 2010 to develop a cutting-edge ICT learning facility.3 The authorities formed the “laboratory school” (short: “lab school”) comprising the six years 3 | In Switzerland, political and school municipalities do not necessarily match. This holds true especially in the countryside, where two or more small political communities work together to provide schooling under the umbrella of an overarching “school municipality”. This way school bodies in the form of “school municipalities” can become quite influential and powerful institutions, because their budgets are often higher than a single budget from a participating political municipality. A president and his school commission elected by public voting govern such school municipalities. In my case two

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of the primary school education. In a first step, two classes of about 20 pupils were formed; each class was split into three age cohorts (Grade 1 to 3 and Grade 4 to 6). These “lab classes” were equipped with distinctly even more ICT than is generally the case in Switzerland. Each class required ten fully equipped desktop computers with headphones, integrated into a local school network, including web access and printing/scanning facilities. Every teacher was given their own laptop, and the class with the 18 older pupils (from 4th to 6th grade) also received an electronic whiteboard. The two teachers involved, one female and the other male, were at least at a “super-user” level when it comes to computer practice. In fact, they received special university training at a school of education and received the label of “i-Scouts”. These i-Scouts are the formal vanguard of the ICT-trained teachers in this area of Switzerland, the Canton of Thurgau. The president of the Hügeldorf School Municipality granted me field access. He is one of the promoters of the idea of pushing ICT in his school and he was interested in what we agreed on, to become nothing more than “a second opinion”. My function as a researcher at the Hügeldorf School was quite opaque at the beginning. In order not evoke too many and too great expectations, I would leave it that way. The president organised a meeting with all the relevant people involved in Hügeldorf ICT-boost to give me the opportunity to present my research design. When the participants realised that there was no filling out of questionnaires or statistical research planned and that I wanted to learn from them as an ethnographer, their initially somewhat critical attitude towards my research diminished. But a slightly sceptical attitude toward research in general has not completely vanished, not even today. I got the addresses of the two teachers who were running the lab school and they welcomed me in their classrooms. Once there, I participated as a kind of interested visitor, without any further function in the setting. Classrooms of the kind I visited turned out to be suitable places for field research. Paper, pencils, note taking, the running of electronic equipment, and even visitors are routinely observable there, so the ethnographer does not stand out or need to be concerned about the effects of taking field notes or using a smart phone for photographs and video recordings. My data consists of the field notes stemming from about eight hours of participant observation in two classes, some short video recordings, around 30 photographs, and four interviews with teachers of varying length from fifteen minutes up to two hours. This does not look like a very impressive ethnographic data set. But since the study was conceptualized as a “focused ethnography” (Knoblauch 2005) this is a viable body of data for the research question at hand: how do pupils and teachers use computers?

small political entities joined their bigger neighboring town in order to form the “Schools of Hügeldorf”. All local names are fictitious.

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I nto the cl assroom : the domestication of digital technology One of the first and most sustained impressions the ethnographer gets upon entering the two Hügeldorf classrooms is the massive assembly of all kinds of physical “things” or objects. The walls are covered with posters, handmade drawings, and printed writings. There are filled bookshelves, musical instruments, stereo sound equipment, furniture for pupils and teacher, school bags, tables with coloured pencils, pads of notepaper, different sorts of handicraft work displayed on sideboards, plants, rows of folders in different colours in shelves, and – in one classroom – a fish tank and a sawdust-filled cage as a home for mice. The symbolic centres of the rooms are discernible as a black board in the classroom of the lower grades and an electronic whiteboard close to the teacher’s desk in the classroom of the higher grades. While the arrangement of the pupils’ desks differs – in one case two groups of desks were opposed and in the other arranged in shape of a horseshoe – the computers are always kept separate in the background and turned away from the spatial and symbolic centre of the room. In both cases the computers were set up in rows and they integrated seamlessly in the other serial orders visible so easily in the classrooms: the computers became just one more artefact in a huge assembly of physical things, which are needed to teach and learn in a contemporary primary school classroom. The computer as just another thing in such a setting becomes domesticated (Berker/Hartmann/Punie/Ward 2006). This observation refers to the very material aspect of teaching and learning, where “pointing at things” and “showing or demonstrating something” (Prange 2005) characterise a central domain of the pedagogical practice (cp. Röhl 2012). But the computer – no matter how domesticated or ordinary it finally becomes in the school – nevertheless introduces an element of challenge. One important domain is an easily observable, but nevertheless also easily overseen, feature of computer work. In native terms, pupils talk about computer using phrases such as “he [it] did not eat [accept] it, feed him again!” or “now he is doing again something he shouldn’t do” or “he does not obey me” and so on. In German the computer possesses the masculine grammatical gender: “der Computer”. As an effect, talking about a computer unwillingly and systematically infers a certain subject, a kind of (male?) will into the machine. This grammatically induced subject-character of a technical artefact based on algorithms is an interesting practical property in everyday talk about a machine, because it attaches a human touch to the machine. Children in the classroom often treat “him” as if the designated object had its/”his” own will. And certain aspects of a personality get attributed to the machine in phrases, such as “he refuses to get it” as a comment on a rejection of a user input into the PC. Or “he does

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not like me today” as a comment on another failed operation on the keyboard. Obviously such anthropomorphisms make communication in general and the use of computer technology in particular easier. The collection of a greater and more encompassing register of the categories used by the children to handle “him” is a part of my planned further research. To address such issues, I use the ideas of Lakoff and Johnson on metaphors (1980) and categorisation: Every time we see something as a kind of thing, for example, a tree, we are categorizing. Whenever we reason about kinds of things – chairs, nations, illnesses, emotions, any kind of thing at all – we are employing categories. Whenever we intentionally perform any kind of action, say something as mundane as writing with a pencil, hammering with a hammer, or ironing clothes, we are using categories. The particular action we perform on that occasion is a kind of motor activity (e.g. writing, hammering, ironing), that is, it is in a particular category of motor actions. They are never done in exactly the same way, yet despite the differences in particular movements, they are all movements of a kind, and we know how to make movements of that kind. (Lakoff 1990: 5 f.)

The categories of denial and refusal are of particular interest since they carry the potential to create a micro-crisis, a kind of incongruity in the sense of Garfinkel (1967). Everyone using ICT technology in front of others or together with them must at least implicitly know this. But there is more to it. In a pedagogical situation you always must have a plan B if the electronics do not work properly. Even a well set-up system with standard software can very quickly become dysfunctional for many reasons: technical complexity, software particularities, hardware features, incompatibilities, poor programming, someone having touched a system too hard, a switch not properly plugged, and so on. Due to the highly routinised and expected character of such ICT work, the users interpret this as “not really important”, “only a minor problem”, “something we can handle”, “happening all the time”, and so on. But exactly this introduces an endless chain of “situated repair work” (SRW) into the settings where the pupils and the teachers work with computerised systems. These kinds of SRW-actions can be encountered on different analytical levels. The first is the physical level when power cords are not fully plugged in, earphone jacks do not properly connect, trackballs are stained so that mice do not react, monitors are set to dark because someone touched the switch, and so on. Second, some routine-troubles lurk in nearly every system at the software level, as I will demonstrate later on. And finally categorical and semantic difficulties arise for the pupils with the tasks assigned by the PC software. An illustrative example of the latter and of the effect of anthropomorphism as a scheme of interpretation with children can be illustrated by the following observation:

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Christoph Maeder A girl in the second grade started working with software designed for learning pronouns. After she successfully logged into her account and started the program by mouse-clicking on the icon, the screen of the learning software opened and an introductory example was offered. The text box came up letter by letter and displayed “This is my house” and a picture with five different houses was shown on which one was highlighted by blinking as soon as the word “my” appeared. A line below that fill-in task appeared: “Show me … house!” About ten seconds later the gap was filled by “your” and another house started blinking on the display. So the request of the program became clear: fill in suitable pronouns and click on an image to continue. The next box on the screen showed: “This is my pet” and a picture of a mouse started blinking. Then came the task: “What is … pet?” The girl filled in: “horse” but there was no horse on display and obviously she should have written “your” and selected one of the images offered by the system. So the program gave feedback by a falling sound and presented the task again. The girl looked puzzled and a little upset and told to me: “How can he be so nasty and refuse my pet?” Then she stopped the software, left the computer and went to fetch a picture of a horse out of a folder in her backpack. She came back to me and triumphantly remarked: “This is my pet!”

The girl had applied a social rule of reciprocity to the computer: if someone is allowed to show his or her pet, then, the expectation goes that this person must also accept the demonstration of the pet of the other. This can be generalised to other objects and realms, if the actors interact as humans. But obviously no PC is programmed this way or can apply such a situated rule. Hence, the girl became confused due to the fact that she misinterpreted what a PC is: a machine. By far the most common and most easily observable situated repair work happens during software use on the electronic whiteboard. The following description has been selected to demonstrate this basic and general feature of working with this ICT equipment in the classroom: the public4 handling of human-machine interfaces as a subset of practices in the domain of handling the computer in general. A girl and the teacher stand in front of the electronic whiteboard, which displays a notebook with two pages. On the left side we find a text, which allows the selection of different tasks, namely, additions and subtractions. The girl proposes one to the teacher. He agrees to a calculation involving two five-digit numbers. The girl has to write them on the right side and then underline the numbers. While she can write the numbers on the electronic whiteboard quite easily, she is not capable of activating the ruler with her fingers. The teacher has to help her to position the ruler in order to get a straight line under the 4 | The term “public” is used in the sense of Goffman (2010) where public means that “images” are at stake, “face-work” has to be done, “impression management” is performed, territories have to be respected, and so on.

ICT in Classrooms numbers. The calculation takes the girl three minutes to perform. Then again she tries to underline the result, but in vain. The ruler does not respond. The teacher acts again and puts the ruler into place. The girl underlines and tries to move the ruler down slightly in order to get a second line since the results need double underlining. Again, she fails to do so. The teacher helps again. But this time he also has some trouble getting it right. The ruler displaces itself under the teacher’s touch into an angle and moves up over the figures. He then has to grasp the ruler with his fingertips again and finally succeeds in bringing the device into the desired and required position. The girl can now draw the second line and finish her task. 5

One of the astonishing outcomes during the calculation of a one five-digit addition is the fact of the three failures by the girl to use the virtual ruler displayed on the e-whiteboard and hence the three interventions by the teacher. If we look closely, we can see how the difficulties with the ruler increased each time. Out of a total duration of 272 seconds, 60 seconds (roughly a fifth of the overall time) were required for situated repair work in the form of “alignment activities” to use the ruler properly on the electronic whiteboard. In this description of a short video taken by the researcher during his participant observation we learn to understand how challenging it can be “just” to handle the interface. What also becomes visible and intelligible is the fact that the learning of mathematics here is a joint and fine-grained interactive task of cooperation between pupil and teacher in a physical, social, and symbolic space. It would thus be misleading to assume that cognition is only in the heads of the actors. What we see is a series of coordinated interactions oriented mainly towards the human-machine interface in order to get the calculation done. Here the materiality of a pedagogical thing called electronic whiteboard produces a hybrid constellation of practice, cognition, and artefact whereby connections and activity force, exclude, invite, and regulate the practice (cp. Fenwick et al. 2011 in this reader). Sometimes, ICT technology also requires workarounds due to the poor fit of the design of the interfaces for children. Two girls got the job of continuing with their work on rodents. All pupils in the class had to prepare a fact-sheet on a selected rodent using Microsoft Word and to elaborate a PowerPoint presentation, which would be displayed on the electronic whiteboard and subsequently discussed in class. The teacher asked them to find online information on beavers, the rodent the girls wanted to report on. They moved on to the computer. After one of them had done the login, they started the browser and opened the Word

5 | This short description is based on a video of 272 seconds duration that tracks the whole task.

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This workaround on a standard PC keyboard is not surprising, given the small hands of the girls. Furthermore, pupils in this primary school do not learn how to touch-type on a qwertz keyboard. This is a subject only on the secondary-school curriculum for pupils of 13 years and upwards. Here, the curriculum is bypassed by the speed of the introduction of IT-technology into the pedagogical setting. The cooperative and smart solution of the girls, a kind of labour division, is not without snags. They run the risk of habitualising an unreliable procedure – not all work on the PC in school can be done together, and later on they might encounter difficulties when they have to switch to the standardised handling of the keyboard. This ethnographic fragment points to an important source of situated repair work: the unfortunate physical properties of the interfaces for children.

C onclusion Interface work is one of the basic and core activities with ICT equipment in the classroom. Often it involves interaction between teacher and pupil, pupil and pupil, and the teacher or a pupil and the audience. In these sequences, where the machine is brought into working conditions to perform on a task (whether it is dimming the intensity of the display, underlining the results of a calculation, displaying a slide-show, playing a piece of music, and so on; or, if we look at the electronic whiteboard, providing input into a text file, opening and searching using a search engine, saving a file in the right place etc.), the obstinacy of the technology in use emerges. While the teachers usually interpreted this as a feature of technology, the children commented on it in slightly different terms. They implied that a computer showed something of an obstinate self-will when they used him (not it!). And hence they used anthropomorphic metaphors as a cognitive means of access to the systems, which were machines. What also surprises systematic observers is how much time is needed in the classroom to get the ICT running in the desired way: ICT use in classroom imposes a never-ending series of situated repair work (SRW) to all users. Since the technology is handled in a highly routinised way, nobody really seems to perceive it, even though everyone is exposed to it. As we have seen, the PC and other ICT equipment in the classroom have an impact on the everyday order in the classroom. But the impact is less visible on individual and personal competence in certain subject matters than on situated cooperation where things are done together. Doing things cooperatively, while working on the assigned tasks or the often tricky and troublesome interfaces,

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generates the significant other in the machine as a co-operator. Therefore ethnographic research on ICT can clearly reveal the plausibility of the social side of artefacts “in pedagogical use”. Many of the new demands introduced by ICT are trivial (a machine needs to be switched on and off, buttons on the screen must be pressed, print commands get executed) and both teachers and pupils handle them easily. But other aspects are not, such as the interface work on electronic whiteboards and other aspects of the domain of “handling ICT properly” in the classroom. In particular, it remains unclear to me as an observer how to answer the question what an appropriate interface for children looks like. What seems desirable to me is the development in the classroom of a sound foundation of knowledge about ICT that is based on a larger framework of pedagogy, sociology of knowledge, ethnography, and maybe even media theory. Such a combined “multi-pluri-trans-approach” could possibly generate rich and helpful answers to the basic question of what children learn with ICT in school and how they do it. Such answers should preferably be available before the process of a further technological build-up takes place in the classrooms. Lucy Suchman’s (1987) pioneering work on the requirements for man-machine communication and difficulties has demonstrated many years ago how such an endeavour can be undertaken. Why not do it again?

R eferences Berker, Thomas/Hartmann, Maren/Punie, Yves/Ward, Katie (2006): Domestication of Media and Technology, Maidenhead: Open University Press. Bigum, Chris/Kenway, Jane (2005): “New Information Technologies and the Ambiguous Future of Schooling: Some Possible Scenarios.” In: Andy Hargreaves (ed.), Extending Educational Change: International Handbook of Educational Change, Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 95-115. D’Anna-Huber, Christine (2011): Digital Natives: Wie braucht die ‘Generation Internet’ das Internet, Bern: TA-SWISS. Fenwick, Tara/Edwards, Richard/Sawchuk, Peter (2011): Emerging Approaches to Educational Research: Tracing the Sociomaterial, London: Routledge. Garfinkel, Harold (1967): Studies in Ethnomethodology, Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall. Goffman, Erving (2010): Relations in Public: Microstudies of the Public Order, New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers. Knoblauch, Hubert (2005): “Focused Ethnography.” In: Forum Qualitative Research 6/3, Art. 44. Lakoff, George (1990): Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About the Mind, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.

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Lakoff, George/Johnson, Mark (1980): Metaphors we Live by, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Maeder, Christoph (2013): “You do the Letters, I Take the Mouse: Accounts of Situated Cognition and Cooperation Through ICT use in Classrooms.” In: Fernando Hernandéz-Hernandéz/Rachel Fendler/Juana M. Sancho (eds.), Rethinking Educational Ethnography: Researching on-line Communities and Interaction, Barcelona: University of Barcelona Press, pp. 47-53. Prange, Klaus (2005): Die Zeigestruktur der Erziehung: Grundriss der operativen Pädagogik, Paderborn, München, Wien and Zürich: Schöningh. Röhl, Tobias (2012): “Disassembling the Classroom: An Ethnographic Approach to the Materiality of Education.” In: Ethnography and Education 7/1, pp. 109-126. Selwyn, Neil (2011): Schools and Schooling in the Digital Age: A Critical Analysis, Oxon and New York: Routledge. Suchman, Lucy (1987): Plans and Situated Actions: The Problem of Human-Machine Communication (Learning in Doing: Social, Cognitive and Computational Perspectives), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

School Entry Proceedings as Organisational Practices Ethnographic Perspectives on the Interferences between Governmental and Situated Regulations Helga Kelle

A bstr act This contribution focuses on educational organisations and asks how interferences of governmental and situated regulations in state-run organisations can be explored ethnographically. The contribution is based on an ethnographic research project on the German school entry proceedings, including the applied diagnostics and the processed educational decisions. Since the late 1990s, all German federal states fight for less selective and more inclusive school entry policies. Using the federal state of Hesse as an example, we explore how different schools show different forms of school entry proceedings, despite – or maybe because of – the governmental regulations on the level of the federal state. The schools in the sample differ with regard to infrastructure, options for making school entry decisions and organisation of decision-making processes. In the methodological section, I discuss different approaches to the ethnography of institutions and organisations and some methodological challenges deriving from the interferences of governmental and local regulations. By analysing the organisation of school entry proceedings in two contrasting primary schools, the practical interdependencies between educational policy, socio-spatial environment, infrastructure, school culture and local forms of proceedings are explored. This analysis provides clues about the organisational problems and tensions that derive from these interdependencies. In conclusion, I advocate an ethnographic approach that integrates organisation and governance analytical research perspectives.

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I ntroduction In the last two decades, the policy of transition from elementary to primary education in Germany has been transformed. In all federal states, these recent political transformations in the field of early education rely on a public consensus that supporting child development and learning in preschool age is necessary. This paper is based on an ethnographic research project that focuses on German school entry proceedings, including the diagnostics and assessments involved.1 The Hessian school entry politics are taken as an example of recent reform projects in elementary and primary education. The project explores how different schools show different forms of school entry proceedings, despite – or maybe because of – the political regulations on the level of the federal state. A first aim of the project is to analyse the heterogeneous school entry practices regarding their organisational, procedural, and instrumental dimensions. Pertaining to this aim, the relevant case level is schools as organisations. A second aim is to reconstruct in detail how differential and differentiated educational decisions before and around school entry are produced and processed interactively. The relevant case level here is child cases in the course of the entry proceedings. This contribution mainly concentrates on the first aim and the organisational and procedural dimensions. In the following section, I discuss and contextualise the governmental reregulation and deregulation of school entry proceedings in more detail. The subsequent section outlines the theoretical perspectives of an organisational ethnography and the study’s methodology. In the empirical section, I analyse and contrast the organisational proceedings in two schools. The concluding section discusses the findings in regard to the interferences between the levels of state regulation and situated organisational practice and the methodological consequences for organisational ethnography deriving from such exemplary interferences.

1 | The research project “Einschulungsverfahren, Eingangsdiagnostiken und Bildungsentscheidungen im Kontext des Strukturwandels des Übergangs in die Grundschule” (School entry proceedings, school entry diagnostics, and educational decisions in the context of a structural transformation of the transition to school) is funded by the “Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft” (DFG, German Research Society) from 2012 to 2015. Parts of this article go back to a paper presented together with Anna Schweda. I thank Anna Schweda for contributing several analytical ideas.

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G overnmental re - and deregul ation of school entry proceedings As a central part of governmental educational reform in Germany, school entry proceedings have been reregulated in recent years and now involve different professional actors from elementary and primary education working together in assessing and promoting children in the process of transition. This change was triggered by a critique of traditional school entry proceedings in Germany, which targeted not only the relatively high postponement rates2 but also, as a consequence, the relatively high average age of school entry (Fertig/Kluve 2005). To prevent the latter, the government made more flexible its regulations on cut-off dates (for achievement of compulsory school attendance) and on socalled Kann-Kinder (children that are not yet obliged but qualified to attend school before the age of six). To prevent high postponement rates, a new model for a flexible school entry phase – the flexible Schuleingangsstufe – was gradually introduced, which avoids school entry selections of pupils. The second means to achieve this aim is a restructuration and (in some federal states) a prolongation of the school entry proceedings up to 15 months. In accordance with this political reregulation, the discourse of school entry diagnostics in primary education is characterised by a paradigmatic change: from the diagnostics’ function as early selection to their function as early support (Kammermeyer 2000). The early date for school registration in Hesse (since 2010: 15 months before school entry, § 58 Hessian School Law) and the duration of the proceeding is mainly justified to identify children from immigrant families as early as possible in order to assess their German language competencies and, in case of deficiencies, to provide preschool language development support. The school laws specify a date for school registration but do not specify how the school entry proceedings should be arranged in the primary schools and how children’s developmental status should be assessed. In the context of a broader “dissemination of development diagnostics” (Tervooren 2010, translation HK), practices of assessment and documentation in early childhood have been established and diversified. These practices can be characterised by a distinction between, on the one hand, status- and process-related tests and assessments, and standardised and non-standardised tests and assessments on the other. I introduce these distinctions to hint at some specificities of the field explored ethnographically here: in the course of school entry proceedings, the testing personnel, i.e. the future teachers of the tested children, do not yet know in most cases the children who are being assessed. Furthermore, the teachers apply preferably status-related as2  |  The school laws allow a postponement from school entry for one year if children are diagnosed with physical, mental, or socio-emotional developmental impairments; the postponement rates have long been at about 10 per cent.

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sessments, and they also prefer semi- or non-standardised assessments. As with the US and other western countries, a ‘test aversion’ is also reported for German teachers. Teachers criticise published standardised tests for their lack of context sensitivity and practical usability in the context of child transition to school. Therefore each school ‘invents’ its own school entry diagnostics. Whenever a lack of German language competencies is diagnosed, the children in question are recommended for a so-called Vorlauf kurs. In this preschool training course, children get language support 15 hours a week for one year; participation in these courses is voluntary and dependent on parents’ decisions.3 The language assessments in the context of school entry proceedings result in recommendations for or against preschool training courses. At the same time, these assessments form the beginning of a series of development assessments for the following 15 months for all prospective schoolchildren (not only those from immigrant families). They are conducted as a series of appointments during which further development dimensions are checked such as motor, cognitive, mathematical and socio-emotional development. These assessments result in recommendations for or against school entry. Further educational decisions include when children enter school – early, on time, or delayed – whether they attend preschool language training, any other preschool trainings, or compensatory education in Vorklassen, i.e. preparatory classes for children that are obliged to go to school because they are six years old but are not ‘ready’4 to start school yet. The applied diagnostic instruments in this context are widely conceptualised by the schools themselves. There is a “manual” edited by the Hessian Ministry of Education (2002) which provides “proposals” and “practical help” to conduct language development assessments, but its recommendations are vague and not obligatory. Therefore content, form, and deployment of diagnostic methods and materials are chosen and regulated by each single school, and finally the assessments are not restricted to the dimension of language development. The schools in our sample check more or less the same competencies; with regard to language these include understanding, phonological awareness, spontaneous speech production, articulation, grammar, and vocabulary. How

3 | If a child does not participate in the preschool training course against the recommendation and also does not reach the required competence level otherwise, it will be postponed from school entry for one year. During this time participation in a language course is obligatory. 4  |  Whereas internationally the concept “school readiness” is used, the concept in Germany that is used to legitimise school entry postponement is a lack of “Schulfähigkeit” (literally: school ability; Kammermeyer 2000).

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the individual skills and competencies are conceptualised and tested, though, varies widely between schools.5 The political reregulation of school entry proceedings is thus mainly oriented towards a particular aim (assessing German language development), a particular time (allowing for early support before school entry, i.e. 15 months before school), and a particular group of children (from immigrant families). To filter out this group diagnostically, all school-age children are invited to school registration 15 months before school entry. Many Hessian primary schools use the date of school registration for conducting broader, not only language-centred school entry diagnostics with all prospective school children. The schools seem to follow the motto ‘if all school-age children have to be invited so early, why not look at all of them in terms of early diagnostics’. A secondary effect from these prolonged school entry proceedings is that the teachers criticise the early date of school registrations. They argue that school entry diagnostics in a strict sense cannot be applied that early, and that is why they plead for further assessments during the 15 months following registrations. The schools therefore establish further (diagnostic) meetings, such as the so-called “get-to-know-school days” or “sniffing-in days” and guest visits of kindergarten educators in schools. During these meetings, further educational (support) decisions can be processed. To summarise: the political reregulation originally aimed at children with deficient knowledge of the German language, but the resulting change of school entry proceedings nevertheless affects all children, and the protracted proceedings produce ‘time gaps’ which are ‘filled’ by the schools – apart from central regulation – with further assessments for all children. In the course of these processes, the potential educational decisions are diversified, not only the decision if children should attend a Vorlauf kurs or enter school are taken, but also decisions concerning the moment of school entry, preschool training in other fields, enrolment in a traditional school or in a school with a flexible school entry phase, or even a postponement of school entry and compensatory education in a Vorklasse. Besides parents, different educational professionals are involved in this decision making: the future teachers, school’s governing bodies, kindergarten educators, special needs educators, school physicians, and others. The governmental regulation of this diversification of actors is not only based on school laws and the respective statutory orders, but also on new education-political programmes, such as the educational plans that have recently been established in all 16 federal states of Germany and that should give orientation for all people involved in child education. In fulfilling the educational plan in Hesse, primary schools and kindergartens form

5 | This applies also to other dimensions like motor or cognitive development.

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tandems, which are supposed to cooperate in observing preschool children and process educational decisions. Against the background of school governance research, the reregulation of school entry proceedings can be regarded as an example of the international trend in educational governance of “decentralisation of decision making, increasing local authority and enhanced autonomy of schools” (Ainley/McKenzie 2000: 139), which is also addressed by the (political) concept of deregulation. However, there have also been increases in state control in some fields of decision making pertaining to schools, particularly over matters such as curriculum and assessment – this does not seem to apply, though, to the assessments conducted in the course of Hessian school entry proceedings. Besides the governmental regulation of the duration and relatively ‘weak’ recommendations, the schools have (nearly) full autonomy in organising the school entry proceedings and educational decision processes for school-age children. How the schools use the space left by state requirements forms an example of what can be termed the ‘local productivity of state deregulations’. Against this backdrop, the analytical perspective in this contribution is to trace back the situated regulations and practices to organisational reasons.

O rganisational e thnogr aphy : theore tical perspectives and me thodology The research project’s sample consists of eight different schools and six to eight children at each school. The children were chosen contrastively according to gender, socio-economic status, migration status, and other criteria. The children (and their parents) in each school were accompanied by an ethnographer who focused on the individual school entry proceedings in a longitudinal perspective. At the case level of schools as organisations, the sample differs regarding clientele, socio-spatial and infrastructural contexts, as well as situated organisational and procedural conditions of assessment processes. In reconstructing school entry proceedings as organisational practices, the research group was oriented towards practice theory (Schatzki/Knorr Cetina/ von Savigny 2001; cf. Schatzki 2002) and applied a combination of ethnographic methods, including participant observation (Emerson et al. 1995), ethnographic interviews with headmasters, teachers, and parents,6 as well as an ethno-meth-

6 | Particularly the interviews with the headmasters can be considered as “institutional ethnographic interviews” (DeVault/McCoy 2006) focusing on the school entry proceedings.

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odological analysis of documents, assessment instruments, and records7 used in the course of the school entry proceedings to inform and legitimise educational recommendations and decisions (Kelle 2010). In focusing also on statutory and administrative documents, the research perspective was extended to the school entry proceedings’ discursive and governmental regulations. In addition to practice theory, we refer to a systems-theoretical approach that conceptualises schools as organisations in which educational decisions are being processed. Schools not only register but also produce differences between prospective schoolchildren in these processes (Gomolla/Radtke 2007 [2003]). If one understands educational decisions around school entry as not only related to individual children and their development status, but also as embedded in organisations, all relevant juridical, governmental, and infrastructural conditions of schools have also to be considered. On the case level of the schools, these complex conditions are reconstructed in portraying the variants of school entry proceedings. The labels “organisational ethnography” (Ybema et al. 2009; Eberle/Maeder 2011) and “institutional ethnography” (Smith 2005) have been established in recent years for research approaches that explore the practices of organising and “doing institution”. These approaches follow the insight into the methodological necessity of exceeding the boundaries of what can be observed in locally circumscribed sites in situ. The combination of practice and document analysis in our research project is based on Smith’s approach of “institutional ethnography” (Smith 2005; 2006), which focuses on documents that contribute to mediate between official forms of knowledge and practices on site: [...] texts (or documents) are essential to the objectification of organisations and institutions and to how they exist as such. [...] exploring how texts mediate, regulate and authorise people’s activities expands the scope of ethnographic method beyond the limits of observation (Smith 2001: 160).

Insofar as documents, instruments and technologies structure, mediate, and translate institutional and organisational praxis, the challenge is to develop methodologies to explore these very processes. Nevertheless, Smith starts from the standpoint of particular actors in everyday situations and constellations in order to reconstruct institutional and organ7 | Exponents of an ethnomethodological document analysis not only understand documents and records as representations that archive knowledge in institutional and organisational contexts, they rather regard documents as “situated social phenomena”, which are embedded in communicative constellations and sequences of action, and only related to these develop a “specific comprehensibility and rationality” (Wolff 2006: 256, translation HK).

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isational practices – this can be viewed to be both the (ethnographic) strength and (governance-analytical) restriction of her approach. Nadai and Koch (2011: 236 f.) state that Smith is oriented towards reconstructing the “ruling relations” that may not be directly visible in situated practices, but also that she did not work out her approach in terms of a detailed methodology. Likewise, she has not developed a differentiated and systematised taxonomy of documents, which might contribute to the objectification of organisations in different ways. Social researchers’ sensitivity for the institutional and organisational relevance of documents has been evolving since long in those fields in which “cases” are worked on – like general social services (Wolff 1983), medicine (Berg 1996), and asylum seeking (Scheffer 2001). In these fields, as in school entry proceedings, case-related decisions are processed that are supported institutionally by documenting (results of) negotiation processes (Nadai/Maeder 2007). Institutional ethnographies on case construction and the processing of cases in organisations mainly focus on documents that are generated within institutions and mediate organisational action. Recent ethnographies in state-regulated areas of education and social work focus on subjects like “inter-institutional cooperation between welfare state agencies” (Nadai/Koch 2011). They show that in many contemporary welfare state contexts the processing of case-related decisions is not restricted to single institutions or organisations but depends on the collaboration in networks of different institutions, organisations, and professions. Contemporary institutions and organisations in highly differentiated societies are characterised by multi-sitedness and trans-local structure formation (Marcus 1995; cf. Falzon 2009).8 Therefore Nadai and Koch (2011: 235) present their study less as an ethnography of organisation than of organising. The change of perspective from organisation to organising can also be supported by taking subject theoretical concepts into consideration that aim at a level ‘below’ the level of the organisation – like decision making processes, proceedings, or procedures, organisational measures or programmes. In this line, systems theory can also be referred to for adopting a heuristic concept of procedures. Luhmann (1969: 41, translation HK) understands procedures as a “partly self-regulated, complexity reducing context of action”. Procedures fulfil “a specific function […], namely to produce a unique mandatory decision, and thus [are] limited in duration from the outset”. A sociological analysis of procedures pertains particularly to the question of authorising decisions – “legitimation by procedures” (ibid). Scheffer, Michaeler, and Schank (2008: 425) modify Luhmann’s concept of procedures in practice-analytical interest, they conceptualise procedures as “an interplay of self-related and open-ended processes of devel8 | Actor-network-theory (Latour 2006; Fenwick/Edwards 2010) argues in a similar vein.

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oping decisions, communication as well as producing knowledge” (translation HK). This concept of procedures appears to be less concentrated on decisions than Luhmann’s and thus opens research perspectives for side effects of decision-making processes. Furthermore, in his ethnography of British Crown Court procedures, Scheffer (2010) focuses on specific relationships between observable “events” and “processes” (cf. Scheffer 2007), which are not least dependent on the circulation of documents. He suspends an ethnographic microanalysis in favour of a practice analysis of more complex interrelations and develops a “trans-sequential analysis”, which modifies and surpasses the premises of ethno-methodological sequence analysis. For the ethnographic exploration of school entry proceedings, this approach is instructive, since they also comprise a series of events (registration for school, assessments, ‘sniffing-in days’ etc.), which aim to produce and stabilise educational decisions. If the interferences of governmental and situated regulations are to be reconstructed, though, the methodologies referred to in this section also need to be further developed. When qualifying institutional ethnography as being interested in “social relations applying standardized forms of regulation to multiple local sites of people’s work”, Smith (2005: 200) refers to the concept of “higher order regulatory frames”, to which local regulations are bound. Thus the analytical relevance of laws, statutory orders, and administrative prescriptions come into view in institutional and organisational ethnographies. Apart from that, the concept of regulation (or regulatory agencies and regimes) is primarily circulating in the context of governance and Foucaultian governmentality studies that investigate (and criticise) the policies and the political rationality of neoliberal societies (for an overview, see e.g. Fairbanks 2012). Studies from this context often focus on the intersection of the government of populations with the self-governing practices of subjects, conceptualised in terms like individualisation, activation, and responsibilisation (for the field of education e.g. Bloch/Popkewitz/Holmlund 2003; Peters et al. 2009; Ott 2011). In distinction to these, this study on school entry proceedings applies more open heuristics concerning the outcomes and interferences of different levels and forms of regulation. The study does not concentrate on how “governable subjects” are “produced” (Smith 2012) but how organisational proceedings are regulated. Therefore it asks how governmental regulations (and underlying programmatic discourses) are translated, modified, transformed, ‘stretched’, partially neglected, and incorporated in situated practical routines, and how local organisational problems are made compatible with governmental regulations. It asks further which kinds of (regulating) documents on which level of regulation are explicitly or implicitly referred to in school entry proceedings and which other technologies of knowledge production and instrumentalising decision-making processes are applied. For the level of state regulation, for in-

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stance, a double structure of legislative texts and statutory orders is characteristic; only the latter include executive statements, inscribing programmes of action into the regulated fields. These documents, as described in the previous section, leave room for situated interpretation and regulation, which is used by local actors who are confronted with particular local constellations of (organisational) problems.

E mpirical analysis of school entry proceedings in t wo contr asting schools The two contrasting exemplary schools show significant differences regarding infrastructural and organisational features as well as the conduct of school entry proceedings and school entry assessments. Figure 1: Overview of school entry proceedings of two schools School-entry proceedings

School B

School C

School-entry assessments registration for school

15 months before school entry with assessments

15 months before school entry only in written form

2nd/1st diagnostic date

ten months before school entry

ten months before school entry

“sniffing in days”

three months before school entry

three months before school entry

Organisational and infrastructural features tracks per grade

two tracks

three tracks

cooperation with kindergartens

five kindergartens

ca. 25-30 kindergartens

“Vorlauf kurs” (German language preschool training course, 11 month)

no

yes (recommendation processed by kindergartens)

“Vorklasse”

no

no

(for children postponed from school entry, one year)

School Entr y Proceedings as Organisational Practices f lexible school entry phase

Particularities

no

yes (no school entry selection intended)

concern if registration numbers continue to allow for two tracks per grade; ca. 30 per cent of a school entry grade comprise of “Kann-Kinder“ (early school entry)

high f luctuation of prospective schoolchildren that were initially enrolled; too many registrations by trend

In the analysis of the schools’ organisational and infrastructural features, I first focus on the different levels of regulation. The infrastructural features are based on functional regulations in the interplay of school administration and school supervisory boards on the one side and the individual school on the other. The schools apply for special measures, like Vorlauf kurse, and thereby engage in forming a particular organisational profile. Local school supervisory boards assess the schools’ needs, regulating for example the number of tracks per grade or the need for Vorklassen. According to § 20 of the Hessian School Law and the respective statutory orders, schools can decide if they want to establish a flexible school entry phase that includes a pedagogical unit of 1st and 2nd grade and abandons school entry selection/postponements. Schools have to apply for the establishment of this form of school entry, though, and the school supervisory boards check if the structural and conceptual preconditions are given. A Vorlauf kurs can only be applied for if at least ten children are diagnosed with a need for German language training during the registration assessments. Besides pedagogical-programmatic criteria, the decisions on infrastructural features of schools rely strongly on education-economic criteria. Whereas the infrastructural decisions for schools are subject to application procedures and negotiations with governmental authorities, the specific practices of conducting school entry proceedings are regulated only at the level of the individual school. Content, form, and conduct of school entry assessments are decided on by each single school without further supervision. Schools also govern how many meetings they arrange with prospective schoolchildren (and parents) for assessment or other reasons during the 15 months before school entry. Primary school B is situated in a small, rural, middle-class community with a low quota of migrants. The school possesses neither a Vorklasse nor a Vorlauf kurs, and it has two tracks per grade. The community’s other primary school offers both a Vorklasse and a Vorlauf kurs. As the headmaster tells the researchers in an interview, children are very rarely recommended for either type of preschool course at the other school. In recent years, the two tracks per grade are hardly sustainable with only about 30 children per school entry

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grade each year.9 Therefore, nearly every child that is registered will be accepted for school entry. The school’s second strategy for dealing with the decreasing numbers of schoolchildren is to accept early school entry for children below the age of six (Kann-Kinder), a group that represents about one-fifth to onethird of each school entry grade. Since the school’s entry politics are known in the community, parents of Kann-Kinder from other school districts often apply to send their children to school B (Gestattungsanträge, permission application, § 66 Hessian School Law).10 A particularity of school B is an additional diagnostic appointment, set in between the registration for school and the ‘sniffing in days’, about four months before school entry. In an interview, the teacher who is responsible for the organisation of this meeting explains its aims as follows: Our main aim is that we have no selective process but a therapeutic one. This is a very important issue, isn’t it? This explains the reason for this period. Observing, being in communication with parents and kindergarten, telling the people simply what is still missing, what can be done meanwhile, yes, that the child can enter school. I mean, for us, it is a precondition that the child will come, yes?! And what can be done meanwhile. This therapeutic approach is our credo. […] Therapeutic in the sense that if something attracts our attention then it will be – she [the headmaster] holds a very rigorous conversation with the parents. (Translation HK)

It is remarkable, how in her argumentation, the teacher referred to this ‘period’ set by the government, as if it was set by the school. The so-called “therapeutic approach” and the acceptance of nearly all early school entries have become two important elements in the school’s profile. In order to sustain its personnel and organisational (two tracks per grade) structure, the school is dependent on accepting all registered children. Therefore, it establishes communication with parents early and encourages them to commit to this school as early as possible. The task to prepare children for school entry, though, seems to be assigned to parents. Primary school C is situated in a large city in a neighbourhood with a high population density and a medium quota of migrants. The school has established a flexible school entry phase, i.e. children should not be postponed from 9  |  The administrative limit for establishing two tracks is 13 children per track (SchulKlassGrV HE 2011). 10 | There is no free choice of primary school in Hesse, and children regularly have to attend the school that is nearest to their home. Parents nevertheless can apply for permission to send their children to other schools if they have good reasons to do so. The school supervisory board, in consultation with the school authority, can accept these applications if the capacities of the schools are sufficient. Criteria and procedures of permissions are regulated by statutory orders.

School Entr y Proceedings as Organisational Practices

school entry if old enough for compulsory schooling, even if they show a slow development. Additionally, the school runs a Vorlauf kurs. A peculiarity of this school (as compared to the other schools in the sample) is that the initial school registration 15 months before school entry is done only in written form. The first appointment for school entry diagnostics takes place half a year later than in school B and most other Hessian primary schools. One of the reasons is the high fluctuation rate of prospective schoolchildren during the 15 months between registration and school entry. At the initial school registration, a remarkable number of parents still hesitate about which of the four schools in the neighbourhood to choose. With the later diagnostic appointment, the school shows an organisational practice that aims not to diagnose children too early, since they may never attend this school. Even though the organisational practice appears rational, it produces a new organisational problem: how to filter out children in need for preschool German language training. The school solves this problem by delegating the recommendations for Vorlauf kurse to the kindergartens. In the discourses of the participating professions, this practice is barely defended with organisational reasons, but with a pedagogical argumentation: it is argued that the kindergarten educators know the children better than their future teachers do. The organisational decision is legitimised by a critique of selective meetings for school entry diagnostics, which – in the teachers’ view – are seen inferior to a continual child observation in kindergarten. The organisational decision in this school is not covered by § 58 of Hessian School Law, which designates the schools as responsible authorities for the diagnosis of language training needs. The decision can be legitimised instead by referring to the Hessian Educational Plan (Bildungs- und Erziehungsplan), which conceptualises the cooperation between schools and kindergartens regarding the transition to school. Nevertheless, the case is untypical in the context of the study’s sample, since the other schools do not leave their ‘diagnostic rights’ for prospective schoolchildren to the kindergartens. As the headmaster tells the researchers in an interview, the school was hopeful to abandon the selective school entry assessments when establishing the flexible school entry phase: Yes, I would like to say, well, to tell the truth we=we’ve imagined that we could abandon this. But then, um, we realised that ... um … we ... cannot rely on the kindergartens 100 per cent. […] Because … um the communication between kindergartens and schools um … is only just in progress. Mhmm. Well in a school like ours you have 30 kinder-um-gartens and alternative child-care centres. (Translation HK)

Here another organisational problem is hinted at: due to the socio-spatial embedment and population density in the quarter, the official educational plan

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(Bildungs- und Erziehungsplan) and its requirement of building tandems between kindergartens and schools cannot be implemented with the local 30 kindergartens at the same time. Furthermore, the establishment of a diagnostic appointment in school 10 months before school entry appears to be an organisational compromise.11 At that moment, some of the children already attend the Vorlauf kurs, and since its teacher is one of the teachers to conduct the assessments in school, she can provide knowledge generated in continual observations of the Vorlauf kurs-children. The schools’ different school entry proceedings and different infrastructural features have direct effects on the assessments of prospective schoolchildren. In both schools, albeit for different reasons, children’s school entry is not supposed to be postponed, but the practices do not always follow this programmatic aim. The situated regulation of school entry in school B can be regarded to be remarkably inclusive at first glance: it accepts nearly all children that were registered, particularly early school entries, in order to maintain two tracks per grade. But a second look – both long-term and from the perspective of an organisational ethnography – reveals a number of relegations during or at the end of school year one. These ‘delayed’ postponements mark a shift in organisational rationality: when by entering school the children have fulfilled their function of maintaining the school’s organisational shape, the organisation tends to convert its regulations again to the assessment of differences and selective decisions. In a longitudinal perspective, the school performs a particular ambivalence of inclusive and exclusive attitudes towards its pupils. As compared to school B, the situated regulation of school entry in school C has to deal with the opposite problem: it sees a trend of too many registrations for school entry. In this school, too, the governmental and programmatic framing of flexible school entry and local organisational conditions get into a relationship of tension. During the last school entry assessments, teachers work with a form that summarises the final recommendations as follows: “Assessment school entry in general: yes – doubtful – no”. In a school with a flexible school entry phase, the options “doubtful” and “no” in the strict sense would only apply for early school entry, since these children are not yet in compulsory school age. In addition to this form, the teachers work with a list of the prospective schoolchildren’s names when conducting individual assessments; they have to mark the names of supposed Kann-Kinder (registered for early school entry) on this list.

11 | A different interpretation would be that it shows the organisation’s indolence: the political preponement of the registration for school was implemented in two steps, since 2007 the date was ten months before school entry.

School Entr y Proceedings as Organisational Practices

The following sequence represents parts of a conversation of two teachers who have just assessed a child and now fill in the form: Mrs A: This Anton, he should be marked. Mrs B: I think so, too. Mrs A: You’ve put down: “lisps”. Mrs B: Yes, I mean I’m no linguist, but he is alreadyMrs A: Of course, I’ve registered how he is speaking. Mrs B: And heMrs A: But the questions well answered, um, with one die it was OK, with two dice he is counting [numbers of dots], but also OK. I do find it normal that they are counting. Mrs B: Mhm ((agreeing)). Mrs A: ((is reading)) raises hand when it isn’t his turn … what- the other way round. Auditive percep- aha, is getting successively better then, but- […] Mrs B: Also in sports he was [rather abnormal] Mrs A: [fairly, fairly weak] Mrs B: Rather abnormal. Well, um yes. Mrs A: Well, in any case, I would- he will be a problem- there will be problems with him for sure. Mrs B: Mhm ((agreeing)). (Translation HK)

Our observations of the school entry grade in school C indicate a shift in meaning with regard to the practice of ‘marking’. There was no Kann-Kind in the observed group, and significantly the teachers, when talking about their assessments do not discuss whom they regard as a Kann-Kind. For all 13 children the general assessment options were not ticked, three names on the list were highlighted nevertheless, among them Anton. These markings correspond with the number of recordings in the observation sheets and appear to be productive for the proceedings in a different way than initially intended. In a subtle way, the teachers single out children for diffuse and various reasons, and new differentiations and decisions are imported into the proceedings, for two of the singled out children, it is noted “not into the same class” (translation H.K.). With the practice of marking, a decision option is re-imported into the proceedings that appeared to have been abandoned by establishing the flexible school entry phase, namely the postponed school entry for children old enough for compulsory school education. If, at the end of the proceedings, the school’s capacities do not allow school entry for all registered children, the school still has as a last organisational option to regulate the number of school entries: to postpone school entry for the highlighted children. Anton’s entry was not postponed, but school C reported postponements for other years.

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C onclusion One can easily presume that school entry proceedings focus on processing individual assessments and educational decisions. But the methodical distancing from this presumption was productive for an ethnographic analysis of the organisations’ practices. We developed an organisation-analytical reconstruction of school entry proceedings by changing the focus from observing the learning preconditions of individual children to observing the manifold preconditions of the primary school organisations, which do not only have to deal with single children but also whole school entry cohorts. In this way, I showed with the example of two schools how governmental and situated regulations of school entry can interfere in practical terms. Tensions arise when organisational actors attempt to deal simultaneously with laws, governmental and statutory orders, as well as situated local constellations of problems. The schools are requested to fulfil both legal instructions and solve local organisational problems, and the two are dealt with creatively during the school entry proceedings. On the one hand, programmatic statements in the interviews focus on the inclusive aims of the respective school’s entry policies. On the other hand, these statements contrast with the (implicit) school entry selection practices. This discrepancy makes clear that organisational ethnographies need to distinguish between programmatic policies (based on legal, political, and pedagogical discourses) and practical situated politics – but this distinction is not sufficient to qualify organisational ethnographies. This study gives an example of the methodological challenges that organisational and institutional ethnographies have to accept. First, it is particularly challenging that proceedings cannot be reconstructed additively from observations of a series of single events. Instead, more complex strategies of representing and reconstructing organisational proceedings are needed (Scheffer 2007). The examples of portraying organisations presented in this contribution may give an impression of connective ethnographic, descriptive-analytical practices that have to be cultivated and applied when doing organisational ethnography. Second, if one wants to go beyond exploring “the everyday work-text-work activities done by actual people in their local settings” (Walby 2005: 164), the “higher order regulatory frames” (Smith 2005: 200) and the types of documents that constitute these frames have to be systematised and differentiated regarding the different levels, fields, and modes of regulation and decision-making. This perspective may be more common in governance studies (Ainley/McKenzie 2000), but I would nevertheless like to suggest an approach to organisational ethnography that also encompasses the levels of regulation as an empirical and analytical interest.12 12 | This approach would also mark a distinction to the all-inclusive concept of “discursive practices” in governmentality studies.

School Entr y Proceedings as Organisational Practices

A hybrid approach of organisational ethnography and governance studies can start exploration from both ends of the continuum of regulation – governmental and situated – and the related discourses. Likewise, it can organise new forms of triangulating perspectives. Finally, I would like to go back to the study’s field of exploration. Why do Hessian schools use the period set by the government for the proceedings so willingly to intensify school entry assessments, without being forced to do so by state regulations? This could be explained in parts by referring to the related early-education and support discourses. But an ethnographic organisation analysis shows in the first place that schools use the regulations to generate resources and legitimisations for (selective) decision-making, which make their organisational problems processable. In these processes, however, the educational decisions for individual children are put to the organisation’s disposition.

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Fertig, Michael/Kluve, Jochen (2005): The Effect of Age at School Entry on Educational Attainment in Germany, RWI: Discussion Papers No. 27, Essen: Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (RWI), pp. 4-32. Gomolla, Mechthild/Radtke, Frank-Olaf (2007 [2003]): Institutionelle Diskriminierung: Die Herstellung ethnischer Differenz in der Schule, Wiesbaden: VS. Hessian Ministry of Education [Hessisches Kultusministerium] (ed.) (2002): Deutsch-Frühförderung in Vorlaufkursen: Eine Handreichung für Grundschulen, Wiesbaden: Hessisches Landesinstitut für Pädagogik. Hessian Ministry of Education [Hessisches Kultusministerium] (ed.) (2011): SchulKlassGrV HE: Verordnung über die Festlegung der Anzahl und der Größe der Klassen, Gruppen und Kurse in allen Schulformen vom 21. Juni 2011, Wiesbaden. Kammermeyer, Gisela (2000): Schulfähigkeit: Kriterien und diagnostische/ prognostische Kompetenz von Lehrerinnen, Lehrern und Erzieherinnen, Bad Heilbrunn: Klinkhardt. Kelle, Helga (ed.) (2010): Kinder unter Beobachtung: Kulturanalytische Studien zur pädiatrischen Entwicklungsdiagnostik, Opladen: Barbara Budrich. Latour, Bruno (2006): “Über technische Vermittlung: Philosophie, Soziologie und Genealogie.” In: Andréa Belliger/David J. Krieger (eds.), ANThology: Einführendes Handbuch zur Akteur-Netzwerk-Theorie, Bielefeld: transcript, pp. 483-528. Luhmann, Niklas (1969): Legitimation durch Verfahren, Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp. Marcus, George E. (1995): “Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-Sited Ethnography.” In: Annual Review of Anthropology 24, pp. 95-117. Nadai, Eva/Koch, Martina (2011): “Ein Forschungsobjekt im Zwischenraum: Interinstitutionelle Zusammenarbeit zwischen sozialstaatlichen Agenturen.” In: Zeitschrift für Soziologie der Erziehung und Sozialisation 31/3, pp. 236-249. Nadai, Eva/Maeder, Christoph (2007): “Negotiations at all Points? Interaction and Organization [53 paragraphs].” In: Forum: Qualitative Sozialforschung/ Forum: Qualitative Social Research 9/1, Art. 32. Ott, Marion (2011): Aktivierung von (In-)Kompetenz: Praktiken im Profiling – eine machtanalytische Ethnographie, Konstanz: UVK. Peters, Michael A./Besley, Tina/Olsson, Marc/Maurer, Susanne/Weber, Susanne (eds.) (2009): Governmentality Studies in Education, Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Schatzki, Theodore R. (2002): The Site of the Social: A Philosophical Account of the Constitution of Social Life and Change, University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.

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Schatzki, Theodore R./Knorr Cetina, Karin/von Savigny, Eike (eds.) (2001): The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory, London: Routledge. Scheffer, Thomas (2001): Asylgewährung: Eine ethnographische Verfahrensanalyse, Stuttgart: Lucius & Lucius. Scheffer, Thomas (2007): “Event and Process: An Exercise in Analytical Ethnography.” In: Human Studies 30/3, pp. 167-197. Scheffer, Thomas (2010): Adversarial Case-Making: An Ethnography of English Crown Court Procedure, Leiden and Boston: Brill Academic Pub. Scheffer, Thomas/Michaeler, Matthias/Schank, Jan (2008): “Starke und schwache Verfahren: Zur unterschiedlichen Funktionsweise politischer Untersuchungen am Beispiel der englischen ‘Hutton Inquiry’ und des ‘CIA-Ausschusses’ der EU.” In: Zeitschrift für Soziologie 37/5, pp. 423-444. Smith, Dorothy E. (2001): “Texts and the Ontology of Organizations and Institutions.” In: Studies in Cultures, Organizations and Societies 7/2, pp. 159-198. Smith, Dorothy E. (2005): Institutional Ethnography: A Sociology for People, Lanham: AltaMira Press. Smith, Dorothy E. (ed.) (2006): Institutional Ethnography as Practice, Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Smith, Karen (2012): “Producing Governable Subjects: Images of Childhood Old and New.” In: Childhood 19, pp. 24–37. Tervooren, Anja (2010): “Expertendiskurse zur Schulfähigkeit im Wandel: Zur Ausstreuung von Diagnostik.” In: Doris Bühler-Niederberger/Johanna Mierendorff/Andreas Lange (eds.), Kindheit zwischen fürsorglichem Zugriff und gesellschaftlicher Teilhabe, Wiesbaden: VS, pp. 253-271. Walby, Kevin T. (2005): “Institutional Ethnography and Surveillance Studies: An Outline for Inquiry.” In: Surveillance & Society 3/2/3, pp. 158-172. Wolff, Stephan (1983): Die Produktion von Fürsorglichkeit, Bielefeld: AJZ. Wolff, Stephan (2006): “Textanalyse.” In: Ruth Ayaß/Jörg R. Bergmann (eds.), Qualitative Methoden der Medienforschung, Reinbek: Rowohlt, pp. 245273. Ybema, Sierk/Yanow, Dvora/Wels, Harry/Kamsteeg, Frans (2009): Organizational Ethnography: Studying the Complexities of Everyday Life, Los Angeles: Sage.

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The Political Economy of Prison-based Treatment and Re-entry Programming in Illinois and Chicago Robert P. Fairbanks II

A bstr act The State of Illinois incarcerates more than 49.000 inmates annually, and 36.000 are released each year. Two-thirds (roughly 25.000 annually) of this number return to just five zip codes located on the West and South sides of Chicago, where black male unemployment exceeds 45 per cent even before ex-felons return home. This paper explores selective state measures by which policy and practitioner elites have responded to the re-entry imperative in an era of unprecedented fiscal austerity. The paper maps the historical roots and contemporary expansion of the re-entry imperative, in part by tracing the convergence of disparate ideological positions and the formation of novel political coalitions among policy elites. A central component of the Illinois re-entry initiative is the Sheridan Correctional Center, a medium security prison housing 1700 inmates that is devoted entirely to substance abuse treatment. Opened in 2004, Sheridan has been designed and planned with an eye toward the pathways and channels to successful community reintegration in urban contexts, both in terms of neighbourhoods and social service delivery systems. This paper builds a conceptual framework for my ethnographic fieldwork. I hope to suggest how theoretically informed ethnographic observation positions me to conceptualise the ways that plurality, unevenness, and multi-modal forms of criminal justice practices accommodate and facilitate points of crisis. I explore the ways in which drug and alcohol recovery and intensive monitoring of sobriety on parole works as an ancillary modality of poverty management to resolve the prison crisis and to reinvent welfare regimes in the 21st century.

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I ntroduction This paper explores, theoretically and methodologically, an ethnographic case study on a US prison. A central objective of the paper, consistent with the analytical themes in the present volume, is to illustrate how ethnographic method, when theoretically and historically informed, are ideally suited to advance the post-disciplinary theoretical project of mapping urban regulatory restructuring in social policy. With exceptional capacity to work across the shifting scales, sites, and domains of welfare policy formation, ethnographic sensitivity offers an eye for the unfinished and differentiated, as well as the contextually specific ways in which national and transnational processes of “neoliberalisation” must always forge alliances on the ground, within institutionally inherited landscapes (Peck/Tickell 2002). With proper grounding in theoretical and historical insights from political economy, ethnographic researchers have the potential to elucidate translations of policy mandates in local contexts, charting local variations and complex pathways as well as edges, weak spots, contestations, contradictions, and sites of breakdown/failure (Peck 2001). In this sense, this paper accords with pressing themes of the current volume, by foregrounding potential analytic linkages between transformations in state policies for incarceration and local institutional practice. However, theoretically informed urban ethnographies – in this case those equipped with an appropriate analytical apparatus for the vast restructurings of the post-welfare state and its respondent transformations of subjectivity – remain in relatively short supply (cp. Fairbanks, 2012; Fairbanks & Lloyd, 2011). Crisis-driven urban policy restructure in the early 21st century has induced a burgeoning of institutional arrangements and governance strategies that are new and in urgent need of study. The realm of US mass incarceration is no exception. This paper seeks to index historical and theoretical explanations for US mass incarceration in order to position the researcher to better recast and refine such explanations with ethnographic research. The paper does not delve deeply into the ethnographic research in the prison. Rather, I seek to understand and suggest how austerity measures in carceral practice, as well as new modes of welfare administration and poverty management, crystallise into policy regimes and power repertoires at the local scale. By building a conceptual framework for the project, I hope to suggest how theoretically informed ethnographic observation positions me to conceptualise the ways that plurality, unevenness, and multi-modal forms of criminal justice practices accommodate and facilitate points of crisis. Neoliberal restructuring is operationalised in zones of “serial policy failure” and in restless projects of re-invention and re-regulation, which call for a very particular type of finely grained analysis. In the post-disciplinary field of social welfare, we still have little sense of what this theoretical analysis looks

The Political Economy of Prison-based Treatment and Re-entr y Programming

like in methodological practice. When adding questions of crisis and failure to the matrix, the analytical/methodological challenge grows only more daunting. Again citing Peck et al. (2010), crises are in fact critical to the on-going transformation of neoliberalism as a regulatory project: the theoretical implications here are methodologically unsettling to say the least. We are impelled as urban scholars to resist narratives of convergence in favour of an increasingly capillary and hyper-contextualised methodological approach to institutional restructure. And yet, for all the nuanced attention to the locally specific, the work of scholars in the regulation theory remains potently abstract and vastly underdeveloped in empirical terms. Important challenges must be overcome in order to deliver, with sufficient precision, an accurate picture of state selectivity and its relationship to social modes of regulation in institutional restructure. This is the space for ethnographic analysis to take hold, if appropriately fortified with complementary theoretical armature from studies in governmentality. To date, I have conducted 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork inside the walls at Sheridan Correctional Center in Sheridan, Illinois (the last ethnographic project to take place inside the walls at an Illinois state prison was for James Jacobs Stateville, published in 1977). My primary aim thus far has been to assess the pervasive significance of substance abuse treatment on the social ecology of the prison. Whereas, historically, there have been two codes to live by – that of the guards and the inmates – Sheridan introduces a new historical moment in which a third party (treatment) actively transforms modalities of governance and praxis. However, in this chapter I will not discuss the ethnographic fieldwork inside the prison per se, but rather present parts of the ethnographic research that put the history of Sheridan in conversation with its broader political economic context. I will therefore show how Sheridan came into being and then index a series of theoretical and philosophical placeholders for on-going thinking about what Sheridan means for theories of political economy and welfare state transformation. On both accounts, my analysis is meant to provide an inroad for consideration of how ethnographic research can form a leading analytical edge for the following question: how does substance abuse treatment work as an ancillary modality of criminal justice to resolve the crises of recidivism, re-entry, prison overcrowding, and prison expenditure? These are the most visible symptoms of the still muscle-bound regulatory framework of mass incarceration, the gradual weakening of which has led to context-specific forms of regulatory experimentation. I want to suggest then, as a methodological question and point of departure, how to combine ethnographic case study methodology with historical analysis, critical theory, and multi-sited ethnography in order to provisionally comprehend the complexity and contradictory nature of prison reform on the ground.

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The fall out of mass incarcer ation in C hicago To begin with a quick sketch of mass incarceration in the United States, there has been an explosive growth of the US prison system since 1970 that is by now well documented. Statistical overviews are rehearsed with such frequency and alarm that they have an almost numbing effect. Nonetheless, this descriptive rite of passage is important to understand the true magnitude of the prison and its central role in today’s political economy of urban poverty, social welfare, and labour stratification. Following a 50-year period (1920-1970) in which the prison population in the United States held relatively constant at 200.000, the incarcerated population in state and federal prisons grew five-fold in three short decades, reaching 1 million persons by 1995 and 1.3 million persons by 2002 (cp. Harcourt 2011: 198; Wacquant 2009: 60-61). If we include those incarcerated in local jails, the number reached 2 million persons by 2002 and is up to more than 2.3 million today. The increase in state and federal prisoners between 1970-1995 alone (from 200.000 to 1 million) represents a 442 per cent increase in a quarter century, a growth magnitude never before witnessed in a democratic society (cp. Wacquant 2009: 61). By 2008 the US was incarcerating more than one per cent of its total population. The US has the highest incarceration rate in the world, five times the rate of England and twelve times the rate of Japan (cp. Harcourt 2011: 198). With merely five per cent of the world’s population, the US now holds nearly 25 per cent of the world’s prisoners (cp. Gottschalk 2006: 1). The carceral boom has been anything but colour-blind. In four short decades (1970-1990), the racial and ethnic composition of the incarcerated population reversed, from 70 per cent white, 30 per cent black and Latino inmates to 70 per cent black and Latino, 30 per cent white inmates (cp. Wacquant 2009: 60-61). While beyond the scope of this paper, suffice it to say that historical explanations for the incarceration boom are broad and diverse, ranging from post-industrial decline, to globalisation, to shifts in sentencing, to the war on drugs, to welfare state retrenchment. For the purposes of this chapter, I will focus on one particular historical explanation for mass incarceration: the resoundingly new consensus after 1970 that prison works “not as a mechanism of reform or rehabilitation, but as a means of incapacitation that satisfies popular political demands for public safety and harsh retribution” (Garland 2001: 14). More specifically for my purposes, I am most concerned with the putative eclipse or gutting of rehabilitative frameworks from the 1970s to the early 2000s, said to act as a mainspring of the warehousing logics of mass incarceration, and their eventual and (perhaps) still quite nascent re-emergence in the contemporary present. The most extensive exploration of this trend has been undertaken by David Garland (1985; 1993; 2001), whose books on 20th century criminal justice map

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the transition from “penal welfarism” (1900-1970) to what many critics have described as a neoliberal turn in punishment policy. In describing the penal welfarist era, Garland sketched the monopoly that clinicians (social workers, psychiatrists, psychologists, even sociologists) once held in the long rehabilitative horizon that dominated life in the prison up until the close of the 1960s. The core assumptions of criminology in the welfare era were premised on a faith in the perfectibility of man. Crime was perceived as the sign of an underachieving socialisation process, and society looked to the state and its clinical expertise for social adjustment (cp. Dilts 2008; Garland 2001). Since the late 1960s, Garland contends, the correctional facility has reduced its rehabilitative ambition to ground zero. Contemporary criminology (1970-2000) views crime as “routine, [and] committed by individuals who are for all intents and purposes normal” (Garland 2001: 15). Offenders are now envisaged as rational economic actors responsive to disincentives and fully responsible for their actions, leading to a theory and rationality of criminology that strongly reinforces retributive and deterrent policies. Crime is explained no longer on a theory of individual deprivation, but rather as an outgrowth of inadequate controls that can be governed through risk management strategies (cp. Garland 2001). The death of penal welfarism is said to have been accompanied by the disappearance of rehabilitative programming in prisons, which has indeed been eulogised consistently in the literature on prisons since 1970 and also posited as a central component of mass incarceration. By Garland’s own admission (2001: 7), we would be wise to take precautions when dealing with broad-brush strokes and historical periodisations. Any complex, multidimensional field undergoing transformation will show signs of continuity and discontinuity as institutionally inherited landscapes are reworked en route to new welfare settlements (cp. Clarke 2004; Polanyi 2001 [1944]). Nevertheless, and bearing in mind these precautions and rules of methodological good sense, if we take Sheridan as a case study it seems clear that something is happening in recent machinations of prison reform in the early 21st century. And my contention here is that we may not quite know yet just what it is. Resolution of the consequences, failures, fallout and crises of mass incarceration have perhaps entered us into a new phase for consideration. The Illinois version of the carceral boom certainly points us in this direction. The current phase of reform in Illinois is most pertinent to the United States, but may also have varying degrees of potential for policy transfer in international contexts. The state of Illinois has experienced its own exceptionally aggressive incarceration boom. The state’s prison population doubled from 1973-1982, then doubled again by 1991, and then rose another 55 per cent by the close of the 1990s (cp. Peck/Theodore 2008: 252). Put another way, from fewer than 20.000 inmates prior to 1987, the Illinois prison population grew to 45.000 by the year 2001 and stands at nearly 50.000 today. To accommodate the popula-

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tion growth, Illinois opened 21 prisons between 1980 and 2004, adding 20.318 beds to the system’s state-wide capacity of 31.000. The present population of almost 50.000 inmates speaks conspicuously to the crisis of overcrowding in Illinois (cp. Olson/Rozhon 2011: 9). The State of Illinois currently incarcerates more than 49.000 inmates on any given day, and upwards of 36.000 of this total number are released each year. Roughly two-thirds (25.000 annually) return to just seven zip codes located on the West and South sides of Chicago, where black male unemployment exceeds 45 per cent even before ex-felons return home (cp. Olson/Rozhon 2011; Peck/Theodore 2008; La Vigne et al. 2004). The numbers involved in these estimates comprise a veritable crisis that has come under the name of prisoner re-entry, a growing policy obsession at the national, state, and urban scale. From George W. Bush’s 2008 Second Chance Act, to the 2009 Illinois Crime Reduction Act, to numerous municipal policy and practice initiatives at the Cook County Jail (a massive institution in its own rite, holding 10.000 inmates per day), the re-entry imperative operates across multiple scales and along multiple administrative fronts. It has been fuelled by a convergence of disparate ideological positions and the formation of novel political coalitions among policy elites. A central component of the Illinois re-entry initiative is the Sheridan Correctional Center, a level 4 medium security state prison located 70 miles southwest of Chicago. Billed as the nation’s largest and only fully dedicated substance abuse treatment prison (and the only programme of its kind that is medium security), the Sheridan Correctional Center is a bold experiment in the history of criminal justice reform. In the state of Illinois’ current economic and political crisis, Sheridan has been framed as a hopeful – and potentially replicable – model for changing the way in which the criminal justice system addresses the complicated nexus between addiction, urban poverty, and recidivism. Opened in 2004, Sheridan has been designed and planned with an eye toward the pathways and channels to successful urban reintegration, both in terms of neighbourhoods and social service delivery systems. Originally opened as a juvenile centre in 1941, Sheridan changed to an adult prison facility in 1971. After a brief closure between 2002-2004 (due to a budget skirmish under former Illinois Governor Ryan’s watch), the Sheridan Correctional Center was re-opened as a fully dedicated substance abuse treatment prison on January 2, 2004 (cp. Olson/Rozhon 2011: 13). The newly opened Sheridan prison was engineered to solve the current crises of recidivism and overcrowding through the re-emergence of substance abuse programming for re-entry. A central impetus at the time was that the Illinois recidivism rate (defined as the number of inmates returned to prison within three years of release) had hit record highs of 54.4 per cent in 2003 and 54.6 per cent in 2004. The recidivism rate was even higher – nearly 66 per cent – when based on rearrests

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for a new crime within three years (i.e., regardless of whether it resulted in their subsequent return to prison). With Blagojevich’s backing, the early architects of Sheridan researched best practices in those “leading” states with the lowest recidivism rates. They came to focus on substance abuse treatment as the most effective, evidence-based intervention to reduce recidivism and to strengthen re-entry programming. For the prison phase of the process, all bets were placed on the Therapeutic Community model (TC), described by the National Institute on Drug Abuse as “residential [programmes] using a hierarchical model with treatment strategies that reflect increased levels of personal and social responsibility” (Olson/Rozhon 2011: 13). The TC model depends upon “peer influence, mediated through a variety of group processes […] used to help individuals learn and assimilate social norms and develop more effective social skills” (ibid). At Sheridan, this is accomplished through the provision of individual and group treatment, delivered by a contractual service provider known as WestCare Foundation. Inmates also receive a variety of ancillary services, including educational programming, job training, vocational training, anger management classes, parenting skills, and relationship skills. The TC treatment approach is also augmented by a hybrid modality that adjoins Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Motivational Interviewing (MI), and 12-step recovery. Treatment takes place all day every day across the Sheridan compound, which is comprised of 25 separate cell blocks. Within each housing unit at Sheridan, the population is divided into several (usually four) therapeutic communities or “families”. The development and planning of Sheridan articulates with three national trends driving the contemporary debates in prison reform: cost effectiveness, recidivism/re-entry, and recovery. Let me address each of these trends briefly. First, we are witnessing a crisis in the rising costs of incarceration, made even more acute by the financial collapse of 2008 and its associated fiscal austerity mandates. Federal and state spending has grown exponentially since 1972 – Illinois currently spends $1.5 billion per year on corrections out of a state budget of $25 billion. In the wake of unprecedented expenditures, the fiscal crisis of 2008 has produced strange political bedfellows from a range of ideological backgrounds – Christian fundamentalists, prisoner’s rights advocates, political progressives, libertarians, and fiscal conservatives – are now in agreement that the exorbitantly expensive carceral state build up of the last 40 years is no longer tenable. These nascent coalitions also seem to be in some agreement that they have to spend money to save money, at least selectively. Second, and accordingly, we have seen an increase in public and political attention to the costly problems of recidivism/overcrowding, and a concomitant imperative for prisoner re-entry programming at the federal (e.g. George W. Bush’s 2008 Second Chance Act), state (e.g. the Sheridan Correctional Center, as well as the 2009 Illinois Crime Reduction Act that includes sentencing

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reform, the Risks Assets and Needs Assessment task force [RANA], and Adult Illinois Redeploy) and municipal levels (e.g. the Cook County Collaborative on Re-entry, which includes numerous Green initiatives in environmental programming; in addition to myriad innovative efforts in Cook County Jail such as Division 17 transgender programming). Third, we have seen proliferation of substance abuse treatment models to address the prison crisis. The growing intersection in policy and practice between criminal justice, substance abuse recovery, and urban social welfare has catalysed a new wave of treatment models deployed in prison administration, probation and parole programming, and housing/re-entry programming for ex-offenders. Most parties now agree that the austere, tough on crime approach of providing inmates with a mere $50 in gate money for a bus ride back to Chicago is simply too costly for the region. A social service bridge is necessary for reintegration. Suddenly, rehabilitation is back.

The re turn of rehabilitative fr ame works in the double movement A central objective of this chapter is to suggest how drug and alcohol recovery, when theorised and historicised under certain auspices, becomes visible as an ancillary modality of poverty management to resolve the current crises of mass incarceration and to reinvent urban welfare practices in the 21st century. In this regard, rehabilitative programming operates across administrative sites and scales in contextually specific forms that are nonetheless logically consistent in their path dependent regulatory effects. For example, at the heart of my Sheridan study lies a very tentative hypothesis that we may have entered a new, “third” period in the history of prison reform. The current trend at least partially harkens back to the rehabilitative era of penal welfarism from 19001970 (although it should be noted that there are no attempts to rehabilitate all prisoners, and the supermax prison is still very much intact). But in order to truly understand the historical question: Why Sheridan? Why now? We must put the correctional centre in a much broader light; to show how it resonates and articulates with the larger political and economic arrangements of post-welfarism. Let me conclude by offering a few provisional explanations for the Sheridan prison’s persistence – even at 43 grand a bed as against 23 – in an era of near-unprecedented fiscal austerity; I am therefore asking not only why the treatment prison emerges in 2004, but also and perhaps more importantly: why does it survive? My first explanatory remark relies heavily on Loïc Wacquant’s notion of prisoner re-entry as myth and ceremony (2010: 613). In essence, Wacquant draws from Weber, Durkheim, and Bourdieu to illustrate how the praxis of re-entry

The Political Economy of Prison-based Treatment and Re-entr y Programming

itself becomes a practice or habitus. As seven in ten convicts coming out of prison are re-arrested and over half are re-incarcerated within three years, it becomes readily apparent that the concept of re-integration is in fact a misnomer at best. Wacquant’s persistent point is that these men were never “integrated” to begin with, as there has never been a structure to absorb and accommodate them on the outside. My ethnographic research findings to date in fact reveal three ways of “doing re-entry” in Chicago, none of which are very promising for the notion of “pathways to re-integration”. The first is to find formal employment in the low wage service sector. While not impossible, for the better part of the men I am studying, this option is dead on arrival, based on the presence of 50 per cent black male unemployment in the neighbourhoods to which they return. The second strategy is to get involved in a kind of entrepreneur training programme, wherein providers offer a 12-15 week “mini-MBA” course on the assumption that most convicts are natural born capitalists, or “risk takers” with an aversion to central authority and a committed aspiration to working for themselves. At the completion of the programme, which entails writing a “fundable” business plan, ex-offenders can qualify for low-interest start-up loans in order to convert their entrepreneurial dreams into actual businesses. The third and more common channel of re-entry, and the one I will focus on for the remainder of this chapter, is to enter into recovery through the many state sponsored avenues of practising sobriety and self-transformation. In essence the ex-offender becomes a recovering addict in perpetuity, and recovery itself becomes something of a job. In addition to the rigorous activity of maintaining their own sobriety, many ex-offenders try to become para-professional counsellors, motivational speakers in programmes such as “scared straight” that send ex-gang-bangers into high schools, or residential case managers in the very houses to which they returned upon release from prison. Others hang around programmes and politicians in hopes of somehow coming into contact with trickle down stimulus dollars, which might allow them to get into social service programming in the re-entry field. In this regard addiction has come to be seen as a problem in and of itself – quite distinct from actual crime and victimisation – and with its fashionable emergence recovery has become part of a broader compendium of distinctive policies and practices developed to reduce recidivism without much promise of reintegration to meaningful employment. In many respects, re-entry through recovery entails something more of a trans-institutionalisation rather than a de-carceration per se. Inmates are moved from one institutional context to another. As opposed to experiencing any true emancipation from criminal justice surveillance, they experience a more graduated form of transfer across a spectrum of corrections. In this sense recovery comes to embody what Lauren Berlant (2011) refers to as a cruel optimism: the affective structure associated with increasing precarity in the face

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of waning sovereignty and dissolving assurances. Berlant contends that amidst the fraying of contemporary fantasies – of upward mobility, job security, gainful employment even – recovery becomes somewhat doubly cruel in so far as it entails being inside a relation that becomes sustaining regardless of the content of the relation. Recovery for the ex-offender binds him to a set of practices, rituals, and discourses that simultaneously come to cycle and recycle the subject in criminal justice monitoring, at the same time that the recovery narrative itself becomes profoundly confirming. In light of these reflections, I would like to suggest in conclusion to this chapter that re-entry is currently operating as a new form of political patronage and a new form of what Karl Polanyi (2001 [1944]: 150) famously referred to as the “double movement”. I will provisionally contend, therefore, that, at least in part, the streets and sanitation jobs of public works clientalism in the Chicago of old has been replaced by a form of social service patronage in the double movement. To make this point, let me briefly invoke Polanyi’s central thesis. Polanyi contended that market liberalism evolved into a veritable faith in Man’s secular salvation via the self-regulating market, or laissez faire. He turned the notion of laissez faire on its head, however, with his concept of the double movement, insisting that disembedding the economy from social relationships and political institutions necessarily entails an on-going role for the state in the management and regulation of society via social protection in pre-capitalist (or extra capitalist) forms of aid and de-commodification. By illustrating how the role of the state is to be found, empirically, in welfare measures seeking to alter, regulate, or slow the rate of change, Polanyi’s study gave birth to a long welfare-analytical tradition in regulation theory and political economy. In my own case, resurrecting Polanyi’s thesis for refinement of the fashionable term “post-welfarism” entails thinking critically about what Bernard Harcourt (2011: 40-44) has termed “neoliberal penality”. As Harcourt argues in his indictment of the Chicago School, the tension of neoliberal penality lies in what several have referred to as the cost of our current political and economic arrangements: the price we pay for our unyielding belief in the economy as the realm of natural orderliness (dating back to the Physiocrats) and the concomitant belief that the legitimate and competent sphere of government lies in policing (cp. Harcourt 2011). For Harcourt the steep price of neoliberal penality lies in the following two consequences. First, the myriad existing regulatory mechanisms in contemporary markets are naturalised, thereby obfuscating the distributional consequences of these very mechanisms. Second, mass incarceration becomes the quintessentially legitimate form of state building. Harcourt documents how this messianic belief bestows upon a series of thinkers, from Adam Smith to von Hayek, from Bentham to Gary Becker, the task of establishing a theory and philosophy of punishment for classical liberals and their neoliberal counterparts (cp. Harcourt 2011: 121-150).

The Political Economy of Prison-based Treatment and Re-entr y Programming

Ultimately, Harcourt illustrates how the final task of articulating this theory of punishment fell on Richard Posner and Richard Epstein, who converged on a similar view of political economy and punishment that was institutionalised in the Chicago School of Law and Economics. As Harcourt shows, this vision replicates the curious alchemy of orderliness in the economic sphere, and state intervention/competence in the penal sphere. Consider for example Posner’s definition: The major function of criminal law in a capitalist society is to prevent people from bypassing the system of voluntary, compensated exchange – the ‘market’, explicit or implicit – in situations where, because transaction costs are low, the market is, virtually by definition, the most efficient method of allocating resources. Attempts to bypass the market will therefore be discouraged by a legal system bent on promoting efficiency. (Posner 1985; as cited by Harcourt 2011: 138)

For Posner then, what becomes forbidden is a class of “inefficient acts” that include not just market bypassing in the case of stolen goods that could have been otherwise purchased, but also the market for labour (cp. Harcourt 2011: 136). In other words, crime represents an express bypassing of the traditional means of obtaining money, i.e. gainful employment. While I am largely in agreement with Harcourt’s impeccable indictment of the Chicago School of Law and Economics as well as his overall attempt at theorising neoliberal penalty, I am concerned with the tendency here1 to conceive of the state in an over-determined or monolithic light. I want to argue, in contrast, that welfare-state transformation is more nuanced, and that the contradictions of neoliberal penality actually open the door for another type of state building that cannot best be described as the iron fist in the velvet glove. I am ultimately interested here in a softer and gentler side of political development locatable in the partial decay or at the very least fraying of the regulatory framework of mass incarceration. This can only be found in the realm of welfare professionals and the social service delivery matrices of cities. Urban Poverty and its associated regulatory problems emerge cyclically in public life as issues to be solved. Market liberalism typically contradicts itself in the sense that it is repeatedly forced to rely on pre-capitalist institutions unable to play the market game due to burdens of social responsibility (churches, family, prisons, social work) (cp. Polanyi 2001 [1944]; Esping-Andersen 1990: 37). And while this conundrum is a recurring theme in history, poverty governance can never be fixed. It must always keep time with the rhythms of political life and the economic imperatives of late capital (Soss/Fording/Schram 2011).

1 | This tendency is shared in a distinctive way by Loïc Wacquant (2009).

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It is here that I want to locate the Sheridan Correctional Center as well as the Philadelphia recovery house movement. In the market-less re-entry sphere, whereby state building occurs in the realm of monitoring subjects awash in jobless economic recoveries and the speculative bubbles of post-fordist financialization, politics in the double movement brings welfarism back in. Context specific forms of regulatory experimentation are critical forms of urban political development that contain elements of continuity and novelty with the history and philosophy of welfare arrangements. My contention here is that these forms of state building are often overlooked and in urgent need of study. As Garland (2001) intimates, they relate to an expanded infrastructure of re-entry, crime prevention, and community safety – preventative partnerships, safer cities programmes, Business Improvement Districts (BIDS) neighbourhood watch, all strange bedfellows oriented towards new urban objectives and priorities such as security, prevention, harm reduction, or fear reduction. These mechanisms are all low-key boutique programmes, efforts to build up the control of neighbourhoods largely through the patronage and clientalist logic of recovery programming. In this regard, my ultimate goal in this chapter has been to suggest the ways in which the state is managing the urban crisis against a wave of fiscal austerity. I have sought to provide an inroad for consideration of how substance abuse treatment works as an ancillary modality of criminal justice to resolve urban crises of surplus labour populations as well as an institutional crisis of recidivism, re-entry, and overcrowding. These are the most visible forms of crisis in the regulatory framework of mass incarceration. This crisis has led to context specific forms of planned and unplanned experimentation, such as recovery houses and prisoner re-entry programming. As Esping-Andersen stated long ago, it is in the quality and arrangement of social rights, not in their existence per se, that we can identify a distinct welfare approach (1990). Dimensions of variation should be empirically identifiable not necessarily by expenditures alone or by the efficacy of treatment interventions (i.e. “what works”, intervention x produces outcome y), but rather via analysis of rules and standards, eligibilities, restrictions, and so forth; and perhaps more importantly via analysis of the lived experience of social policy and practice interventions. In each dimension, the welfare state is a continuously stratifying institution and an active force in the ordering of social relations (Esping-Andersen 1990). But we would be remiss to believe that these stratifying dimensions would have any degree of functionality in historical transformation if they were immutable. Across my projects, my goal is to discern the significance of contemporary welfare state transformation for marginalised groups and the political economy of cities. I believe this type of analysis is necessary to help social workers, policy makers, and social scientists better specify the political possibilities available to

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reduce inequality and to better assess how the restructurings of post-industrial urbanism increasingly punish the poor. In the case of recovery programing – formal in prisons, informal in recovery houses – we begin to see how governmental agendas of austerity and devolution are at least partially facilitated by offloading responsibility to the poor through ethical registers of emancipation and empowerment. Efforts to harness and shore up human potential should be augmented by a re-consideration of redistributive urban policies. My findings suggest that social work practitioners take a broader view of recovery and empowerment strategies as important supplements, but not as panaceas. Hearkening to the profession’s long tradition of systemic contextualisation and social justice, my findings show how recovery practices can ring hollow in the new economy and can even facilitate a pernicious reworking of institutional arrangements in post-industrial capitalism.

C onclusion As the previous sections of this paper have made clear, the post-disciplinary project of charting institutional restructure has achieved considerable sophistication at the level of high theory, but much work remains to get our fingernails sufficiently dirty in empirical terms. Contemporary ethnographic approaches that combine the theoretical insights and interventions of political economy and governmentality literatures offer much-needed potential to produce ethnographic research findings more powerful than theoretical abstraction alone. This paper has served primarily as a provocative measure, to suggest how theoretical musings on ethnographic findings can provide a lens to think about the analytic themes associated with ‘multi pluri trans’. In particular, the analysis presented here allows us to consider how the plurality and unevenness of practices on the ground are made generative and virtuous in processes of neoliberal reform. Theorising a project in this way is essential for understanding how policy imperatives are multi-scalar in nature, consistently made and remade across levels of policy and practice that range from the national to the local. I will conclude by summarising three points that emerge from my discussion of a particular ethnographic case study. First, if variegation is taken to be a central mechanism of institutional restructure, then we have moved beyond (or perhaps been forced to come to full terms with the complexity of) the analytical concept of plurality and unevenness. The debates on urban restructure have produced something more elusive and difficult to contend with methodologically, perhaps rendering positivist assumptions of generalizability increasingly suspect or even obsolete. Political processes of deregulation, devolution, market discipline via austerity, differentiation and re-differentiation within institutional landscapes; the neoliberalisation of unevenness or deep neoliberalisation

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– if you will – requires deep immersion into the capillary folds and confines of social, political, and economic restructure (Brenner/Peck/Theodore 2010). Combining ethnographic case study methodology with historical analysis and multi-sited ethnography is essential to grasp the complexity of variegation as a dynamic and generative force. However, and this is my second point, we should not in any way presuppose that variegation and plurality simply hold sway by default in all contexts of institutional reform. A quite predictable and analytically conventional notion of path dependence may in fact be more salient in some contexts than the otherwise slippery concept of variegated restructuring might suggest. There is no shortage of institutional arrangements that are still beholden to anachronistic and relatively monolithic or predictable forms of government – say for example race-based democratic machines or other patronage and corruption-driven modalities, not to mention predatory forms of civil society – that prevail over theoretical principles of neoliberalisation in practice. Ethnographic analysis, whether in formal institutions or on the street, can clarify the points at which discursive aspiration in the realms of market discipline and ideological hegemony overheats or simply breaks down, or at which it becomes susceptible to contemporary forms of the double movement. In this sense ethnographic methods offer a critical vehicle to the agenda set forth by David Harvey (2005): to locate the points at which neoliberal theory is compromised or contorted beyond recognition through series of contradictions in institutional practice. As a third and final point: the concepts of ‘multi pluri trans’, ranging from plurality to unevenness to multi-scalarity, require empirical specificity at the local level. Across topics ranging from prisoner re-entry to mixed income housing to workfare to homelessness policy, ethnographers can unveil empirical specificities concerning the ways in which policy mandates formulated at the supranational, federal, and state levels are made manifest at the local scale. Key informant interviews and critical policy analysis are crucial endeavours at the outer reaches. When such research activities are combined with ethnographic observation at the local level, we begin to gain insight into how policy imperatives shape urban institutions, as well as how human agency reshapes these imperatives at the experiential level. We have arrived at an exceptionally sophisticated moment in the theory of institutional reform and restructure. The capillary ends of our theoretical ambition, however, will require a growing body of ethnographic research in order to realise the full measure of its potential.

The Political Economy of Prison-based Treatment and Re-entr y Programming

R eferences Berlant, Lauren (2011): Cruel Optimism, Durham: Duke University Press. Brenner, Neil/Peck, Jamie/Theodore, Nik (2010): “Variegated Neoliberalization: Geographies, Modalities, Pathways.” In: Global Networks 10, pp. 182222. Clarke, John (2004): Changing Welfare, Changing States: New Directions in Social Policy, London: Sage. Dilts, Andrew (2008): “Michel Foucault Meets Gary Becker: Criminality Beyond Discipline and Punish.” In: Carceral Notebooks 4, pp. 77-100. Esping-Andersen, Gøsta (1990): The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Fairbanks II, Robert P. (2009): How It Works: Recovering Citizens in Post-Welfare Philadelphia, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Fairbanks II, Robert P. (2012): “On Theory and Method: Critical Ethnographic Approaches to Urban Regulatory Restructuring.” Urban Geography 33(4): 545-565. Fairbanks II, Robert P., & Lloyd, R. (2011): “Critical Ethnography and the Neoliberal City: The US Example.” Ethnography 12(1): 3-11. Garland, David (1985): Punishment and Social Welfare: A History of Penal Strategies, Aldershot: Gower. Garland, David (1993): Punishment and Modern Society: A Study in Social Theory, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Garland, David (2001): The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Gottschalk, Marie (2006): The Prison and the Gallows: The Politics of Mass Incarceration in America, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Harcourt, Bernard (2011): The Illusion of Free Markets: Punishment and the Myth of Natural Order, Boston: Harvard University Press. Harvey, David. (2005): A brief history of neoliberalism, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jacobs, James B. (1977): Stateville: The Penitentiary in Mass Society, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. La Vigne, N.A., Visher, C. and Castro, J. (2004): Chicago prisoners’ experiences of returning home. Urban Institute, Washington, DC. Olson, David E./Rozhon, Jennifer (2011): A Process and Impact Evaluation of the Sheridan Correctional Center Therapeutic Community Program During Fiscal Years 2004 Through 2010, Unpublished report, Loyola University Department of Criminal Justice on behalf of the Illinois Department of Corrections. Peck, Jamie (2001): Workfare States, London: Guilford Press.

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Peck, Jamie/Theodore, Nik (2008): “Carceral Chicago: Making the Ex-offender Employability Crisis.” In: International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 32/2, pp. 251-281. Peck, Jamie/Theodore, Nik/Brenner, Neil (2010): “Postneoliberalism and its Malcontents.” In: Antipode 41, pp. 94-116. Peck, Jamie/Tickell, Adam (2002): “Neoliberalizing Space.” In: Antipode 34, pp. 380-404. Polanyi, Karl (2001 [1944]): The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time, Boston: Beacon Press. Soss, Joe/Fording, Richard/Schram, Sanford (2011): Disciplining the Poor: Neoliberal Paternalism and the Persistence of Race, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Wacquant, Loïc J. (2009): Punishing the Poor: The Neoliberal Governance of Social Insecurity, Durham: Duke University Press. Wacquant, Loïc J. (2010): “Prisoner Reentry as Myth and Ceremony.” In: Dialectical Anthropology 34/4, pp. 605-620.

What is Education? Dealing with the Complexity of Educational Phenomena — Multimodality, Plurality, Heterogeneity

Designing Meaning Social Semiotic Multimodality Seen in Relation to Ethnographic Research Gunther Kress

A bstr act The chapter is motivated by three connected aims: 1. finding means for producing apt theoretical accounts of the social environments in which meanings are made; 2. a sense that the two enterprises of meaning-making as semiotic work, and the social goings-on in interactions in specific sites have much in common which might be mutually illuminating; 3. introducing ethnographers to a sketch of social semiotic theory, in the hope of starting a useful discussion. The sketch of social semiotics offered here, highlights several of its central categories, which might turn out to be useful in certain issues in ethnography. In particular the notion of semiotic work, the category of the motivated sign, and the notion of ‘interest’ as the source of semiotic actions of all kinds. Beyond the overt aims, there lies an assumption that all disciplines have an optimal ‘reach’, beyond which the law of limited returns quickly asserts itself; and a realisation that there might in any case be a need to reset the frame in which the present aims both of ethnography and social semiotics can be more fully and aptly explored. There might be a sense that the on-going changes in the social arrangements of many societies might require a serious questioning of the two disciplines and their frames as discrete enterprises.

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‘P romp t, and response ’ The possibility of links between social semiotics and ethnography has been an interest for me for some time (cf. Kress 2011). As someone interested in meaning-making, and working with the premiss that meaning is made in social interaction, I am interested in having (social) accounts of the ‘occasions of making’. At the same time I can imagine that ethnographers might be interested in the “meanings” of at least some of the ‘goings-on’. For me, from a social-semiotic perspective, there are two fundamental connections with ethnography: one is the notion of ‘semiotic work’, the other is taking the sign as a ‘trace of prior (semiotic) work’ – that is, of prior ‘goings-on’. ‘Semiotic work’ produces change: of the tools used, of the workers, and of the materials worked on or with; and it treats change as always meaningful. Social semiotics offers to provide accounts of the materials used in that ‘work’ and evident in the ‘traces’, of the kinds of semiotic tools and practices, and of their effects. It treats all aspects of the (inter-) actions of humans in social settings as significant. The notion of ‘interest’, central in social semiotics, points to the social characteristics of those who do the semiotic work. That in turn allows inferences to be made about choices entailed in semiotic work. It insists – work always being significant – that transformation and interpretation are meaning changing and therefore meaning producing: the kinds of meanings at issue stemming from the worker’s ‘interest’. ‘Interest’ draws on the integrated ‘inner’ accumulation of all work done in all social settings in which an individual has done semiotic work. In the momentary focus on new action in responding to a prompt, interest is the condensing of that accumulation-as-meaning as the basis for the response. In that, it is a strong, if indirect, pointer to criterial characteristics of the communities in which a social individual has done work, to the kinds of work done, and to her or his present affiliations. In this sense, the individual is both an ‘instance’ and a ‘representative’ of the characteristics of those communities: ‘representative’ in that his or her experiences has always, in all cases, drawn on the resources of the several communities in which they have participated in interactions. She or he is an ‘individual instance’ in having drawn differently on resources available in those communities, at the same time as having been participants in interactions that had quite specific characteristics while being recognisable as a certain type. In other words, for any member of a community each interaction would have been – and will always be – ‘performed’ in ways which are distinctly different, in certain aspects, from others of its type. This link of ‘occasions of work’ (with its focus on the meanings which arise in these occasions, ‘meaning-making’) suggests a strong link of social semiotics with ethnography, concerned with the ‘social goings-on’ of and in the sites where meaning is made. The article just mentioned (Kress 2011) raises the is-

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sue of ‘the reach of theories’ as the question “what does anyone theory do well; where does it get to the limits of its effective working and would do well to ‘hand over’ specific tasks to a different discipline?” That prompts my thinking here. In terms of this ‘reach of theory’, there are specific questions for social semiotics, and the potential of significant gain from connecting with ethnography. I assume there may, reciprocally, be questions of a similar kind to be asked of social semiotics on the part of ethnography. The topic of the volume is close to such thinking. This chapter might be useful in prompting some thoughts. Here, I set out some of the categories, concerns, and issues, which are central to social semiotics and might suggest points of connection. The categories are described, analysed, and discussed with the help of a few examples that aim to elucidate aspects of the issues in focus. This is not by any means a full account of social semiotics (cf. Hodge and Kress 1988; Kress 1997; 2010; van Leeuwen 2005). The intention rather is to be suggestive of directions to follow and kinds of tools to be used. It will be up to any passing ethnographer to decide if there is anything of interest here. My hunch is that there is; but, I am not an ethnographer.

S ome criterial categories of a social- semiotic multi modal theory : signs , sign - making and meaning - making The aim of social semiotics is to elucidate meaning-making. One premiss is that meaning, as signs, is made newly in each (inter-) action. That is, all signs, always, are newly made, not simply used. This contrasts meaning-making with the mainstream assumption of meaning-use of existing signs – say, of a word, for instance. (See in this context Gee (2012), who contrasts what he calls a “Cultural Storehouse Theory” with the approach here, which he calls “Proactive Design Theory”). Meaning-making in social environments – social semiosis – is seen as semiotic work. Work assumes a worker who makes meaning, using materials to work on and with, and who needs tools for that work. Usually, (semiotic) work is done for someone, so that the social relations between worker and the beneficiary/-ies of the work need to be considered. The outcome of semiotic work is meanings as signs in sign-complexes.

Semiotic work Work – any kind of work – produces change. The tools used are changed in some way: a spade might get chipped; a theoretical category might need adjusting. Workers change in some way, and the materials worked on or with also change. If I have worked in the garden, the soil which I have turned over with my spade is broken up and is aerated: it is now suited for planting. In an analogous

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manner, a category that I have used is changed in its potentials to serve present needs. In any interaction, semiotic work is done twice: by the person who, in the interaction, first produces the sign-complex as a text and as a message for an imagined addressee, and then by the person who engages with that message. Both make signs newly, transforming existing resources: the addressee working on and with what they have been offered to engage with. The semiotic work of the initial producer is directed outward, in the making of the visible, audible, tangible and apt sign of a message. The semiotic work of the person who responds to this message by taking it as a ‘prompt’, is directed ‘inwardly’: in ‘inner’ selection, transformation/interpretation of the visible or audible, tangible ‘prompt’. In the interaction both the ‘first maker’ and the interpreter/transformer use tools in production and in their transformative/interpretative engagement. For both, the tools change, and so do the materials with and on which they have worked. Meaning is made twice; tools and materials are changed. The resources of both workers have changed in and through the process of the work: both workers have changed. Each has done work; each has done different work. The changes to the tools and the signs made are the traces of the work each has done. The changed resources of each worker become evident in their next occasion of work. Over time, the changes produce, in infinitesimally small ways, (what comes to be noticed as) changes in identity. To make my discussion of meaning-making as semiotic work somewhat concrete, I use a drawing made by a three-and-a-half-year-old child (cf. Kress 1997). My question is “what meaning has been made?” It is not “what were the “‘goingson?’” Of course, “goings-on” and meaning-making are connected at every point, but the focus and the questions of researchers/theorists differ, in each case. Figure 1: This is a car

Designing Meaning

The image in figure 1 is the result of semiotic work; meaning has been made: the child, having finished the drawing, said: “this is a car”. The work he had done was both ‘physical’ and ‘conceptual’/‘semiotic’. There had been the work of ‘production’, that is, the actual making of the drawing. The materials for this were physical/material: paper and pen used in the physical, material act of drawing. The paper also functioned as a ‘site of appearance’: that is, literally, where the work of drawing happened most immediately, where it took shape, and also, where the drawing appeared. What was being drawn – as physical action and process – was instantiating, ‘making evident’, ‘making material’, something conceptual: the notion of ‘car’. That notion itself was the result of the child meaning-maker’s prior conceptual, semiotic work. No car before or since has had or is likely to have this precise conception or material shape. It is novel, as are all signs, as instance of semiotic work. It differs in the fact that signifier, signified, and the conjunction of the two – the sign produced – are all novel. We are here at the blurry, overlapping boundary/conjunction of physical production and conceptual work. The ‘conceptual materials’ differ. On the one hand, there are the seven ‘circles’, which, while they are material in one respect, have here become signifiers for ‘wheel’, and then, as several wheels, a new signifier: ‘many wheels is a car’. These ‘materials’ are new and not new: not new in the sense that they are the product of the child’s ceaseless experiment/design over a long period: over weeks, months and years, from very early making and marking circular movements to moving, gradually, in the direction of free-standing ‘circles’. On the other hand, there are materials of another, a different, ‘conceptual’ kind: lexical categories such as ‘car’, generic categories such as ‘a drawing’, but also, at a yet different level, conceptual materials, categories, and processes such as ‘analogy’ (‘a circle is like a wheel’) and ‘metaphor’ (‘circles are wheels’ and ‘many wheels are a car’). In the drawing, meaning is made and made evident by visual means, through a visual rather than a linguistic mode. In the actual event of the drawing, the linguistic mode of speech was used as well. While the child was drawing he said: “I’d like to draw/here is a wheel/here’s another wheel/that’s a funny wheel/[…]/this is a car”. Here speech served as a means of commentary, rather than as the central means of materialising the meaning. That leads to the question “what can and what cannot be done with a specific means for making meaning material?” and “what can be done well or can be done better with another means?” In social-semiotic multimodality, this question is answered by the category of ‘mode’ and its integral notion of the affordances of a mode. Modes are material and physical means which have been socially shaped as a semiotic resource for making meaning: modes are socially produced cultural resources for giving meaning a material form. Each mode has its specific affordances (Gibson 1986): potentials and limitations in relation to

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what can be done with that specific mode in terms of meaning-making, easily, with difficulty, or not at all.

Interest; the motivated sign; ‘criteriality’ The notion of ‘interest’, central in social semiotics, points to the social characteristics of those who do semiotic work. That in turn allows inferences to be made about choices entailed by and made in semiotic work. It insists – work always being significant – that transformation and interpretation are meaning changing and therefore meaning producing: the kinds of meanings at issue being based on and illuminated by the worker’s ‘interest’. ‘Interest’ draws on all the prior semiotic work done by the meaning-maker; it is based on the integrated ‘inner’ accumulation of all work done in all social settings in which the individual has done semiotic work. ‘Interest’ is the condensation of all that in the momentary focus of responding to a prompt. In this respect it is a strong, if indirect, pointer to criterial characteristics of the communities in which an individual has participated, to the kinds of semiotic work done, and to their present affiliations. An individual, in this sense, is both ‘individual instance’ and ‘representative’: ‘representative’ in that his or her experiences will always, in all cases, have drawn on the resources of that community, in participating in interactions in that community; and ‘individual instance’ in having drawn on the shared resources in specific ways. In other words, each interaction will have been – and will be – ‘performed’ both distinctly differently from others of its type, in certain respects, and in recognisably similar ways. Three points of relevance to the larger framing question can be drawn out from the discussion of the example of the ‘car’. First, the sign is a trace of the (semiotic) work done by the sign-maker. Second, the sign is the product of a motivated relation between a signifier/form and a signified/meaning. That is, in figure 1, a circle is an apt means to signify ‘wheel’, and ‘many wheels’ is an apt means – for the three year old – to signify ‘car’. Third, only that which is seen as criterial about the phenomenon to be represented is represented, that is, the sign is only ever a partial representation. The notion of sign as a trace of work allows for the possibility of ‘reading back’ from sign to the semiotic (and material) work of its production. It allows us to make inferences about the worker. The assumption of the motivated relation between signifier and signified permits reading back – hypothetically – from the form in which we meet the sign, to its meaning: we see a circle (made by a three year old) and we hypothesise that this circle could readily ‘stand for’ – mean – ‘wheel’ for the three-year old. The relation between form and meaning is the result of choice of what seem the best, the apt means – it is not accidental, conventional, not arbitrary. The meaning maker has chosen a form, which can most aptly be the carrier of the meaning. That allows us to make hypotheses

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about the worker’s choices, seeing the sign as the trace of the worker’s work, and, hypothetically, of identity. Criteriality allows us to make inferences about the reasons why these features and not others were chosen by the sign-maker. The relation between form and meaning is always one of ‘aptness’. The sign-maker selects those aspects, which, on any one occasion, are criterial for him or her about the phenomenon to be represented. The person who responds to the prompt has selected aspects of the prompt on the basis of their interest; these are, in turn, transformed/ interpreted in relation to interest. In other words, both the initial maker of the sign and the person re-making the sign act on the basis of their interest. Reading – whether done in normal interaction or by a researcher attempting to understand what is going on – is always a matter of hypothesis. That applies to reading of any kind, including to reading back, whatever the mode. The signifier is chosen by the sign-maker for its aptness to express the signified means, so that there is a motivated relation between form and meaning. That then gives a degree of security to hypotheses arising out of reading. The hypotheses are of two kinds: on the one hand, about the closeness of the reader’s reading to the initial sign-maker’s meaning; and on the other hand, about the degree and kind of transformation/interpretation of the prompt in terms of the ‘interest’ and the resources of the reader. Because of these characteristics, signs point to aspects of the identity of the sign-maker as social actor with an always specific history. The ‘sign as trace of work’ allows us to ‘track back’ to the work done by a worker; ‘sign as motivated by the interest of the sign-maker’, allows us to make inferences about that worker’s ‘interest’. Each reveals aspects of the sign-maker’s identity. These theoretical steps can be brought into conjunction with the aims of ‘participant observation’, that is, to get as close as one can get to the life-world of social actors (as sign-makers), so as to have the fullest possible insight into the reasons/conditions which lead them to the (meaning-making) actions in which they engage.

The sign as trace of work: an example Using these ideas as rudimentary tools, I discuss the image in figure 2. The sign-makers here are adult professionals: surgeons about to conduct an operation to remove a tumour from a patient’s oesophagus. Before they enter the Operating Theatre, the surgeons discuss what they are likely to find when they ‘open’ the patient.

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Figure 2: The surgeons’ drawing (with thanks to Jeff Bezemer for permission to use this image)

Talk alone has clearly not been sufficient to allow the two to establish to their satisfaction what they felt they needed to be clearer about, prior to the operation. Hence they reach for pen and paper and, while continuing to talk, they produce the sketch (one can see the trace of two different pens). Drawing allows them to be more specific – sufficient for their needs – than does talk about certain aspects, for instance to ‘localise’ the problem being talked about. The visual mode supplies potentials for reflecting-in-interaction and communication – localising, documenting, re-conceptualising possibly – what could not be done (readily or at all) with talk alone. When the surgeons had finished their discussion, they left the drawing behind. It had done its job. I could not ‘make much sense’ of this drawing. I did however use it in a Power-Point presentation for a M.Ed. (Master of [Surgical] Education) class for surgeons. Unprompted by me, the group of about 25 people immediately started discussing the drawing: they talked about the assumed condition of the patient, how and what they might have drawn in this situation, etc. I asked the group to give me a rudimentary explanation of the sketch, what it was that they could ‘see’ that I could not: the outstretched body of the patient at the top of the page, with the feet to the left, the bifurcation of the trachea nearer to the top of the body, at the right, the drawn indication of the tumour, etc. The shared ‘interest’ of the members of the class (as ‘professionals’, with insider knowledge) enabled them to see what I, a total outsider, could not. This complex sign was made; it was entirely ‘new’. It represented that which was criterial for the two professionals at this point. Only criterial features were selected; the relation between form and meaning was apt. What was not criterial

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was not represented; what was marginally relevant was indicated by a quick squiggle, suggesting that “yes, there was ‘a structure’”, but not one of interest to them at this point. The two notions of interest and of criteriality are crucial to social semiotics. Here, the (professionally produced and shared) interest of the makers of the sign leads each of the two involved in producing figure 2 to select what features of the phenomenon to be represented are represented. In the case of figure 1, ‘wheels’ were criterial to the sign-maker. Given his age, the height at which he would view the car, the cultural/personal significance of wheels, the wheels’ actions, etc., this is readily understandable. At another point in time, maybe even just moments later, his interest in ‘car’ might likely have shifted, and, with that, what was criterial would have been different. Indeed, cars remained of real interest for him over quite some years; though how they were represented – what was seen as criterial – kept changing (cf. Kress 1997). The surgeons’ interest is equally apparent: here, as a factor of their professional experience and of the task about to be performed. Had they, at that moment, been instructing a junior member of the surgical team, their interest would have encompassed that participant’s lesser knowledge and would thus have been different, as would that which became criterial in the representation. Task, experience, and the many features of the immediate environment, which may become salient, enter into the making of the sign. Without making too much of a point here, in all this, the ethnographer’s concern with the ‘goings-on’ are not far away, and a connection might readily be made, potentially adding benefit to the account. Two considerations are evident in the sign: from the perspective of representation, (only) that which is judged as criterial appears in the sign. From the perspective of communication, that which the sign-maker judges to be essential for the addressee also appears in the sign. In other words, the sign indicates both what was criterial to the makers of the sign at the moment of the making of the sign, and it indicates how the sign-maker judged what might be essential given the knowledge of the addressee. There is a third matter: power. Simultaneously with the two considerations just mentioned, the sign-maker always and inevitably includes indications of the social relations of power between sign-maker and addressee in the sign. We can ‘read back’ from the sign to the occasion of the making of the sign and hypothesise about what was criterial for whoever made the sign. Further, it allows us to ‘read back’ to the sense the maker of the sign had about the understanding of the ‘audience’ about the matter being communicated – about their knowledge. We might say that interest derives from and points to relatively more stable characteristics of the maker of the sign; aspects of the sign-maker’s identity are to the fore. Criteriality suggests more immediate features in the making of

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the sign: what is relevant and significant now, essential about that which is to be represented and communicated; demands of the immediate ‘environment’ of making are to the fore. Each interacts with and shapes the other, even in the moment of sign-making. But in all cases, and for all participants in the interaction, it is the social, which is to the fore. In that way, the signs and sign complexes point to and give insight into the participants’ sense of the social at that moment.

Modes, multimodal ensembles, modal orchestration The fact that the group of surgeons recognised criterial features of the image in figure 2, points to the shared interest of a community and its members. In other words, interest is always an effect of an individual actor’s social experiences in social locations, and, with that, of shared experiences, values, knowledge of a community, professional or other. The making of this complex sign took a few minutes. It is a document/ record of an on-going inter-action, a ‘discussion’. I have the drawing only: there was talk as well, and there was pointing: not all of the complex sign produced is present in figure 2. There is no (documented) record of what else went on: of hesitations, pauses, etc. What is clear, however, is that the sign overall consisted of more than the visual aspects. It is likely that talk was the major mode at the beginning of this interaction, and that it may have remained central as the major means. There was likely to have been frequent pointing at the drawing as it was being brought into being, highlighting and focusing on specific aspects, jointly with talk and drawing. In the drawing there are some few written elements, as kinds of labels. These too had a function: clarifying, documenting, ‘fixing’. If we take the whole ensemble of modes – of image, speech, gesture, writing – as one integrated, coherent semiotic entity, we can talk of a sign-complex. The term ensemble points to what resources were in use; sign-complex points to the composition, which was produced with these resources, in a particular orchestration. The sign-complex constitutes a text, as a record of a complex social interaction. From an ethnographic perspective the terms reveal significant characteristics of participants and environment: ensemble suggestive of what resources were available, seemed relevant or needed; orchestration pointing to how these were deployed in response to the social environment; and composition pointing to a particular kind of semiotic work and ‘goings-on’. It is clear that one mode alone was not sufficient in this communicational interaction and representation. Talk alone could not achieve what needed to be achieved in exploring and elucidating this aspect of the complex action, which was to follow. Talk, supplemented by the emerging drawing, was beginning to

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fulfil the needs; talk, drawing, pointing, and writing together seemed to meet the needs of the moment. In other words, the sign-complex is an ensemble of modes available for making meanings material. Signs are made in each of these modes, in an orchestration of modes/signs, aimed at presenting all meaning needed here. Each mode is used to do that which in this environment it is judged best by the sign-maker. The temporally realised mode of talk is best to deal with on-going and envisaged action. The spatially instantiated mode of image seems best to ‘localise’ actions and to indicate the locations and relations of structures and actions. Pointing (a feature of the mode of gesture), is both spatial and temporal, and could be used to specify, locate, navigate. Writing could document, clarify, and ‘fix’ (cf. Kress et. al. 2001; Kress 2003; 2010). From a social perspective, the sign-complex documents the complexity of social action; from a semiotic perspective, the sign-complex documents the variety of signs in different modes, which are needed to account for the complexity of meanings being dealt with in the ‘social goings-on’. A sign-complex is constituted by an ensemble of modes, in a particular orchestration. All aspects of sign-complex, ensemble, and orchestration are the subject and result of semiotic work; all reveal aspects of the sign-maker’s identity. The three different terms: sign-complex, ensemble of modes, orchestration point to different semiotic points of view and different kinds of semiotic work by the participant actor(s) (and by the researcher looking at this, after the event). Sign-complex points to the semiotic work of making signs; ensemble of modes shows that the semiotic work is done with a range of modes utilising their affordances and chosen to accomplish specific tasks; orchestration points to the semiotic work of ‘arrangement’ – as in the arranging of musical instruments for a specific performance. Each reveals different work done in each case, and each reveals how that work was done. Semiotic work rests on and proceeds from the interest of the worker. A focus on interest allows us to hypothesise about the genesis of a social actor’s interest. Interest, from that perspective, ‘locates’ sign-makers in terms of their prior experiences in social sites and in social environments now. It also focuses on the interpretative/transformational/integrative work they did there. Some relevant questions to ask in relation to sign-complex/ensemble of modes/ orchestration are: How would you name the environment? Who designed the environment? Who was the environment designed for? Who engages with the environment? What modes are available in this environment? What modes are used by whom in this environment? The over-arching category of design draws attention to the sign-makers’ aims, which shaped and guided their design actions. Associated with that set of questions are questions about the resources used, such as: What are/were the affordances of the modes? What are the affordances of the environment? And always: how does the environment designed here, relate to other (learning) environments?

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Modes, epistemolog y, and ontolog y: multimodality and meaning From a social perspective, modal ensembles point to the complexities of the social/professional ‘goings-on’; from a semiotic perspective, seeing text as a modal ensemble enable us to deal with the complexities and subtleties of the meanings being made. Semiotically, we need to have a sense of the capacities of different modes. Gesture, spatio-temporal in its logic, is well suited to handle navigational matters. For instance, a surgeon’s spoken “move it there” (referring to camera-position in a laparoscopic operation) accompanied by a pointing gesture, is clear about position in space; without the gesture, the spoken utterance (and the “there”) is vague. In other words, while ‘deixis’ – indications of position and movement in space and time – is a feature present in all modes, gesture is, for many societies, the best means of materialising such meanings. From a social as from a social semiotic perspective there is the question why (what might seem as) the “best mode”, semiotically and epistemologically, is not always chosen. One answer is power, whether the ossified power evident in and as ‘convention’ and ‘tradition’, or forms of power active in institutions and in different social relations. The ‘mismatch’ between the demands of power and those of semiotic aptness from the perspective of ‘content’ can serve as a useful indicator in the analyses of social sites and interactions. Every use of a mode construes the world represented or engaged with in terms of its affordances, epistemologically and ontologically. An ‘inept’ use of mode, a mismatch between what might be and what is, will have epistemological/ontological/ideological’ causes and effects: a matter with social consequences. Power plays its role in issues such as ‘knowledge’ and ‘competence’. In the Operating Theatre, knowledge and competence of the experienced scrub-nurse can be disregarded or over-ruled by the hierarchical power of the surgeon. What becomes clear in a social-semiotic multimodal account, is that all signs are complex and partial. ‘Interest’, ‘criteriality’, and ‘affordance’ – the potentials and the limitations of modes – necessarily lead to the partiality of representation. However, the complementarity of affordances of different modes in a multimodal ensemble offers a way around or beyond partiality, to some extent. As in musical orchestrations (where orchestration – how many violins, woodwinds, brass instruments, drums, etc., are allocated to which part of the overall piece – indicates specific meanings and produces specific affect) so in multimodal orchestration: the functional uses of modes (e.g. in the not so distant past, writing for nearly everything) and the specialisations of modes (image for that which is best done by image; writing for that which is best done by writing) give insight into social organisations and categories in various ways: as traditional, formal, official, everyday, informal, as well as about factors such as gender, age, status.

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We can extend the notion of affordance to encompass issues of ontology and epistemology – as it needs to be in educational as in many other environments. The world represented in (still) images (or in sequences of still images) is a world oriented to spatiality: of location in space, of relation of elements in space, of locations of phenomena in space in relation to other phenomena. Its entities would emphasise the spatial/locational. The world represented in temporally based modes – speech, moving image, dance, music – is a world oriented to temporality: of sequence in time, of succession, of dynamic relations. Its entities would emphasise the dynamic, actional, sequential. The ‘logics’ of modes and modal affordances connect with what we think of as ‘knowledge’ in fundamental ways: a drawing or photograph of a plantcell conveys knowledge about the cell in quite specific ways, differently – in any case – to a written or spoken account (cf. Kress et al. 2001). In the surgeons’ drawing, the question of mode and ‘knowledge’ is a matter of great significance and, without doubt, one reason why they opted, without much reflection, for this ensemble of modes. It is the case no less in the everyday and banal: my recollection of a holiday tends to be of ‘place’ maybe before ‘events’. The former tends to be visual, the latter more often spoken or written. A photo or a watercolour most readily lets me recall features of a landscape, of a ‘site’ and associated feeling; a ‘story’ – written or spoken – allows me to recall events much more readily. Communities, given their different social histories, are bound to differ in their preferences about the physiological and then the semiotic means for engaging with the world. These preferences enter into the formation of identity and ‘interest’, and these in turn are bound to have an effect on the understanding and use of modes and modal preferences in the community. If the community leans toward a preference for the visual, it is most likely to expend more energy on developing that as a major means of communication. To remain at the level of the relatively banal, a brief perusal of holiday brochures will give us a sense of this, more or less at a glance. And if the formation of identity and interest is shaped by such ‘naturalisations’, then of course one could design the world in specific ways, to appeal to identities of the one kind or the other: via a colourful travel brochure, or via an extended written article in the travel supplement of a weekend magazine. The same considerations apply to ‘educational environments’.

M odes , communit y, ‘ culture ’ In the two examples, signs and sign-complexes are made in a range of different modes. In a society the range of modes available depends on material and social conditions. Not all materials are equally well suited to becoming modes, though the range of possibilities is bound to be wide: its limits are physiology,

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materiality, and social conditions. What a community has elaborated into a fully functioning representational resource will, by that community, be treated as mode. Conversely, the existence, degree, and kind of elaboration of any mode gives insight into characteristics of the community which elaborated and shaped it. Given these assumptions, it is not surprising that the range of modes varies from community to community; many modes, though not all, occur in most communities: speech, image, gesture, movement, music, etc. In a social-semiotic account of multimodality, the assumption is that for a cultural resource to qualify as mode, it can be first, used to ‘make statements’ about what is going on in the world; second, used to indicate the social relations between those who participate in interactions; and third, to offer the capacity for making texts which cohere internally and cohere with their environments. Social semiotics (Hodge/Kress 1988; Kress/van Leeuwen 2006; Kress 2010; van Leeuwen 2005) attempts to offer a framework that accounts for all modes, and to develop theoretical, analytic and descriptive categories which are recognisably compatible, at different levels of specificity and generality, across all modes. One aim of social-semiotic theory is to develop an integrated framework for comprehensive multimodal analysis. All societies, with their always differing characteristics and conditions, and their cultures, make available a specific range of communicative resources. The range and kinds of resources is an indicator of salient social practices. A socialsemiotic approach does not privilege any mode, whether speech or writing, as ‘prior’ or ‘central’ in a sign complex, with signs in other modes treated as merely serving to ‘refine’, maybe ‘embellish’, the core of semiotic work. It assumes that all modes are potentially equal in their representational significance. Each mode, and every sign in every mode, is treated as potentially capable of making its distinct contribution to the sign-complex, the meaning of which is more than the sum of its constituent parts. At the same time, given the presence of power, different social groupings will have hierarchies of valuation of modes and a consequent preferred use of modes. All groupings will have such valuations, depending on social circumstances. This applies to professional groups, to specific occasions, and is also, in the present period, significantly affected by the social category of ‘generation’. By combining signs made in different modes, sign-makers can meet the complex, often contradictory demands, of their own interest, of those of the environment, of the needs of the matter to be communicated, of the characteristics of the audience. In that, any mode may, depending on the social environment and the requirements of the sign-maker, be used for the central communicational task and carry the major ‘communicational load’ in the ensemble. In a study on museums (“The Museum, the Exhibition and the Visitor: Meaning making in a new area for learning”, taking place in Stockholm – “Prehistoric Sweden”, and in London – “London before London”), two exhibitions,

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each focused on pre-history, were the object of attention. The collections of Neolithic instruments (figures 3a and 3b) in the two museums were broadly similar (cf. Kress/Selander 2013). Each used distinctively different lighting and means of display. Figure 3a: Prehistoric tools: display in the Museum of London

Figure 3b: Pre-historic tools: Museum of National Antiquities, Stockholm

One conveyed an ‘atmosphere’, ‘ambience’, ‘affect’ of an exhibition of precious artefacts in an art gallery; the other conveyed an atmosphere of an exhibition of utilitarian tools. Here lighting was used as a major means for making meaning. Whether a community of curators has already developed or could develop

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‘lighting’ into a fully fledged mode, is a question to be answered. For semiotics the question would be one about ‘meaning potentials’; for ethnographers the questions might point both to the ‘community’ and its practices and assumptions, and of course it might point to the different ‘positioning’ of visitors and objects in each case.

‘S ites ’ In the discussion so far, I have referred only vaguely to the notion of ‘sites’ – the piece of paper as a ‘site of appearance’. The emergence and increasing significance of the so-called ‘social media’ has begun to draw attention strongly to the notion of ‘sites’, in at least two ways. On the one hand, the different social media sites offer varying possibilities for social action and interaction; on the other hand, some sites offer their users the potentials for shaping the ‘platform’ of the site to a certain extent, to make them more suitable to the purposes of their users. Existing social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.) are shaped, by and large, according to assumed criteria of ‘utility’ and ‘attractiveness’ for their users: with commercial success for the sites’ ‘owners’ being an over-riding criterion. Socially speaking, the concept and phenomenon of the platform offers forms of agency not, seemingly, available up to now. Semiotically, the notion of the ‘platform’ offers an additional feature for making meaning. A platform can be shaped – to the extent offered – in relation to a user’s ‘interest’ and through that shaping/designing express significant aspects of the user’s identity. At the same time, the shaped site/platform projects possible forms of social relations with a prospective audience, by offering that audience the potentials for making meanings, which correspond to their sense of their identity. The category ‘platform’ can of course be used retrospectively, to look at what we might now regard as traditional sites: the book, the journal, the magazine, the empty page of a notebook, etc., and ask, seen in this new light, what these ‘sites’ did or do offer, by way of agency, choice: for community, agency, practices, for identity – and what kind of public or audience is projected in the shaping of the site. Understanding what is becoming available now allows one to see what had hitherto not been given attention, and now ask questions about possibilities, constraints and limitations. Here, merely as an indication of possible kinds of questions to ask and possible uses for research around meaning and meaning-making, there are two screen-shots of two food blogs. My question is: what kinds of meanings can and do these reveal? How can and do matters of ‘identity’ and ‘style’ emerge here, attending both to what the sites offer and what uses the two bloggers make of the affordances of the site.

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Figure 4a: Food blog: Thinly Spread. Stretched but not snapped

Figure 4b: Food blog: Diary of a Frugal Family

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Where there is choice, there is the possibility of meaning being made. Given that social media sites offer different facilities and potentials, choice of site and use of the potentials for customisation is a significant and revealing factor, socially, and semiotically. Sites that offer the possibility of ‘customisation’ (e.g. Wordpress) offer potentials for making meaning beyond those sites where that is not an option. The former might be of more interest to an ethnographer than those which have a pre-given format, given their greater possibility of choice: ‘shaping’ identities for both ‘owner’ and visitor, by introducing features which express (the owner’s, the site’s, and the projected visitor’s) ‘style’. In the exercise of choice, whether of pagelayout, of clear space, of framing, of font and font-size etc., blogs, for instance, can be ‘customised’ and visitors to a blog can respond to the customisation of the site in terms of a sense of their affinity with the site’s style, or not. The phenomenon of ‘platform’ draws attention to a matter, which I had neither thought nor written about in the past. I had never asked myself – or anyone – about the ‘platform’, which I or they were writing for. Once attention is drawn to it, it is clear that the issue of ‘platform’ has always been there, unacknowledged. This leaves many questions. One, immediately, is: How do the pre-designed social media platforms – each offering specific options and potentials – affect and impact on the world of social and semiotic action, and the communicational world more generally?

R he toric , design , composition Both in discussing the surgeons’ drawing and in some other comments above, the issue of design has been ‘about’. The image in figure 2 can be taken as a rudimentary design (of an aspect at least) of the operation to be performed. The fact that it was (most likely) not formally ‘conceived’ to function as a design does not alter its significance as design. In a social-semiotic theory, all sign-making, being the effect of interested action is seen as the design of meaning. Any sign is always ‘addressed’, so that both the interest of the sign-maker in making her or his meaning material is present in the sign that is made, as well as assumptions about the relation to the addressee, whether as an individual or a group, enter into the making of the sign. In other words, the sign can be read not only to hypothesise about the interest of its maker, but also for her or his sense (as a rhetor) of a relation to be established with the imagined addressee. In its form, the sign is a record of designed interactions, from micro-interaction to mid-level and macro-level action and interaction. In the design of complex signs/ensembles as texts, the assumed principles of composition, which are drawn on in their construction are an essential set

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of tools. Principles of composition might be seen as social/cultural ‘guidelines’, suggesting, with greater or lesser degrees of power, how (complex) signs as texts are to be constructed. These principles are themselves indicators both of the maker’s and the recipient’s identity and affinity. When I make a (complex) sign as a message, I construct in that sign an indication of my affiliation with a set of principles of composition, which I assume to be held also by the recipient of my sign. The term ‘genre’ points to this in some ways: genres can be taken as the en-texting of the social relations between those who participate in social interaction (cf. Kress 1989; 2003). The genre which I decide to produce captures my sense of that relation: whether as interview, or as report, or as a narrative of some kind, or whatever genre it might be, with whatever ‘platform’. Contemporary principles of composition – for instance, whether the text is constructed on the basis of linearity or modularity – also act as a social-deictic device. At the moment, two of the most significant changes in these principles are the change from (an assumed) mono-modal composition to multimodal composition and a move from linearity (as the hitherto unchallenged norm in many kinds of composition) to modularity. This is evident in most screen-based media, as well as in an ever-increasing range of paper-based media. It is worth pointing to the fact that the move from linear to modular forms of composition is an increasingly dominant principle in the wider social, economic, and industrial world. It points to a profound change in the characteristics of “goings-on” (Kress 2010).

I n conclusion : semiosis as work ; the sign as a tr ace of “ goings - on ” As someone interested in meaning-making and working with the premiss that meaning is made in social interaction, I am interested in having social accounts of the ‘occasions of making’. I can imagine that ethnographers might be interested in the meanings – in a semiotic sense – of at least some of the ‘goings-on’. From a social semiotic perspective there are three fundamental connections with ethnography: one is the notion of ‘semiotic work’, another is taking the sign as a trace of prior work – of prior ‘goings-on’, a third is the notion of ‘interest’. ‘Semiotic work’ is the means by which social individuals shape their identity. ‘Semiotic work’ allows us to characterise criterial concerns and issues of the community which is in focus. ‘Interest’, as is evident in the signs made, points to criterial aspects of sign-makers. Social semiotics offers to provide illuminating accounts of the materials at issue in this as well as of the kinds of semiotic tools and practices, and their effects. It treats all aspects of the (inter-) actions of humans in social settings as significant, and in this way attempts to let nothing meaningful escape its theoretical lens.

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If the notion of ‘interest’, which is central in social semiotics, points to the social characteristics of those who do semiotic work, then that in turn allows us to make inferences about choices entailed and made in semiotic work. It insists that meaning can only be accounted for by understanding the interest of the semiotic worker in her or his social environment – in choices made as selections, as transformation and transductions, as interpretation. The resources with which the semiotic work is done and which are available and drawn on in any one community are themselves traces of prior work done in and by members of the community. The resources themselves can therefore be read as traces of past work. They are a shared resource, which, at the same time, is constantly remade in the interactions in which each member of the community participates. In that way, these resources act as social ‘locational devices’. I imagine that it is in issues of this kind where common interests might lie, and where productive interaction might happen, between the activities of ethnographers and those of social semioticians. To some extent this is a quite traditional enterprise: forging connections across disciplines. My aim, actually, is otherwise. Yes, to see connection, but to go well beyond that. My reason for looking beyond the boundaries of social semiotics is an uneasy sense that the frame within which my interest in meaning needs to be set is a larger one, one which encompasses the present areas of both ethnography and social semiotics. Within that much larger frame one would need to see what tools are available and useful, which will need to be reshaped, and which will need to be newly made. Both the new frame and the tools shaped for it will respond to the fact that the contemporary world makes quite new demands, which need to be thought about in terms apt for that world. Note: I wish to thank Jeff Bezemer for his patience and generosity in many conversations on this and related topics, and for permission to use the image in figure 2. Further I wish to thank Myrrh Domingo for engaging in endless conversations around ‘what is on-line ethnography?’ and Margit Böck for essential advice that helped me get out of a thicket and for her helpfully sharp final reading. Last and not least, thanks to Michael-Sebastian Honig for encouragement and great patience.

R eferences Gee, James Paul (2012): “Proactive Design Theories of Sign Use: Reflections on Gunther Kress.” In: Margit Böck/Norbert Pachler (eds.), Multimodality and Social Semiotics: Communication, Meaning-Making and Learning in the Work of Gunther Kress, New York: Routledge, pp. 43-53.

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Gibson, James J. (1986): The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception, Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum. Hodge, Robert/Kress, Gunther R. (1988): Social Semiotics, Cambridge: Polity Press. Kress, Gunther R. (1989): Linguistic Processes in Sociocultural Practices, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kress, Gunther R. (1997): Before Writing: Rethinking the Paths to Literacy, London: Routledge. Kress, Gunther R. (2003): Literacy in the New Media Age, London: Routledge. Kress, Gunther R. (2010): Multimodality: A Social Semiotic Approach to Contemporary Communication, London: Routledge. Kress, Gunther R. (2011): “Partnerships in Research: Multimodality and Ethnography.” In: Journal of Qualitative Research 11/3, pp. 239-260. Kress, Gunther R./van Leeuwen, Theo (2006, 2nd ed.): Reading Images. The Grammar of Visual Design (1st ed. 1996), London: RoutledgeFalmer. Kress, Gunther R./Ogborn, Jon/Jewitt, Carey/Charalampos, Tsatsarelis (2001): Multimodal Learning and Teaching, London: Continuum. Kress, Gunther R./Selander, Stafan (2013): “Introduction to the Special Issue on Museum Identities, Exhibition Designs and Visitors’ Meaning Making.” In: Designs for Learning 5/1-2, pp. 6-10. van Leeuwen, Theo (2005): Introduction to Social Semiotics, London: Routledge.

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Bringing Sound Back Into Space Multimodal Ethnography of Early Education Oliver Schnoor

A bstr act The article widens understandings of ‘space’ and ‘place’ in educational programmes by following their practical accomplishment through sounds and voices in the stream of the multiple spatialities in a childcare centre. Multimodal ethnography is combined with ethnomethodology to be able to track the often elusive forms of pedagogical meaning-making by sound and different sonic modes. As point of departure, it is shown how concepts of child-appropriate ‘spaces’ and ‘places’ are judged preferably by means of visual evidence. Then, a conceptual framework for studying social space (in education) encompassing sound is outlined in three steps: the famous concept of ‘soundscape’ as an ‘environment’ – adopted, for example, by Reggio-pedagogy – is criticised as a detached hearing that differs from professional hearing in practice; the concept of sound as the medium of a fluid and fracturing territorialisation has already been applied to classrooms; a view on sound as providing ‘tools’ for the acoustic (re-)ordering of social space is mirrored in some ethnographic studies on educational practices. In light of this discussion, observations from a study of Luxembourgian childcare centres reveal some of the practical strategies in making educational ‘spaces’ and ‘places’ visible or hearable. Particularly the voice turns out being a flexible relay in processes of both physical ordering and signification. The conclusions point to how a sounded ethnography is both situated within a multimodal ethnography and suited to elaborate it further.

I ntroduction Education is usually considered to happen in local settings that are arranged in advance. This paper, however, investigates education as being performed, above all, by the on-going accomplishment of these settings, and it demonstra-

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tes that focussing on sound is an especially adequate methodological strategy to this end. Moreover, an implicit preference of practitioners for visual evidence of space will be both questioned and explained by drawing attention to the spatialities of sound. The article is based on a completed research project on Luxembourgian early-childcare institutions (cf. Honig et al. 2013), which investigated how institutional practice manages to give pedagogical meaning to childcare – a meaning that is prescribed in pedagogical programmes and usually judged by ‘indicators’ or ‘outcomes’. The project’s ethnographic approach aimed at discovering how practice makes pedagogical effects visible and accountable in everyday activities and routines. These performances were observed as being accomplished by multiple, including nonverbal, modes of meaning-making. Within the range of competing understandings of multimodality (cf. Dicks 2014; Jewitt 2009), such a perspective tends to the adoption of an ethnomethodological approach, not least because it supports applying multimodality to the sociological study of educational work.1 This combination provides a theoretical background for observing the production of kinds of meaning that are necessarily vague, often polyvalent, and also contestable, as it is the case particularly with abstract concepts being loosely coupled with physical and bodily materialities. The study of a highly recognised and conceptualised dimension of early education – space – through its changing constitution in a rather disregarded medium – sound – and its respective modes – music, speech, ‘noise’ (cf. Kress 2011: 247f.; Van Leeuwen 1999) – offers a particularly fruitful constellation for elaborating this approach in an empirical manner.2 Situated in the broader context of a “sounded anthropology” (Samuels et al. 2010), it follows sonic materialities and their semiosis, especially in a continuum of language and music (Faudree 2012) and at the boundaries of modes. However, it equally avoids dividing sound from, or even opposing it to, vision (Erlmann 2004): seeing and hearing are revealed as interdependent sensual modalities in accountability relations by which sociomaterial orders of space and place are merged with pedagogical meaning. The first section outlines the state of affairs regarding the programmatic and professional dealing with space in early education, serving as a point of departure for later analyses. Understandings of space and place as promoted in programmes of institutional early childhood education and care (ECEC) are analysed regarding their linkages to conceptions of the child. Then, a prefe1 | It thereby widens the scope of research questions concerning multimodality in education, which have been mainly focussed on literacy attainment so far (Dicks et al. 2011: 228f.). 2 | Gershon (2013) deals with quite the same constellation, but is more interested in identity work, whereas the interest here is in social practices of education and care.

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rence for the visual in gaining accountable spaces and places is exemplified, among others, by ‘generationalised objects’. The second section discusses in what way sound may be ‘brought back in’ to educational ethnographic research by introducing and contrasting some inspiring works from sound studies and by pointing to parallels with some of the few studies within the educational sciences that deal with acoustic space. Third, ethnographic field notes and materials are presented and analysed with respect to the sketched endeavour. The notions of ECEC are contextualised by observing space-in-practice, particularly how daily practice manages continuously to observe, perform, and stage spaces and places in the stream of multiple spatialities. Architecture, furniture, and materials indeed contribute to this accomplishment, but sounds and voices turn out at least equally important. A summary of the results is followed by some remarks on possible consequences for a multimodal ethnography and the role of sound within it.

C oncep tions and percep tions of educational space Space and place in ECEC Spatial codes and practices allow, in many fields, linking and merging spatial orders with social orders, such as spatial distances with social differences, or fixed places with normative orders. Programmes of early childhood education and care draw explicitly on the vocabulary of space and place. In the frame of child-centred ecologies that are quasi layered around the individual child, spaces and places are aggregations of a social and material environment (e.g. Spencer/Blades 2006). As for the concept of space (with distance and movement as its basic constituents), one can say that it is elaborated in two dominant figures of child-appropriate architecture and materiality and a corresponding ‘freedom’ of the child. On the one hand, there are ‘encouraging’ spaces for the ‘competent child’ who explores her/his spatial and material surroundings (free to). Reducible distances of space are then made of objects ‘within reach’ and may be conceived as objectifications of the child’s potentials. On the other hand, there are ‘protected’ spaces for the ‘vulnerable child’ who is at risk of getting harmed and distracted from her/his nature (free from). The material confines of space become the protective boundaries against another space outside – an undefined and uncontrollable space (which was identified with a degenerated society by Rousseau). The concept of place (and its features such as stability, durability, and repetitiveness) is usually concretised in places supporting a sense of belonging: ‘placeness’ is supposed to be fundamental for children’s personal and social identity development. On the other hand, place always implies rules concerning where a thing or a person should be located (‘where he/she belongs’,

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where it is ‘in its place’). A “sense of place” (Feld/Basso 1996) is not least a sense of order upon which the making and upholding of place is dependent. In programmes of early education, this is a less important (if not ignored) aspect of place; it is nonetheless deeply rooted in pedagogical thought and tradition in general, a tradition to which everyday practices of ECEC also ‘return’ to (as will be seen underneath). The current ambition to strengthen non-familial childcare as a field of education is accompanied by a certain prevalence of space over place: the latter is a precondition, the former is where the actual learning evolves. Nonetheless, ECEC aims at a somewhat balanced relationship, enabling a ‘nomadic exploration’ of the child ‘moving from place to place’, but also withdrawing in comfortable corners, cubby houses and the like.3 However, the more space and place serve as means of transmitting and enacting a particular social meaning and order (here: of maintaining an autonomous pedagogy of ECEC), the more they need to be described, explained, made visible as such. That is, they are involved in meaning-making as well as their meaning is to be made.

Preference for the visual A large part of this meaning-making is usually hidden behind immediate and ‘tacit’ ascriptions of meaning to visible entities and ensembles: the material arrangements are perceived as ‘spaces’ or ‘places’ at the same time as they are conceived as providing particular qualities and values for children.4 Materialities are actively engaged in these processes of meaning-making by offering visual appearances (affordances) that seem appropriate for the child’s body and its supposed sensitiveness or vulnerability, respectively. Particularly the various pieces of furniture which serve as places to position babies or toddlers are ‘fitted’ to their bodies. Crèches are filled with a range of accessories for the purpose of positioning the youngest children more or less horizontally, like babybeds, blankets, and hammocks. Furthermore, there are small chairs (some of them with belts) and other equipped seating furniture. Such physically adjusted ensembles – speaking with Bruno Latour’s language (e.g. Latour 2008: 213ff.) – help making the spectators perceive them as child-appropriate, for example as substitutions for child attachment in the psy3 | More current ethnographic research in ECEC-settings aims at reconciling concepts of attachment on the one hand and autonomy/agency on the other by observing toddlers’ interactions, drawing on Winnicott’s metaphors of the “environment as a good-enough mother” or “transitional space” (Alcock 2013). 4 | For an account of meaning-ascription to ‘objects’ in practices of early education, see Neumann (2012). For furniture in general, with a focus on materiality’s contribution to meaning-making, see Björkvall/Karlsson (2011).

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chological sense. The places and objects young children are ‘attached to’ in a literal sense may themselves ‘speak to’ participants and observers as generationalised objects. They follow a visual code of the ‘childlike’ not only by their size, but also the manufactured substances, the design in shape, colours, and so on, and thereby help to make visible certain images of the child. 5 Current multimodal research on the space of early-childhood institutions highlights the visible, too, and connects it to the “grammar of visual meaning making” as developed by Kress and Van Leeuwen (2006). A report on a study carried out in Norway starts accordingly: “When entering a kindergarten, one can usually immediately recognise the rooms as belonging to a kindergarten” (Granly/Maagerø 2012: 371). The study then focuses primarily on pedagogical documentation as multimodal text, such as verbal messages and photos on the walls. Not least the current pedagogical methods of observation and documentation might reinforce the tendency to rely on what is visible (cf. Schulz 2015). The work of public as well as internal communication and representation relies on visual immediacy in manifold ways. In the institutional practices of a Luxembourgian Maison Relais pour Enfants (which will be introduced in the empirical part below), the children’s usage of the spatial arrangements was often documented in the medium of photography. The institution produced, for example, a yearly photobook with pictures of high technical and aesthetic quality and offered it to the parents. A preferred picture motif shows a smiling child surrounded by narrow enclosures: a space exclusively accessible to small children, reminiscent of a cave or a cocoon, such as a toddler squatting in the ‘tunnel’ under a low platform, or a baby lying under the framework of a small ‘tent’ with toys dangling from it, and other forms of shelter. These practices seem part of what has recently been analysed as “the treatment of visual evidence as a focal point of accountability work in organizational practice” (Neyland/ Coopmans 2014: 1). Visual media turn out advantageous not least in that they exclude the more changeable, unsecure, and often disturbing auditory dimension of everyday life in a crèche (cf. Schnoor 2013: 463f.). Silent pictures do not convey to what extent the well-defined spaces are at times permeated by the loud voices of babies or the sharp tones of adults. As soon as discourses on ‘space’ in ECEC stress the metaphorical meaning, they are more likely to include hearing: ‘spaces’ are often to be provided for children’s ‘voices’ to be heard. However, as ECEC is concerned with the “hundred 5 | I use this term to transfer the concept of the “gendered object” (Kirkham 1996) to the generational order (Alanen 2009). It refers to the binary-coded design of objects such as clothes, furniture, rooms etc., in particular by visual oppositions in colour and size (Kirkham/Attfield 1996: 4). Observing the practical coding of materialities and bodies seems, furthermore, a central task of the social childhood studies in order to overcome the ‘factoring out’ of the pre-linguistic phase of life (cf. Honig 2009, p. 74).

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languages” of the child (Malaguzzi 1996), and thus with multimodality, these ‘voices’ can also mean various ways of expression, such as drawings, plasticine sculptures, and so on. Overall, programmes as well as professionals seem inclined to overestimate the visual and neglect the auditive – and treat ‘listening’ as a broad metaphor for giving children a voice. Similarly, ethnographers might sometimes narrow their attention to how visibility of a particular social order is accomplished and ignore how its audibility is. Taking into account the relation of silence and voice in its physical and metaphorical aspects, early education can be analysed overall as a practice of “silently observing” (cf. Schnoor/Neumann 2015). The following sections further develop a research perspective that allows analysing how the audible is connected to the production of accountable spaces and places.

S patialities of sound By contrast to ECEC’s spaces and places where sound is mostly ‘absent’, the sound studies are pre-eminently concerned with questions of spatiality and locality. A general shift within the social sciences from a naturalistic, pre-given or planned, space toward a practiced space (e.g. Lefebvre 1991; de Certeau 1984) can roughly be traced also within the field of sound studies. I shall discuss some key works to reveal the potentials but also some pitfalls of paying closer attention to the sonic dimension of space, and how this can enrich ethnographic methodologies and inform research on educational matters. For this purpose, I will bring the underlying paradigms of sound studies into contact with some of the few educational studies on sound existing so far and with some first ethnographic field notes.

The sound of the environment One of the most influential publications of what is now called sound studies is R. Murray Schafer’s manifesto, famous for coining the term “soundscape” (Schafer 1977). As a composer, Schafer listened to the sounds at a given locale as the parts of an aesthetic ensemble, just like a painter or photographer perceives the visual details of a landscape. This way of listening seems to have evolved subsequent to improved audio recording techniques, which his “world soundscape project” made extensive use of (see also Samuels et al. 2010). The separation of the hearing sense from other senses was accompanied by the separation from most of the practical contexts of everyday sounds. Signals, such as old train pipes, were rather heard as far-reaching “keynote sounds” than as directed messages.

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Schafer’s soundscapes are composed within a logic of place: the locally situated hearer is localising different sound sources and describes them as belonging to specific localities, e.g. to the urban, the rural, or the natural soundscape. Schafer put “transparent” acoustic spaces of the past in contrast to modern urban soundscapes, which would be “impermeable” for the ears. An important method of data collection is the drawing and writing of “sound maps”.6 The hearer may do a “sound walk” as well, but then movement serves as a means of getting access to different places with their distinct sonic environments, instead of being part of the creation of sonic space. Moreover, although Schafer stresses the surrounding quality of the hearing sense in contrast to the oppositional character of the gaze, this acoustic space is still an object perceived by a detached hearer-subject. The acoustic ‘environment’ seems to a large extent a reified and de-socialised realm of its own, a then newly detected field of ambitions for sound design. Among the few existing pedagogical considerations of acoustic space is a chapter which is based on the notion of “soundscape”, to be found in a catalogue on the design of spaces and environments for young children by Reggio-pedagogues and architects (Ceppi/Zini 1998). Sound design is treated, above all, in terms of the reflecting or absorbing materials of architecture and interior. The authors make useful suggestions not only to reduce the general noise level in childcare centres but also to balance the absorption of particular frequencies so that a differentiated hearing is supported. The Reggio-version of “soundscape” is composed, then, without its inhabitants, as if the walls themselves would be the main sources of sound. Again, the spatial environment is thought of as a pre-given set of material arrangements. The chapter touches on the problem of “excessive” acoustic levels in infant-toddler centres that would be “perceived as noisiness, which ends up being one of the most immediate perceptions experienced by a visitor from outside” (ibid: 94).7 Not surprisingly, a highly sound-reflective architecture is not valued for promoting children’s self-efficacy. Acoustic space is, on the whole, not thought of having all too much potential for children’s self-regulated learning and exploration, even though special sound producing objects for children’s experiencing and manipulating are suggested. Apart from this, there is little pedagogical advice with respect to the role of sound in everyday social practices of teachers, children, and other actors (and none at all with respect to the role of their voices). At least, “the sounds produced by the children and teachers should be seen in a positive light” (ibid: 98).

6  |  According to the distinction drawn by Michel de Certeau (1984), ‘place’ is produced in maps, ‘space’ in tours. 7  |  See also Von der Beek/Buck/Rufenbach 2006: 55-59, providing further suggestions for noise prevention, e.g. constructing ‘rooms inside rooms’.

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Sometimes, a visitor from outside, however, is more likely to succeed in taking this attitude, for example a participant observer. The following field note was written while sitting – to put it in a way inspired by Schafer’s soundscapes – in the middle of a wild sonic jungle. As several babies and little children are crying simultaneously for some minutes, it is certainly loud, but a bit more comfortable than before. The single voices ‘interrupt’ and drown out each other. I stop waiting for the screams to fade. The perception switches to ‘listening’; it doesn’t take the voices as messages anymore, but as sound. If it wouldn’t be that loud, I could close my eyes and feel like on the beach, listening to the screams of seagulls.

The accumulation of voices can either be perceived as a ‘soundscape’, an aesthetic order, or as ‘noise’, a communicative disorder. The hearing observer is allowed to release himself from the (implicit) obligation to ‘understand’ the vocal utterings as ‘children’s voices’. Instead, he compares the disharmonic melody trajectories with the nature sound of seagulls. Remarkably, the whole acoustic setting is transmitted into another place, namely the beach, an ‘outdoor space’. By this change in conception and imagination, the hearer is able to transform the de-placing effects of the voices’ spatiality into a new integrated place with another meaning. Not so the personnel of the institution: caregivers are probably not only stressed and troubled, but also feel addressed by a constant ‘questioning’ of the institution’s conditions for child well-being. Furthermore, they are not free to focus exclusively on specific sound impressions, but are obliged to hear what others hear. Thus, they probably feel urged to take actions to reduce the noise. In terms of space, they are much more occupied with eliminating disordered space than is foreseen by the pedagogical programmes, i.e. to make the ‘polluted’ sonic environment recognisable again as an order of places. A considerable part of the work could be described as dealing with acoustic space in order to achieve audible accountability. This is a difficult part, not only because of the hardly controllable sound sources, but also because of lacking professional criteria for this kind of accountability. I shall describe and analyse some of the practical strategies and forms of knowledge below.

The sound of the social: multiple orders In the meantime, several works within sound studies were written that both take into account the physical, spatial, and aesthetic qualities of sound and analyse their various ways of being engaged in social life. The connection is already expressed by the title of Brandon LaBelle’s “Acoustic territories”, a collection of essays that stress the de-localising and fracturing qualities: “Sound disregards

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the particular visual and material delineations of spatial arrangements, displacing and replacing the lines between inside and out, above from below” (LaBelle 2010: xxi). Starting from various locations in the city (e.g. the underground station), he is particularly interested in the social connectivity, but also in the conflicts evolving around noise and silence. “Acoustic space thus brings forward a process of acoustic territorialization, in which the disintegration and reconfiguration of space […] becomes a political process” (ibid: xxiv). This process pertains not least to the division of the public and the private, or to issues such as the participation of excluded groups and persons in public space. Although LaBelle describes a rather special sociality (by exaggerating and poeticising ephemeral sound phenomena), his accounts sensitise to the processes of social ordering and disordering in which sounds are involved, and the negotiations and struggles departing from these. In this vein, an ethnographic study on classroom space by Georg Breidenstein (2004) shows how in educational settings sound and hearing (among other senses) work in processes of a fluid territorialisation. By focusing on different sensual dimensions of perception, he first of all dissolves the “fiction” of a classroom unity. With respect to acoustic space, observations of how pupils behave in situations of a high general acoustic level lead to a further differentiation of spaces: because low speaking or whispering among classroom neighbours is not heard or at least not understood by others, private spaces emerge in the middle of the wider public space (ibid: 100). The school setting can rely on a shared understanding of the legitimate distribution of speaking and silence. Against this background, the interest of the study is in the practical knowledge of participants, which is not reflected in discursive programmes of how people should behave or are encouraged to act. The investigated perspective is mainly that of the addressees of education, the pupils, and their peer cultures: virtuosity in perceiving others’ range of sensual perception enables them to communicate beyond teacher control.8 Applying this research perspective to settings of early childhood education leads to a more precise critique of the programmatic notion of the spatial. Despite of its openness for action and appropriation, it seems to remain, at least in principle, an unchangeable substance, distinct from time, and opposed to the child, which is conceived as changing in the course of its play and learning. Listening to the fracturing acoustic materiality of space instead points to the following: those spaces which are actually conditioning the daily practices in 8 | Michael Gallagher has observed very similar tactics to evade aural and visual surveillance in a primary school (2011: 52ff.). By comparison, Sabine Reh, Kerstin Rabenstein and Bettina Fritzsche (2011) have pointed to the acoustic permeability of a learning studio in an all-day primary school: As teachers from different learning groups hear each other, aural surveillance may be extended on them (p. 92).

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childcare centres are also continually emerging and changing through and within the same practices. Moreover, by taking the sonic into account, it becomes even more evasive and fluid what is supposed to be a ‘space’ or a ‘place’. The source of an utterance may be located approximately; in any case, it occupies space – or better: produces space – at least temporarily. The more, it becomes a task of on-going educational practice to make socio-material constellations observable as spaces and places.

The sound of the social: unified orders The multiplicity of acoustic space is potentially detrimental to pedagogical sensemaking, as it threatens the idea of the pedagogical province as such. However, the multimodality of sound – in particular vocal sound – equally serves to establish this educational precondition continuously by identifying and simplifying local settings. It plays a key role in acts at once physically structuring and meaning-making, at once ordering and making ordering accountable as a specific kind of work. In the study on classroom space mentioned above, Breidenstein also makes some notes on the counterpart to pupils’ strategies of evading control, namely the strategies of classroom teachers to keep a general conversation going. These strategies include performing dialogues with individuals in a louder voice when they are meant to be ‘published’, or the teacher repeating the pupils’ answers that were spoken too softly. Another reference from the field of sound studies could shed more light on such centralising acoustic strategies of teachers in classrooms and other educational sites: the study by Annales-historian Alain Corbin on “Village Bells” (1998) in 18th- and 19th-century France. At a time when it was the most important public communication medium, bell ringing pervaded the social, political, and economic life. Whereas LaBelle captures the fragmented and contested territorialisation of the modern city, framed by social inequalities and encounters with ‘the other’, Corbin reconstructs the centralised and homogeneous territorialisation of the old villages, ideally resulting in an orderly and hierarchical community life. “The bell tower prescribed an auditory space that corresponded to a particular notion of territoriality, one obsessed with mutual acquaintance. The bell reinforced divisions between an inside and an outside” (ibid: 95), it “served to anchor localism, imparting depth to the desire for rootedness and offering the peace of near, well-defined horizons” (ibid: 97). This audibility of ‘protected space’ was of existential meaning, for instance, in case of the propagation of alarm or the injunction to assemble for political or economic reasons. Not only does Corbin convey an impression of the physical power and pervasiveness of bell sounds; he also describes the highly differentiated codes and manifold functions of bell ringing. In other words,

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bells were multimodal instruments of social ordering, combining information, organisation, and emotional-bodily affection. Sonic techniques of spatial (and temporal) ordering have become more specialised and limited since then. They reside in contexts such as workplaces, cultural events, emergency situations – and not least in educational institutions. The school bell is one of the last acoustic technologies used for addressing people regularly and collectively and for directing them – with the help of their knowledge and readiness – to different rooms and places (for detailed reflexions on a school gong: Breidenstein et al. 2013: 142ff.). Besides this organisation-wide, rationalised control mechanism, there are other sonic regulation techniques in educational institutions. In a Foucauldian manner, Gallagher focussed on the maintenance of silence in the classroom, concluding that “sound in schools is both the target of power and its mode of operation” (2011: 57). He writes for example on a “countdown technique” (ibid: 56): “It was mostly initiated by teachers, but the children had been taught to join in, so the whole class would chant ‘three, two, one, shhh!’” In settings of early education, adult voices also typically fulfil the functions of bells or other technical signals (whereas signal sounds, such as telephones and doorbells, usually address only the adults themselves). An example of such a signalling voice I observed was not coincidentally combined with the command to tidy up the room, thus to contribute to the ordering of space by putting things back ‘in their place’. The teacher positioned herself in the middle of the group room and turned her head slowly while announcing “Mir raumen!” (We tidy up!) in a loud and long sustained voice (for a more detailed account see Schnoor 2011). Contrary to the school bell or other forms of controlling techniques, it is still a bodily and linguistically expressed command, thereby audible as an interactional ordering and thus accountable as early education. This seems an especially ‘thick’ moment for observing the practical accomplishment of educational spaces and places in the medium of sound. However, it points to aspects of practices that can be further generalised and elaborated.

“W here are the children ?” — L istening to acoustic spacing and pl acing Early childhood education envisages space as a given ‘environment’ created by means of architecture and interiors, substituting the teachers to some extent and enabling them to spend more time on observing children’s learning processes. Previous ethnographic studies have already questioned this concept: space is rather accomplished in manifold day-to-day practices, such as assigning rooms and objects to another and of regulating their access and use for different sorts of people (Schmidt 2004). This research is driven further, here,

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by focusing on multimodal practices of space- and place-making in institutions for the youngest children (from 3 months). The ethnographic protocols and materials analysed in the following stem from a long-term study in a Maison Relais pour Enfants (MRE).9 The MRE’s pedagogical concept was positioned within conceptual frameworks of ECEC by stressing children’s democratic participation and self-determination. This pedagogy was realised by offering the children certain occasions for decision-making. Mostly, these decisions concerned the question where children would like to stay within a defined area of places, for example, in which group room a child likes to sit during mealtime. However, not all questions on location could be handled as questions of free choice. Following sound in the everyday life of childcare settings reveals structural reasons why the programmatic visions of space and place are not always and not easily perceptible. Voices regularly blur the foreseen order of places and often seem to absorb the potentials or protectiveness of spaces. Certain loud and sustained voice tones, for example, can generate a bodily feeling as if something has risen off the ground and is hovering in the air. The place itself is moving and becoming insecure. In institutions for the youngest children, this is particularly – but not only – the case when the crying of children dominates the acoustic sphere, as seen in the ethnographic field note of a ‘soundscape’ above. It is also the case in much of the daily (peer-)cultural activities.10 Altogether, a dominance of space over place occurs often in unplanned ways. So, how do teachers and carers deal with circumstances like these in practice? Analyses of field notes and also of some recordings in the childcare institution point to some major strategies to which institutional practice was inclined to switch. The situations and practices analysed in the following were accumulating particularly during times of transition between the different phases of the institutional day, e.g. around mealtime, hygienic care, naptime, or preparation for outside activities. In crèches, such transitions take a considerable amount of time in comparison to free play (cf. Schmidt 2004) or guided activities of exploration. Mainly the latter areas are utilised by practitioners to carry out child observation and documentation in line with preferred images of the child. However, these periods are not focused on here, though not excluded either.

9 | The Maison Relais was a cooperating partner for intensive ethnographical research in the project called “Realities of Education and Care: The Pedagogics of the Maison Relais pour Enfants” at the University of Luxembourg. Besides this MRE, which was the main site, participant observation was carried out in several contrasting childcare institutions (cf. Honig et al. 2013). 10 | For an example of a more cheerful, thus “positive” performance of peers, see Schnoor (2013: 464f.).

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Visible places and bodily-acoustic placing A change in attention from space to place allows focusing on immediately perceivable visual orders, thereby compensating for sonic disorders (as well as for lacking resources for ‘detached’ observation). The right or wrong place of an element can be gauged more quickly and easily (a ‘mess’ is noticed immediately) than a “learning story” can be observed. This is done in concrete manners by bodily actions such as taking, putting, holding, and by cooperating with material helpers such as pieces of furniture in placing, ordering, and fixing bodies and things, or by making the children themselves help doing so. In the daily routines of a crèche, children’s bodies are placed and replaced within a flexible system of body coverings, containers, borders and membranes. In the stream of organisational practices, places and the distances between them can best be observed and handled when they shape collective physical orders, for example queues: children shall leave the group room in an orderly procedure by queuing up in front of the closed doors and thus build a so-called ‘train’. Most of them do so routinely, waiting until an adult comes and lets them pass, thereby contributing themselves to the order of place. Nonetheless, sound and voice have multiple functions in the practices of placing and spacing. Voices perform commands that instruct the children to contribute, again, to the ordering of places, for example, to tidying up the room (see the example in the previous section). More often, the instructions serve to direct children themselves to certain places of the room or to summon them to another room (e.g. the bathroom through the order “Hand washing!” or “Potty! Potty! …”). Commands may also serve to keep children at a place for longer. Between lunchtime and naptime, for example, children eventually have to stay for up to twenty minutes on a large, soft carpet, in sitting or lying position, in order to ‘slow down’ and prepare to sleep. Loud voices ‘stress’ the physical aspects of the meaning. In that the voice has the capacity to simultaneously signify and ‘embody’ the signification (accompanied by additional acts of pointing to the signified), it quasi ‘tacks’ bodies to things or places. By using an incisive tone, it produces a break, which is combined with an appeal to align to a named order and to contribute to its establishment or reproduction.

Establishing ‘space’ by intonational gestures Teachers and caregivers address young children on a regular basis by calling them. Listening closely to the calls reveals the performance of various intonational gestures that symbolise spatial relations. The intonation of the calling is typically a “call contour”, a tone shaping that is, by using constant tone levels, close to singing, but also to signals (Abe 1962; Ladd 1978). Intonation and other sonic features like voice quality and volume make this addressing hearable as

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directed to children as (specific) children, in particular as beings that can only be reached by overcoming a distance – be it because they seem to reside ‘in a different world’, because they are lacking attention at the moment, or because they seem to have ‘forgotten’ the rules of conduct (in more detail: Schnoor 2011; on sound and social distance in general, see Van Leeuwen 1999: 24ff.). Some calls include even more meanings relating to space-mediated images of the child. In case of the moaning and whimpering of a three-year-old boy named Tristan which could be heard again and again, an educator dealt with it in a melodically remarkable way. She varied the call contour, which is normally shaped by two more or less ‘levelled’ syllables (Tri¯ stan–!)11, by integrating a slight glissando, a slow dragging of tones, which seemed to align with Tristan’s simultaneously performed complaining sound. Thereby, her calling was not only an admonishing (though it was, too: Tristan was demanded to sit down and stop crying), but at the same time it was a making hearable that the child is heard. Repeated addressing by the child’s name can then be heard as a vocal ‘cord’ between adult and child, even carrying the message that a child’s wish (uttered or supposed) will not be fulfilled at that moment, but might be in the future. This type of name-calling is thus both a demand and a response, performing ‘distance’ and ‘attachment’, in a way combining ‘education’ and ‘care’ in the same speech act. Analysed in this way, it may seem to require an unusual vocal virtuosity; however, it is part of a practical knowledge gained in the same everyday practices. Individual and collective address calls are, furthermore, suited to establish (temporary) ‘taboo zones’. The bathroom, to which children sometimes are summoned, is such a zone at other times: Kathie, an infant who can hardly walk, is about to crawl towards the open bathroom door. One of the educators, sitting at the table behind Kathie’s back, speaks to her slowly: “Kathie?” (approximately: –Ka ­­_thy?) Kathie turns her head round. Then she is told: “We don’t go into the bathroom.”

The type of melody in calling the name was a refinement of the call contour, adding to it the intonation of questions. It combines the overcoming of a distance with an intonational ‘pull’ on the acoustic ‘cord’ in order to prepare the act of instruction. It is mostly used when children are just about to, but have not yet, transgressed the boundaries. When the rules of order can already be presup11  |  Some transcriptional signs derived from linguistics are pointing to salient features of intonation and speech melody: Long hyphens designate that the respective syllable is articulated with a constant tone level and longer than usual; a hyphen positioned on top/at the bottom of the line indicates a tone level notably above/below the average. Question marks stand for an upward-sliding tone.

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posed as shared knowledge (for example, when some children are up to leave their seat at the table after mealtime too early), there is often only this combined name-calling and questioning to be heard without any explicit message. What about the role of space now in practices in which its conceptual meanings are less recognisable? Reduced to the distance between children and their supposed place, space is a sign of deviance rather than of potentials, and may become subject to educational intervening. In other words, the ‘dangerous’ space of the outside is taken inside the overall setting as a ‘forbidden’ space: protection turns into prevention. Children are marked as ‘far away’ from what they should have already become in terms of their self-discipline and behavioural competencies. This ‘what to be’ is, so to say, operationalised as a ‘where to be’ in the spatial order of the centre.12

‘Keynote sounds’ The various speech-act types that occur in the stream of everyday practices make an educational character of the setting hearable, in one way or the other. Temporary orders of acoustic space are established by raised adult voices, which may at once give commands and overarch the ‘soundscape’. This is more of a practical necessity than a conscious technique. A high acoustic level, in particular by enduring cries and screams, leads to a regular transformation of the conditions of action, and it thus contributes to making the carers and teachers raise their voice on their part. If acoustic space cannot be made calm and ‘settled’, it can at least be given shape in a meaningful way. It can, for example, be differentiated into a level of sonic-spatial ‘figures’ standing out against a ‘ground’-level of disordered sounds (Murray Schafer likewise referred to this model of figure-ground perception originating from Gestalt psychology in his consideration of soundscape design).13

12 | The regular enactment of this image of “children at risk” in ECEC-settings (in contrast to the preferred image of the child as developing its potentials) reveals, as Sascha Neumann has shown, that there can be different disciplinary conceptions of pedagogy at work which nonetheless go together in daily practice (Neumann 2013). 13 | It has recently been discussed whether ‘soundscapes’ can become at all relevant to social sciences beyond their ‘staging’ in various media such as audio recordings or literature (Bijsterveld 2013). My ethnographic report is certainly an example of staging (as is known since the ‘crisis of representation’). An ethnomethodologically oriented approach focussing on performances, however, allows observing such voice activities as yet being part of this staging of a ‘soundscape’.

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Place-making by music and singing In addition to this order of places as an order of norm and deviance, there is also a regular sort of acoustically produced place that seems suitable to foster a sense of belonging and identity, in particular by founding a unity of place with various modes of meaning-making. Intonational gestures are an essential part of music. The kinds of music that are usually part of the everyday life in childcare remain in an area of regular and culturally familiar forms of melody, harmony, and rhythm. The up and down of melody is a prominent mode of expressing spatiality. Conventional melodic figures often start from the tone called root note or fundamental note and end there again. They seem like a balanced relation between moving into space and returning into place. Music plays an indispensable role in daily institutional life. A “complex ethnography” as proposed by Atkinson, Delamont, and Housle pays “close attention to the work that is being accomplished through music itself” (2008: 198). Turning on CD-players does not only provide occasions to move or dance in ‘space’, but also allows to calm down the emotional atmosphere and give a character of ‘place’ to the setting. Singing songs usually belongs to the morning circle in kindergartens and frames it, not only as a beginning and ending activity, but also as one that takes place. In the cooperating Maison Relais, circle time was performed after breakfast and in the afternoon. Assembling children at a defined area of the room and singing songs together is a multimodal technique of accomplishing a unified place. As was often noticed in participant observation, the beginning of songs immediately calmed the atmosphere, silenced some crying children almost “magically”, and generally focused the acoustic space. Its multiplicity seemed to be absorbed again by the sameness and (tolerable) synchronicity of singing voices. The lyrics also contributed to this ordering of place by multimodal meaning-making. The opening song of the morning circle was written over the melody of “Brother John” (or “Frère Jacques”, “Bruder Jakob” etc.) – maybe not coincidentally the old song which originally goes “Morning bells are ringing” and had already been heard at the times when village bells instituted orders of space and place as reconstructed by Alain Corbin. The lyrics chosen by the centre personnel began: “Where are the children?”; the response went: “Here they are”, followed by a welcome and greeting.

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C onclusion : S ound in multimodal e thnogr aphy of education Overall conclusions will first be drawn on the spatialities of sound in an early childcare institution, and then on of how these may point to the potentials of a multimodal ethnography. Some major strategies in making ‘spaces’ and ‘places’ visible or hearable in the stream of the multiple spatialities of everyday life were described. First, the installation and observation of ‘place’ is often given priority to that of ‘space’. Observing visible orders is practically connected with the handling of bodies and materials, but also with raised voices giving instructions. Second, vocal speech acts of addressing, which are often involved in the ordering of places, are at once a means of indicating spatial relations to children and thereby of producing a space that is particularly accountable as educational. The spatiality of intonational gestures is especially suited to fulfil those purposes. As a result of these strategies, third, acoustic space is regularly influenced and given meaning to as a ‘soundscape’ that seems audibly educational. The aspect of soundscape-formation is then foregrounded, fourth, in more musical genres of social ordering, which are suited to ‘found’ a unity of place situationally. Following sound not only as a medium of linguistic modes, but also of music, ‘noise’, and sign-making at the margins of modes, points to areas of meaning that sometimes, and especially from an ‘outsider’ perspective, remain vague and ambiguous. The voice becomes recognisable as a flexible relay in processes of fluent and loose signification. It is capable of ‘having’ or producing a physical spatiality (pervasiveness of sound) as well as of symbolising spatialities (movements, distances, shapes), of pointing to places by short indexical signs (“here”, “there”, etc.) and, of course, by using all the other possibilities that speech offers. Voices in educational practices may ‘pick up’ physical space mimetically (by responding to other vocal sounds and gestures or by analogy to physical spatial relations) and strive to disambiguate and identify it in line with preferred conceptions. Their practical ‘strength’, however, lies not least in the making of polyvalent signs, decodable, for example, as ‘education’ as well as ‘care’. Thus, following sound and voices in social practices is suited to investigating transitions, mixtures, and simultaneities of meaning-making. Going further from here, ‘multimodal ethnography’ could also be understood as ethnography of the social division and intertwining of modes themselves. In the strict sense, it remains a question of multimodal research itself to investigate how modes come to be modes in social practice, and how they can be recognised as modes, especially since the boundaries between modes are not in every case made explicit by the participants using them. However, multimodal ethnography in educational research seems especially promising (as also pointed to in the previous discussion of sound studies)

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when oscillating between a focused attentiveness to particular modes and their materialities (cf. Atkinson/Delamont/Housle 2008: 54) on the one hand and a broad observation of social practices encompassing networks and chains of action and signification on the other. A methodological focus on sound is leading to a particular combination of both reduction and production of complexity (Kelle 2010). It reduces it by selecting and highlighting a particular sensual dimension and leaving other dimensions aside at least temporarily. In the case of (early) education, this focus serves as a contrast to tendencies of observation in the field itself. It thereby produces complexity above all compared to programmes and professional knowledge, adding substantially to the reconstruction of ‘successful’ educational practice and bringing to light complex conditions that are either taken for granted or downplayed. Furthermore, the ethnographic part in ‘multimodal ethnography’ is capable of counterbalancing the de-temporalised acoustic space of much soundscape-research (cf. Samuels et al. 2010: 338). Participant observation may notice stable as well as fluent spatial constellations, regular patterns as well as extraordinary events, and simultaneously observe these perceivable orderings and disorderings as taking part in social practices, being performed in and by this space. Of course, ethnographers need to ‘freeze’ this temporalised space at different levels in order to gain palpable elements of analysis.

R eferences Abe, Isamu (1962): “Call Contours.” In: Proceedings of the 4th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, The Hague: Mouton, pp. 519-523. Alanen, Leena (2009): “Generational Order.” In: Jens Qvortrup/William A. Corsaro/Michael-Sebastian Honig (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Childhood Studies, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 159-174. Alcock, Sophie (2013): “Toddlers’ Complex Communication: Playfulness From a Secure Base.” In: Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood 14/2, pp. 179190. Atkinson, Paul/Delamont, Sara/Housle, William (2008): Contours of Culture: Complex Ethnography and the Ethnography of Complexity, Walnut Creek: AltaMira. Bijsterveld, Karin (ed.) (2013): Soundscapes of the Urban Past: Staged Sound as Mediated Cultural Heritage, Bielefeld: transcript. Björkvall, Anders/Karlsson, Anna-Malin (2011): “The Materiality of Discourses and the Semiotics of Materials: A Social Perspective on the Meaning Potentials of Written Texts and Furniture.” In: Semiotica 187, pp. 141-165.

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Breidenstein, Georg (2004): “KlassenRäume – eine Analyse räumlicher Bedingungen und Effekte des Schülerhandelns.” In: Zeitschrift für qualitative Bildungs-, Beratungs- und Sozialforschung (ZBBS) 5/1, pp. 87-107. Breidenstein, Georg/Hirschauer, Stefan/Kalthoff, Herbert/Nieswand, Boris (2013): Ethnografie: Die Praxis der Feldforschung, Konstanz/München: UVK. Ceppi, Giulio/Zini, Michele (eds.) (1998): Children, Spaces, Relations – Meta-project for an Environment for Young Children, Reggio Emilia: Reggio Children. Corbin, Alain (1998): Village Bells. Sound and Meaning in the 19th Century French Countryside, New York: Columbia. De Certeau, Michel (1984): The Practice of Everyday Life, Berkeley: University of California. Dicks, Bella (2014): “Action, Experience, Communication: Three Methodological Paradigms for Researching Multimodal and Multisensory Settings.” In: Qualitative Research 14/6, pp. 656-674. Dicks, Bella/Flewitt, Rosie/Lancaster, Lesley/Pahl, Kate (2011): “Multimodality and Ethnography: Working at the Intersection.” In: Qualitative Research 11/3, pp. 227-237. Erlmann, Veit (2004): “But What of the Ethnographic Ear? Anthropology, sound, and the senses.” In: Veit Erlmann (ed.), Hearing Cultures: Essays on Sound, Listening, and Modernity, Oxford, New York: Berg, pp. 1-20. Faudree, Paja (2012): “Music, Language, and Texts: Sound and Semiotic Ethnography.” In: Annual Review of Anthropology 41, pp. 519-536. Feld, Steven/Basso, Keith (eds.) (1996): Senses of Place, Santa Fe: School of American Research Press. Gallagher, Michael (2011): “Sound, Space and Power in a Primary School.” In: Social & Cultural Geography 12/1, pp. 47-61. Gershon, Walter (2013): “Sonic Cartography: Mapping Space, Place, Race, and Identity in an Urban Middle School.” In: Taboo: The Journal of Culture and Education, Spring 2013, pp. 21-45. Granly, Astrid/Maagerø, Eva (2012): “Multimodal Texts in Kindergarten Rooms.” In: Education Inquiry 3/3, pp. 371-386. Honig, Michael-Sebastian (2009): “How is the Child Constituted in Childhood Studies?” In: Jens Qvortrup/William A. Corsaro/Michael-Sebastian Honig (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Childhood Studies, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 62-77. Honig, Michael-Sebastian/Neumann, Sascha/Schnoor, Oliver/Seele, Claudia (2013): Die Bildungsrelevanz der Betreuungswirklichkeit. Eine Studie zur institutionellen Praxis nicht-familialer Kleinkinderziehung, Luxembourg: Université du Luxembourg, http://hdl.handle.net/10993/12933.

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Jewitt, Carey (2009): “Different Approaches to Multimodality.” In: Carey Jewitt (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Multimodal Analysis, London: Routledge, pp. 28-39. Kelle, Helga (2010): “Die Komplexität der Wirklichkeit als Problem qualitativer Forschung.“ In: Barbara Friebertshäuser/Antje Langer/Annedore Prengel (eds.), Handbuch Qualitative Forschungsmethoden in der Erziehungswissenschaft, Weinheim: Juventa, pp. 101-118. Kirkham, Pat (ed.) (1996): The Gendered Object, Manchester: Manchester University Press. Kirkham, Pat/Attfield, Judy (1996): “Introduction.” In: Pat Kirkham (ed.), The Gendered Object, Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 1-11. Kress, Gunther (2011): “‘Partnerships in Research’: Multimodality and Ethnography.” In: Qualitative Research 11/3, pp. 239-360. Kress, Gunther/van Leeuwen, Theo (2006): Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design, London: Routledge. LaBelle, Brandon (2010): Acoustic Territories: Sound Culture and Everyday Life, New York: Continuum. Ladd, Robert D. (1978): “Stylized Intonation.” In: Language 54/3, pp. 517-540. Latour, Bruno (2008): Reassembling the Social, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lefebvre, Henri (1991): The Production of Space, Oxford: Blackwell. Malaguzzi, Loris (1996): The Hundred Languages of Children. Exhibit catalogue, Reggio Emilia: Edizioni Reggio Children. Neumann, Sascha (2012): “Pädagogisierung und Verdinglichung. Beobachtungen zur Materialität der Frühpädagogik.” In: Karin Priem/Gudrun König/ Rita Casale (eds.), Die Materialität der Erziehung (58. Beiheft der Zeitschrift für Pädagogik), Weinheim: Beltz, pp. 168-184. Neumann, Sascha (2013): “Sorgenkinder: Zur sozialpädagogischen Konstitution von Kindheit in luxemburgischen ‘Maison Relais pour Enfants.’” In: Diskurs Kindheits- und Jugendforschung 8/2, pp. 149-162. Neyland, Daniel/Coopmans, Catelijne (2014): “Visual Accountability.” In: The Sociological Review 62/1, pp. 1-23. Reh, Sabine/Rabenstein, Kerstin/Fritzsche, Bettina (2011): “Learning Spaces Without Boundaries? Territories, Power and how Schools Regulate Learning.” In: Social & Cultural Geography 12/1, pp. 83-98. Samuels, David W./Meintjes, Louise/Ochoa, Ana Maria/Porcello, Thomas (2010): “Soundscapes: Toward a Sounded Anthropology.” In: Annual Review of Anthropology 39, pp. 329-345. Schafer, Raymond Murray (1977): The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World, Rochester: Destiny Books. Schmidt, Kai (2004): “Das Freispiel und der geordnete Raum. Die Praxis eines Programms.” In: Michael-Sebastian Honig/Magdalena Joos/Norbert

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Schreiber (eds.), Was ist ein guter Kindergarten? Weinheim: Juventa, pp. 157-192. Schnoor, Oliver (2011): “Die Pädagogik der Stimme. Auditive Ethnographie früh­ pädagogischer Ordnungsbildung am Beispiel sprechmusikalischer Adressierungs­praktiken.” In: Zeitschrift für Qualitative Forschung (ZQF) 12/2, pp. 239-255. Schnoor, Oliver (2013): “Early Childhood Studies as Vocal Studies: Examining the Social Practices of ‘Giving Voice to Children’s Voices’ in a Crèche.” In: Childhood 20/4, pp. 458-471. Schnoor, Oliver/Neumann, Sascha (2015): “Zwischen Stille und Stimme: Frühpädagogik als schweigsames Beobachten.” In: Michael Geiss/Veronika Magyar-Haas (eds.), Zum Schweigen: Macht und Ohnmacht in Erziehung und Bildung, Weilerswist: Velbrück Wissenschaft (in press). Schulz, Marc (2015): “Pädagogischer Visualismus: Institutionelle Blicke auf Kinder und Kindheit.” In: Friederike Schmidt/Marc Schulz/Gunther Graßhoff (eds.), Pädagogische Blicke, Weinheim: Beltz Juventa (in press). Spencer, Christopher/Blades, Mark (eds.) (2006): Children and Their Environments, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Van Leeuwen, Theo (1999): Speech, Music, Sound, Houndmills: Macmillan. Von der Beek, Angelika/Buck, Matthias/Rufenbach, Annelie (2006): Kinderräume bilden. Ein Ideenbuch für Raumgestaltung in Kitas, Weinheim: Beltz.

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Language Practices and the Accomplishment of Educational Realities An Ethnography of Multilingualism in Luxembourgish Early Childcare Settings Claudia Seele

A bstr act This paper aims at providing a substantive as well as methodological contribution to the question of how education is conceptualised in ethnographic research. On the basis of a study about the dealings with multilingualism in Luxembourgish early childcare settings, it will be argued that ‘education’ itself can be viewed as a specific form of language practice. Especially in the multilingual context of Luxembourg, the practical accomplishment of educational realities relies to a large part on language-mediated processes of differentially addressing and positioning social actors in the day care setting. Regarding language as a social practice, the focus of the paper is thus on the actual doing of language and its contribution to the practical accomplishment of an institutional order. Here, educational and sociolinguistic concerns get combined by drawing on the methodological approaches of an Ethnography of Multilingualism and an Ethnography of Early Childhood Education and Care. Taken together, these approaches will help to reveal how social realities in educational settings are constituted through language practices. By analysing data material from three Luxembourgish day-care centres that were investigated during a threeyear ethnographic research project, this article will explore how the educational practice in the observed settings is realised in a tension between monolingual agendas on the one hand and everyday translanguaging practices on the other hand. Within this tension some specific language practices have developed, which generate a distinct form of multilingualism that is constitutive for the educational field under study.

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I ntroduction Language practices have since long been examined as linked to processes of power and social reproduction, especially in educational contexts (e.g. Bernstein 1971; Bourdieu/Passeron 1977; Bourdieu 1991). Studies have dealt with questions of continuity and discontinuity between home and school language practices, and how certain linguistic forms and behaviours are required in formal educational settings (see already Cook-Gumperz 1973). With regard to the diverse linguistic backgrounds and repertoires of students, research has shown more recently how a specific linguistic and thoroughly monolingual norm is accomplished and asserted, mainly in schools but also in other educational fields (e.g. Gogolin 1994; Heller 2006; Jaffe 2009; Martín Rojo 2010). These studies clearly demonstrate how educational institutions rely on language as an important tool for their practices of differentiation, and for constituting and reproducing a specific social order (for preschool settings see also Miller/Ginsburg 1989; Palludan 2007). While most of these studies took place in more or less monolingually framed settings, it is of growing importance to investigate how language norms are established in genuinely multilingual settings, and how also multilingual language practices may entail the constitution of a social and pedagogical order (e.g. Pujolar 2010, Andersson/Rusanganwa 2011; Neumann 2012). These questions become especially pertinent in face of an increasing diversification of and in educational fields (e.g. Creese/Blackledge 2010). Theoretically, it is no longer taken for granted what ‘a language’ actually is; the boundaries between languages are as open to negotiation as are the boundaries between groups of speakers (e.g. Blackledge/Creese 2010; Heller 2008). Likewise, it is far from evident that everything that happens in educational fields is per se ‘education’, rather it has to be performed and practically enacted as such (e.g. Honig/Neumann 2013; see also Schulz, Schnoor, and others in this volume). This is especially the case for early childcare settings, the claims of which to provide not only care but also education are contested to a greater extent than, for example, in the more institutionalised context of the school. Consequently, most studies on multilingualism in education focus on school settings and leave a blind spot regarding the field of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC). On the other hand, ethnographic studies in ECEC only rarely draw on sociolinguistic approaches to frame their object of research or their research methods (but for a residential childcare setting see Palomares/Poveda 2010). By asking how language practices in multilingual day-care settings are involved in the accomplishment of early educational realities, my article, therefore, contributes to an Ethnography of Multilingualism as well as to an Ethnography of Early Childhood Education and Care, exploring both the junction points and the complementary potentials of the two methodological approaches.

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The article is structured as follows: After a short overview of the language situation in Luxembourg and, more specifically, in the Luxembourgish education system, I will introduce the theoretical and methodological premises of the ethnographic research.1 In the main part, some empirical findings on the tension between monolingual agendas and translanguaging practices in the observed Luxembourgish day-care settings will be presented and, finally, discussed with regard to the question of how language practices are involved in the accomplishment of educational realities.

L anguages in L uxembourg and in the L uxembourgish system of education and care As an officially multilingual state, Luxembourg challenges conventional assumptions about the homogeneity of the European nation-state, which is, traditionally, supposed to represent one nation with one culture and one language (Habermas 1998: 399). But, as in other European countries, the language situation in Luxembourg has also changed during the last fifty years, in the context of historical developments such as post-industrial economic restructuring, transnational migration, as well as new media and technological advances (Horner/Weber 2008). Alongside the three official administrative languages as codified in the so-called Language Law of 1984 (Chambre des Députés 1984), i.e. Luxembourgish, French and German, there has been a growing importance of English as the language of international business and finances. Another factor is the continuing immigration, which has led to a proportion of around 45 per cent foreign residents among the whole population (STATEC 2014). In the process, immigrant languages have gained momentum as well – first among them Portuguese, which is spoken by about 20 per cent of the population (Fehlen et al. 2014: 96). At the same time, the role of French has shifted from the language of the elites to a lingua franca among immigrant groups, as well as between residents and cross border commuters from France and Belgium (Horner/Weber 2008). Moreover, Luxembourgish has exceeded its earlier confinement to the narrow realm of oral communication and is used more widely nowadays, especially because of new social media and continuing efforts at standardisation.

1 | This paper draws on my participation in an earlier research project on educational practices in state-funded day-care centres in Luxembourg (Honig/Neumann/Schnoor/ Seele 2013) as well as, more specifically, on my subsequent PhD project about the dealings with multilingualism in Luxembourgish early childcare settings, which is running from 2011 to 2015 and funded by the Fonds National de la Recherche Luxembourg.

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Against the background of these developments, the discourse on language and national identity in Luxembourg is deeply ambiguous (Horner/Weber 2008: 85-86; Gilles et al. 2010). On the one hand, there is a strong commitment to multilingualism as characteristic of Luxembourg and as an economic and cultural advantage for its inhabitants. On the other hand, multilingualism is also seen as a threat to social integration and national identity. Here, the role of Luxembourgish as the national language (Chambre des Députés 1984: Art. 1) is emphasised and it is promoted as a means for securing social cohesion and the very continuance of the nation. The discourse on multilingualism, however, has to be further differentiated, since there are different forms of multilingual repertoires at stake (Fehlen 2009: 47-57). There is a desirable and legitimate form of multilingualism that is institutionalised in the educational system. It is based on a monolingual ideal in the sense of presuming a very good formal (‘native-like’) competence in all of the official languages – plus English. These socially approved languages are to be clearly separated and each used in the appropriate domains. By contrast, this ideal also implies more illegitimate forms of multilingualism, where different languages intersect, no language is supposedly spoken ‘properly’, and the use of some – especially migrant – languages may be seen as a sign of failed integration, backwardness, and a reason for social problems. In this context, it is important to note that all three official languages are present in the educational system (e.g. Delvaux-Stehres 2011; Berg et al. 2011). Luxembourgish is the language of preschool, which is mandatory for every child at the age of four. German is the language of alphabetisation in the first year of primary school at the age of six. It is also the official language of instruction during the rest of primary school, although Luxembourgish remains an important medium of classroom interaction. French is introduced more as a foreign language in the second year of primary education. It turns, however, into the medium of instruction later in some parts of secondary school, especially in the prestigious lycées classiques, which are designated to prepare for higher education, as opposed to the more vocationally oriented lycées techniques, where German remains the main language of instruction, depending partly on the kind of vocational track. Despite persistent education political efforts to implement an inclusive, competence-oriented language education (e.g. COE/MENFP 2006; Berg/Weis 2007; Kühn 2008), the practice in Luxembourgish schools stays, for the most part, oriented towards a perfectionist ideal of the threefold native speaker. Thus, Fehlen (2009: 50) states that enforcing the legitimate multilingual competence as a ‘hidden curriculum’ seems to be the underlying aim of the Luxembourgish school. As a consequence, legitimate language proficiency constitutes a decisive selection criterion in the education system (see for example the latest PISA results in MENFP/Université du Luxembourg 2013: 100-113). This has also been found by Davis (1994) in her ethnographic study of

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Luxembourgish schools and families. She concludes that the linguistic capital of the pupils determines to a large part their academic success and thus their later career chances. Here, neither the linguistic repertoires of children with lower socioeconomic status, nor those of children with immigrant background find much consideration in the school setting.

A n e thnogr aphy of multilingualism in e arly childhood education and care Contrary to the dominant public discourses, my research conceives multilingualism not as a problem but as an everyday reality. This reality is especially noticeable in those state-funded early childcare centres that were the site of my ethnographic observations. The opening question of my empirical inquiry is thus how cultural and linguistic diversity actually play out and how they are dealt with in daily practice. More importantly, I do not take this diversity as a given, but I ask how differences are accomplished in the first place (West/Fenstermaker 1995) and what the role of language(s) is in this process. Following a social-constructivist and praxeological approach, I understand language as a social practice. As such it is embodied, situated, materially mediated and organised around a shared practical understanding (Schatzki 2001). To look at language as a practice is to view language as an activity rather than a structure, as something we do rather than a system we draw on, as a material part of social and cultural life rather than an abstract entity. (Pennycook 2010: 2)

A praxeological perspective takes less interest in a linguistic description of the structural components and functioning of language as a system of communication, but rather in the actual doing of language in a social context. Here, language is used not only to express, but to create identities, belongings, and differences (Gumperz/Cook-Gumperz 1982). Language thus plays a constitutive role in the accomplishment of social order. Especially in multilingual settings, language practices contribute to the making and marking of different actor positions, and are always tied to questions of identity and belonging, to processes of in- and exclusion, to expectations of social cohesion, as well as to fears of disintegration (García 2010). The methodological implication of this focus on doing language and especially on doing multilingualism is a heightened interest in the concrete everyday practice in which language use is embedded and of which it is an integral part. Therefore, I adopted (and adapted) the approach of an Ethnography of Multilingualism (e.g. Blackledge/Creese 2010; Heller 2008), which centres on the question how social realities are constituted through language practices. Multi-

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lingualism is not understood here as the simplistic coexistence of discrete and isolated languages. Instead, it is seen as a social practice, where the boundaries between different languages and between different groups of speakers are not pre-given but constantly (re)produced, challenged, and negotiated (Heller 2008: 252; Blackledge/Creese 2010: 58). Through their performative and indexical character, language practices point to and bring about dynamic and variable actor positions. By differentially addressing and positioning social actors, they contribute to the practical accomplishment of an institutional order and accordingly to the (re)production of social differences. This methodological approach is combined with that of an Ethnography of Early Childhood Education and Care, which explores how the educational practice constitutes itself in the process of its enactment (Honig/Neumann 2013: 6). My research thus combines educational and sociolinguistic concerns by asking how social realities in educational settings are constituted through language practices. Questions for my empirical analyses include the following: How are the social actors in the multilingual setting of the day-care centre differentially addressing and positioning each other? How do they get positioned in space and time through the use of verbal and non-verbal linguistic resources? The final theoretical interest, after all, is to understand how the observed language practices are involved in the self-constitution of the observed practice as an educational practice and thereby contribute to the institutionalisation of this educational field. The ethnographic fieldwork started in October 2010 as part of an accompanying research in a newly founded model institution in Luxembourg City, and was later extended to two other settings chosen as contrastive cases (see figure 1). The first centre remained the focal point of the research and saw the most profound research relations developed over several field phases, while the two other centres were only included as supplemental cases and studied during two two-month field trips. Altogether, I spent five phases of intensive participant observation in the three day-care centres over a period of three years, phases with a varying duration from six to twelve weeks and with observations for several hours during at least three days of the week. These field phases were each followed by a feedback workshop, where I discussed the results of my observations and interpretations with the research participants, albeit not in the sense of a ‘communicative validation’, since my analyses particularly seek to go beyond participants’ own explicit knowledge about their practice (Breidenstein et al. 2013: 186). These workshops rather served to increase the transparency and reciprocity of the research, thus easing access and enhancing acceptance from the start, during the first entry negotiations. Additionally, the caregivers’ reactions to my primary data proved to be important secondary data, demonstrating, for instance, practices of representation, explanation, justification, and legitimation.

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Figure 1: Overview of the three field sites (MRE: Maison Relais pour Enfants, FdJ: Foyer de Jour)2

While the three settings differ with regard to their novelty or seniority, their size and group structure, their location and social environment, as well as their pedagogical approaches, they all represent state-funded day-care centres that have a special contract (the so-called convention) with the (former) Ministry for Family Affairs, which grants them state subsidies while setting certain standards, for example, regarding the payment and qualification of their personnel.3 They have also been the focus of recent political debates on turning early childcare institutions into places of ‘non-formal education’, thus emphasising their pedagogical mission in addition to their earlier functions of providing care for young children and rendering flexible services to parents, allowing them to reconcile work and family life (Majerus 2009; Achten 2012).

2 | For the organisational differentiation of the Luxembourgish ECEC system, see Honig/Haag (2012). In the following, all names of places and people have been changed to ensure anonymity. 3 | Here, it is important to note that my research focuses only on state-funded centres as opposed to the large for-profit sector of early childcare in Luxembourg. This restriction is due, on the one hand, to pragmatic reasons, such as ease of access and limitations of time and resources, but, on the other hand, also to strategic and theoretical considerations, if we suppose, for instance, that in the state-funded centres the influence of policy incentives, regulatory measures, and quality standards as set by the state is especially strong. One might assume that market-based care centres may be less susceptible to state influence, yet more prone to market forces. This, however, would be another research topic.

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E ducational performance be t ween monolingual agendas and tr ansl anguaging pr actices

Monolingual agendas Against the background of a highly segregating school system, which has repeatedly been shown to reproduce social inequalities (see above), early and preschool education in Luxembourg is assigned with a strong preventive and compensatory function (Achten et al. 2009; Delvaux-Stehres 2011). The emphasis is put on the promotion of Luxembourgish with the argument that this common language not only eases classroom communication in general, but also prepares the children for their alphabetisation in German during the first year of primary school.4 Accordingly, one of the programmatic aims of the Maisons Relais pour Enfants (MRE) – which constitute the main setting of my ethnographic research – is “to foster the use of Luxembourgish as the language of everyday communication and as an expression of a common identity” (Majerus 2009: 32, transl. CS). Promoting Luxembourgish as the so-called ‘language of integration’, therefore, does not only serve the group constitution ‘inside’ the institution, it is also meant to contribute to the cohesion of the heterogeneous society at large. Although it is no explicit political requirement, the practice in most statefunded day-care centres is thus focused on the promotion of Luxembourgish, as opposed to the market-based sector of early childcare, where French seems to be the dominant language of everyday communication.5 Curiously echoing the political discourse about Luxembourgish as the ‘language of integration’,

4  |  This political discourse is changing at the moment, after the conservative Christian Social People’s Party (CSV), which had been governing over the last thirty years, was replaced by a coalition of liberals, socialists, and greens in October 2013. The emphasis is now put on the promotion of multilingualism and an early bilingual education in Luxembourgish and French (see Bettel 2014). It is, however, not yet foreseeable what impact this policy change will have in practice. 5 | Besides the differential liability to political expectations, another reason for this linguistic rupture is probably the divergent personnel structure of state-funded and market-based day-care centres, since all members of personnel in the Maison Relais pour Enfants are required to be able to understand and to use at least two of the official languages, Luxembourgish being one of them (see the Règlement grand-ducal 2005), and since only very few people from outside of Luxembourg meet this requirement. Thus, while many foreign, French-speaking educators tend to work in ‘commercial’ daycare centres, this is not so much the case in state-funded centres. There are, however, no statistical data to confirm this assumed distribution of care personnel.

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the pedagogical concept of the MRE Butzegäertchen, for example, describes the language use in the centre as follows: Due to the diverse national backgrounds of the children in the MRE, a common language – in this case the national language Luxembourgish – is a prerequisite for a good functioning of communication. In the beginning, caregivers communicate – if possible – in the children’s mother tongue, as long as this is necessary for understanding. Through daily practice, finally, the children get acquainted with the Luxembourgish language. This is an important prerequisite for the children later to be able to integrate into school as well as into everyday life in Luxembourg. (Pedagogical concept of the MRE Butzegäertchen, 31 August 2012, original in German, transl. CS)

While the use of the children’s family languages is given legitimacy due to its integrative function, especially during the early phase of adaptation to the centre’s routines, in the end, Luxembourgish – and not multilingualism – is seen as the means of integration into school and everyday life in Luxembourg. This monolingual(ising) programmatic approach can also be discerned in the second day-care centre of my research sample. In the MRE Lëtzeduerf, however, the use of Luxemburgish is not even specified in any of the written accounts or annual reports that have been handed over to the researcher – it is simply taken for granted. Whenever these reports contain a reference to activities of language promotion or to the development of language skills as a pedagogical objective, it is never explicitly mentioned which language is meant. Rather, it is implicitly assumed that Luxembourgish is the ‘target language’. During a feedback workshop, the caregivers discussed retrospectively some of the motives why the use and promotion of Luxembourgish – for them – is so self-evident: Marie: And then, here in Luxembourg, it is also important to preserve the language, right? The mother tongue as it is called, so that it won’t get lost. With all the foreigners, like Portuguese or all the other languages, right? So that Luxembourgish won’t get lost. So that it is preserved. […] Chris: I think the children don’t learn it/will never learn it as easily as now at this age [approving nods, “hmm”, “yes” by the others]. When they learn it under three, then it is easier for them, than if they had to speak Luxembourgish only later in primary school. […] Mandy: B ut I also think that Luxembourgish is very important here as a basic language, I think. Because of the many foreign kids. We have the routines. And when it is named with one single word, then all the children understand. Now, if we’d always use different expressions from different languages, then the routine wouldn’t come as quickly. If it’s always just: “Mir ginn iessen.” [“We’re going to eat.” in Luxembourgish] This, they all understand. […]

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Unlike the staff of the other two centres, the caregivers in the MRE Lëtzeduerf define themselves unanimously as Luxembourgers. They speak Luxembourgish with the children as a matter of course. Retrospectively, they justify this practice with different reasons, ranging from conservative attitudes about preserving the ‘mother tongue’, to the pragmatic need to have one common language that everyone understands, and, finally, to the future-oriented argument of preparing the children for school. They also draw on the legitimising power of the parents’ consent. As in the MRE Butzegäertchen, Luxembourgish, here, is the ‘language of integration’, which allows “this kind of living together, this village life”. As a contrast to the first two field sites, the third day-care centre had an explicitly bi-lingual approach. This was one of the reasons for including it into my sample. During my first meeting with the centre’s director, she explained the language concept of the centre using the model “one face – one speech”. That is, there are Francophone and Luxembourgish-speaking caregivers, and each of them should use only their respective language when talking to the children. This way, she went on, the children would learn each language “correctly” with the right pronunciation and syntax. And additionally, it would be easier for the children to assign one language to one person. She was sceptical about practices of switching and mixing, since these produced, in her view, more errors and confusion (conversation protocol, FdJ Cosmopolitan, 20 September 2011). This notion of bilingual education has been analysed, for example by Monica Heller (2006), as representing, in fact, a ‘double monolingualism’, meaning that the aim is to act in each language as a monolingual (see also García 2008). Thus, in spite of its bilingual approach, also the third centre implicitly follows a monolingual agenda.

Translanguaging practices From my theoretical viewpoint, the “monolingual agendas” described above are language practices as well, in the sense of discursive practices, representing and legitimising certain forms of language use in the centres. They stand, however, in sharp contrast to what I call, with reference to García (2008), the “everyday translanguaging practices” in the ordinary life of the day-care settings. The term translanguaging has been deployed, amongst others, by García (ibid) to denote the actual language practices of multilingual speakers, not from the

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perspective of language as a system, but as an everyday experience where diverse linguistic and non-linguistic resources are combined in dynamic and fluid ways in order to produce meaning and achieve understanding. Rather than focusing on the language itself and how one or the other might relate to the way in which a monolingual standard is used and has been described, the concept of translanguaging makes obvious that there are no clear-cut boundaries between the languages of bilinguals. What we have is a languaging continuum that is accessed. (García 2008: 47)

As is often the case, the programmatic descriptions provide a rather simplified picture, conceived mainly for external representation, while the actual everyday practice in the day-care centres is by far more complex and differentiated. I could thus observe a range of multilingual language practices: among the caregivers, between caregivers and parents or other adults (such as the researcher), between parents and children in the centre, among the children, as well as between caregivers and children. The actors were switching, mixing, translating, gesticulating, using signs and symbols, and were in fact translanguaging most of the time. On the doorstep already, one is confronted with multiple languages and languages other than Luxembourgish. The corridors – a kind of transitional space between the families and the day-care centre – especially contain a lot of multilingual signs, posters, and further information material, mainly addressing parents and other adult visitors (see figure 2). But even inside the group room, one can see and hear the traces of the multilingual environment (see figure 3). Figure 2: Information brochures for parents in Portuguese, German, English and French (MRE Butzegäertchen, image CS)

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Figure 3: Wordbook for children: German-English (MRE Butzegäertchen, image CS)

It is, however, not only the material setup of the centres that bears evidence of the inherently multilingual character of the everyday practice in these settings. While observing a group activity in the MRE Butzegäertchen, I wrote down the following in my field notes: The two caregivers Rebecca and Sofia organise a painting activity for the children. While preparing and conducting the activity, both of them frequently switch between Luxembourgish and French, without an apparent relation to a change in the object or level of talk. […] When interacting with the children, they also use Luxembourgish as well as French (mainly with Max, 2, and Guillaume, 4), sometimes in direct translation, sometimes with additional remarks in French. But they also draw on nonverbal resources. For example, as Christina (1; 9) 6 doesn’t reply to the question with what colour she would like to paint, Sofia asks her to come nearer and point to the paint-pot that she wants to use. (Field note, MRE Butzegäertchen, 17 April 2012)

This note does not only demonstrate how habitually and fluidly actors switch between languages (or are translanguaging). With regard to the question how language practices are used to address and position actors differentially, we can see how a change in the educators’ language use corresponds to a change of their respective addressees. While Rebecca and Sofia use a hybrid mixture of Luxembourgish and French amongst each other, presupposing a fairly good knowledge of both of these languages, the children are addressed individually 6 | The children’s age is indicated in years and months (y; m).

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in Luxembourgish, French, or even non-verbally with signalling and pointing. Max and Guillaume, for example, who mainly speak French at home, are given additional explanations in French. Christina, who is a bit younger and of Cape-Verdean background, is beckoned to point to the colour, since she does not respond verbally to the caregiver’s question. This is a quite common language practice that I observed in all three centres, in which one’s own speech is adapted to the supposed capacities of one’s counterpart, differentially drawing on the respective linguistic and non-linguistic resources at hand in order to maximise understanding. It can be analysed as having an individualising function, because individual actors are addressed in a different manner and are thereby positioned differently vis-à-vis the respective speaker. But also when the children are addressed collectively, there can be multiple languages involved: As I enter the group room, the caregiver Jasmin is just beginning to ‘read out’ a storybook. The children line up neatly in front of her. She shows them the pages and tells the story. In between, she gets her tongue twisted and interrupts herself, commenting to Alex, the group leader, who is standing next to her (in Luxembourgish): “It’s so difficult when you always have to translate.” The book is written in German but she tells the story in Luxembourgish. (Field note, MRE Lëtzeduerf, 26 May 2011)

While individual children may be addressed in their respective family languages, it is a common practice in the centres I observed to use Luxembourgish when talking to groups of children. This is also the case in the example above, where the story is told to the children in Luxembourgish. Yet, in this situation, there is a co-presence of two different languages in two different modes, namely in written and spoken form. The caregiver reads and shows the pages written in German, but she speaks in Luxembourgish. In order to bridge these two modes, she has to translate and not only to ‘read out’. This is an everyday practice in many centres, since there are only a few books in Luxembourgish available for the children of this age group. The linguistic diversity that is physically present in the material setup of the day-care centres is thus pedagogically ‘domesticated’ in the actual use of these objects by transferring and translating them into the official language of the centre, i.e. Luxembourgish. By explicitly addressing this translation work, the caregiver also renders the differences between the languages relevant; implicitly she marks Luxembourgish as the common language of oral communication and German as the future language of literacy. In the following example, the children are addressed individually as well as collectively. It is taken from the third field site, where the programmatic approach implies that one (adult) person should always stick to one language. In practice, however, there are other principles at work:

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Claudia Seele During the morning circle, one of the children (Nino, 3; 3) presents photos of his family to the other group members. The caregivers Alberto and Sarah comment on the photos and guide the conversation.7 Alberto: MONSIEUR Nino! Venez à côté de moi. [MISTER Nino! Come over to me.] Sarah: (to Farid) Komm Fotoe kucken. [Come look at the photos.] Alberto: (pointing to one of the photos) C’est QUI le petit garçon ici? [WHO is that little boy here?] Nino: C’est MOI. [That’s me.] Sarah: Ahh, t’es tout BEAU! Ganz schéi bass du do! [Ahh, you’re so beautiful. Very beautiful are you there!] Alberto: Dat ass den Nino. Awer, wann den Nino war méi kleng, ja. (5) Et ICI, c’est qui dans cette photo? Ici (...) et ici. C’est qui ces deux? (.) (He reads the names on the back of the photos) Ça c’est PARRAIN (.) ET Dénise. [This is Nino. But, when Nino was smaller, right? (5) And HERE, who is that on this photo? Here (…) and here. Who are these two? (.) This is GODFATHER (.) AND Dénise.] (Transcript of morning circle, FdJ Cosmopolitan, 31 October 2011, transl. CS)

According to the centre’s director, Alberto is the French-speaking caregiver in this group and Sarah should be speaking Luxembourgish only. But, in fact, both caregivers use both languages to some extent. Their language use attests to the common practice among multilingual speakers to connect to the preceding utterance by using the same language as the previous speaker and then switching to one’s own preferred language, producing a kind of ‘chain’ between the different turns in a conversation (e.g. Auer 2009). The linguistic habits of the caregivers are thus not entirely subjected to the programmatic concept of “one face – one speech” (see above). At the same time, their language use is not chaotic or arbitrary, but also involves the constitution of a specific interactional order. In the situation above, the caregivers are using different languages for different purposes. Sarah, for example, uses French and Luxembourgish in parallel when talking to the child Nino in order to assure understanding, which would be at risk if she would insist on Luxembourgish only. Even more interesting is Alberto’s switch to Luxembourgish when addressing the whole

7 | To mark the language switches in this transcript, French utterings are italicised and Luxembourgish utterances are underlined. CAPITALISATION is used to indicate emphases.

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group of children (“Dat ass den Nino…”).8 The individual child, Nino, is addressed in French, the group in Luxembourgish. Thus, while the use of languages other than Luxembourgish can be seen as having an individualising function, as demonstrated in the first example, the use of Luxembourgish, on the other hand, has a collectivising effect.

D iscussion : L anguage pr actices and the accomplishment of educational re alities The article focuses on the role of language practices in the constitution of a social order, and it demonstrates how the specific language practices in the observed Luxembourgish early childcare centres generate a distinct form of multilingualism that is constitutive for this educational field. The ethnographic observations of the everyday practice in the state-funded day-care centres makes evident that the political agenda to promote Luxembourgish as a ‘language of integration’ in early childcare is taken up in quite unpredictable and intricate ways at a local level. At this level, we can discern a tension-laden continuum between, on the one hand, practices of representation and legitimation, geared towards representing the educational practice to the outside world, and, on the other hand, everyday practices of communication and meaning-making, in which the situational need to arrive at a common understanding may be privileged over educational ambitions. In practice, caregivers constantly have to balance political and programmatic expectations, on the one hand, and the pragmatic needs of understanding and everyday communication, on the other. The concepts and programmatic self-descriptions of the centres clearly opt for a monolingual approach, in which Luxembourgish is defined as the common language (or, as in the third centre, as one of the common languages that is clearly separated from other languages). The actual day-to-day practices, however, are (necessarily) far more complex. There are always multiple languages at stake and, as the analysis has shown, these languages may serve different purposes in practice. By involving a dynamically shifting combination of diverse linguistic and non-linguistic resources, the language practices described above contribute to the differential positioning of actors within the relational social web of the day-care centre. They play an important part, for example, in differentiating

8 | Strictly speaking, his Luxembourgish utterance is not grammatically correct, but drawing on French syntax and word order. This speech style is, however, typical of most francophone Luxembourgers and thus very common in Luxembourgish everyday life (Gérard Gretsch, personal communication).

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between the individual and the collective, between children and adults, as well as between the inside and outside of this educational field in general. 1. Between individual and collective: By using Luxembourgish to address the children as a group and other languages to address children individually, the educators’ language practices are involved in the differentiation between the individual and the collective, a differentiation that represents a fundamental educational operation. Setting a collective standard, individual differences between children become observable and amenable to educational interventions. Thus, while the children’s multilingual language practices may be accepted during the early stages of entering day care or in exceptional situations, such as moments of emotional disturbance, the children are later supposed to comply with the collective pedagogical order that is tied to Luxembourgish as the language of education and learning. 2. Between children and adults: Luxembourgish is, in programme and practice, the language that is used to communicate with the group of children and that is also expected to be used by the children after a certain time of exposure. In contrast, the communication with other people, such as the parents, the researcher, or other adult visitors, is dominated by languages other than Luxembourgish. There is, thus, also a generational difference implied, which is again constitutive for the educational social order. The demand to foster the use of Luxembourgish in day-care settings is targeted especially at children, implicitly positioning them as ‘learners’ – as those who need to be educated. It positions them not only as children but, more specifically, as children in day care, who are subjected to a specific institutional language regime. 3. Between inside and outside: Drawing on political and public discourses about Luxembourgish as the ‘language of integration’ in early childhood education and care, the day-care centres make Luxembourgish their official language of everyday communication, thereby implicitly positioning themselves in opposition to the presumably French-dominated market-based sector of early childcare. The promotion, or simply the use, of Luxembourgish becomes a marker of quality and a distinguishing feature.9 This kind of linguistic ‘specialisation’ is also used to distinguish the early educational practice from other surrounding educational fields such as the family or the school. With the promotion of Luxembourgish it defines and delineates, so to speak, its own scope of responsibility for what is called ‘non-formal education’. 9  |  This feature has also been taken up by some market-based day-care centres, which highlight their use of Luxembourgish as a kind of advertising to reach a clientele of a specific educational orientation.

Language Practices and the Accomplishment of Educational Realities

In face of multiple and complex political and societal demands in early childcare in Luxembourg, the educational practice in the observed settings has thus developed some specific language practices, which are constitutive for the field of early childhood education and care, and also determine ‘education’ (or rather what is to be understood, performed, and represented as education) as a kind of language practice itself. In terms of research methodology, this implies a twofold perspectival shift, namely taking simultaneously a (socio)linguistic view on education and an educational view on language. More generally, when confronted with the complexities of contemporary social realities, ethnographic research necessarily has to take a multidisciplinary stance for modelling its object, research questions, methods, and analytical tools. This, in turn, complicates the research endeavour itself, demanding various competencies of the ethnographer, such as being an interpreter herself – not only of the different languages in (or rather of) the field, but also of different methodological approaches, research traditions, and theoretical currents. Still, a question so far left unanswered in the analyses is how the children themselves contribute to the constitution of these social realities with their own specific language practices. Whereas this article has focused on the level of caregiver-child interactions and caregivers’ language practices, this question deserves further attention, since the accomplishment of educational realities is, in the end, always a ‘joint venture’.

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Berg, Charles/Joachim, Patrice/Kneip, Nico/Sahr, Romain/Weis, Christiane (2011): “Needs Analysis Report for Luxembourg.” In: Charles Berg/Nico Kneip/Romain Sahr/Christiane Weis (eds.), Changing Educational Competences in a Context of Language Diversity: Luxembourg Related Outcomes from a European Project, Luxembourg: University of Luxembourg, pp. 1743. Berg, Charles/Weis, Christiane (2007): Réajustement de l’enseignement des langues. Plan d’action 2007-2009: contribuer au changement durable du système éducatif par la mise en œuvre d’une politique linguistique éducative, Luxembourg: CESIJE. Bernstein, Basil (1971): Class, Codes and Control. Volume 1: Theoretical Studies Towards a Sociology of Language, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Bettel, Xavier (2014): “Nei Perspektivë fir Lëtzebuerg. Déclaration de Xavier Bettel sur les grandes orientations politiques du gouvernement et les grandes lignes du paquet d’avenir (‘Zukunftspak’)”, October 14, 2014 (http://www. gouvernement.lu/4090822/14-bettel-declaration). Blackledge, Adrian/Creese, Angela (2010): Multilingualism: A Critical Perspective, London: Continuum. Bourdieu, Pierre (1991): Language and Symbolic Power, Cambridge: Polity Press. Bourdieu, Pierre/Passeron, Jean-Claude (1977): Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture, London and Beverly Hills: Sage. Breidenstein, Georg/Hirschauer, Stefan/Kalthoff, Herbert/Nieswand, Boris (2013): Ethnografie: Die Praxis der Feldforschung, Konstanz and München: UVK. Chambre des Députés (1984): “Loi du 24 février 1984 sur le régime des langues.” In: Mémorial: Journal Officiel du Grand-Duché de Luxembourg 16, pp. 196-197. COE – Council of Europe, Language Policy Division/MENFP – Ministère de l’Education nationale et de la Formation professionnelle, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg (2006): “Language Education Policy Profile: Grand Duchy of Luxembourg”, October 18, 2014 (http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/ Source/Profil_Luxembourg_EN.doc). Cook-Gumperz, Jenny (1973): Social Control and Socialization, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Creese, Angela/Blackledge, Adrian (2010): “Towards a Sociolinguistics of Superdiversity.” In: ZfE: Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft 13/4, pp. 549-572. Davis, Kathryn A. (1994): Language Planning in Multilingual Contexts: Policies, Communities, and Schools in Luxembourg, Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

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Delvaux-Stehres, Mady (2011): “Multilingual Education in Luxembourg.” In: Charles Berg/Nico Kneip/Romain Sahr/Christiane Weis (eds.), Changing Educational Competences in a Context of Language Diversity: Luxembourg Related Outcomes from a European Project, Luxembourg: University of Luxembourg, pp. 11-15. Fehlen, Fernand (2009): BaleineBis: Une enquête sur un marché linguistique multilingue en profonde mutation. Luxemburgs Sprachenmarkt im Wandel, Luxembourg: Saint-Paul. Fehlen, Fernand/Heinz, Andreas/Peltier, François/Thill, Germaine (2014): “Les langues.” In: Serge Allegrezza/Dieter Ferring/Helmut Willems/Paul Zahlen (eds.), La société luxembourgeoise dans le miroir du recensement de la population, Luxembourg: Saint-Paul, pp. 95-112. García, Ofelia (2008): Bilingual Education in the 21st Century: A Global Perspective, Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. García, Ofelia (2010): “Languaging and Ethnifying.” In: Joshua A. Fishman/ Ofelia García (eds.), Handbook of Language and Ethnic Identity: Disciplinary and Regional Perspectives (Volume 1). 2nd Edition, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 519-534. Gilles, Peter/Seela, Sebastian/Sieburg, Heinz/Wagner, Melanie (2010): “Sprachen und Identitäten.” In: IPSE – Identités. Politiques, Sociétés, Espaces (ed.), Doing Identity in Luxemburg. Subjektive Aneignungen – institutionelle Zuschreibungen – sozio-kulturelle Milieus, Bielefeld: transcript, pp. 63-104. Gogolin, Ingrid (1994): Der monolinguale Habitus der multilingualen Schule, Münster and New York: Waxmann. Gumperz, John J./Cook-Gumperz, Jenny (1982): “Introduction: Language and the Communication of Social Identity.” In: John J. Gumperz (ed.), Language and Social Identity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1-21. Habermas, Jürgen (1998): “The European Nation-State: On the Past and Future of Sovereignty and Citizenship.” In: Public Culture 10/2, pp. 397-417. Heller, Monica (2006): Linguistic Minorities and Modernity: A Sociolinguistic Ethnography, London and New York: Continuum. Heller, Monica (2008): “Doing Ethnography.” In: Li Wei/Melissa G. Moyer (eds.), The Blackwell Guide to Research Methods in Bilingualism and Multilingualism, Malden, MA: Blackwell, pp. 249-262. Honig, Michael-Sebastian/Haag, Christian (2012): “National Childcare in Luxembourg: Taking Stock.” In: Ministère de la Famille et de l'Intégration (MFI), Grand-Duché de Luxembourg (ed.), Education and Care for Children in Luxembourg, Luxembourg: MFI, pp. 5-27. Honig, Michael-Sebastian/Neumann, Sascha (2013): “Ethnografie der Frühpädagogik: Einführung in den Themenschwerpunkt.” In: ZSE: Zeitschrift für Soziologie der Erziehung und Sozialisation 33/1, pp. 4-9.

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Honig, Michael-Sebastian/Neumann, Sascha/Schnoor, Oliver/Seele, Claudia (2013): Die Bildungsrelevanz der Betreuungswirklichkeit: Eine Studie zur institutionellen Praxis nicht-familialer Kleinkinderziehung. Problemstellung, Ansatz und ausgewählte Ergebnisse des Forschungsprojekts ‘Betreuungswirklichkeit und Bildungswirklichkeit. Qualität und Qualifizierung in flexiblen Strukturen der Kinderbetreuung luxemburgischer Maisons Relais pour Enfants’ (EDUQUA-MRE), Luxembourg: University of Luxembourg, http://hdl.handle.net/10993/12933. Horner, Kristine/Weber, Jean-Jacques (2008): “The Language Situation in Luxembourg.” In: Current Issues in Language Planning 9/1, pp. 69-128. Jaffe, Alexandra (2009): “Stance in a Corsican School: Institutional and Ideological Orders.” In: Idem (ed.), Stance: Sociolinguistic Perspectives, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 119-145. Kühn, Peter (2008): Bildungsstandards Sprachen: Leitfaden für den kompetenzorientierten Sprachenunterricht an Luxemburger Schulen, Luxembourg: MENFP. Majerus, Mill (2009): “Ziele der Maison Relais.” In: Ministère de la Famille et de l’Intégration/Entente des Foyers de Jour/Syndicat des Villes et Communes Luxembourgeoises/Université du Luxembourg (eds.), Maisons Relais pour Enfants: Le Manuel – Das Handbuch, Luxembourg: Le Phare, pp. 27-35. Martín Rojo, Luisa (2010): Constructing Inequality in Multilingual Classrooms, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. MENFP – Ministère de l’Education nationale et de la Formation professionnelle, SCRIPT/Université du Luxembourg, EMACS (eds.) (2013): PISA 2012: Nationaler Bericht Luxemburg, Luxembourg: MENFP/EMACS. Miller, Darla F./Ginsburg, Mark B. (1989): “Social Reproduction and Resistance in Four Infant/Toddler Daycare Settings: An Ethnographic Study of Social Relations and Sociolinguistic Codes.” In: Journal of Education 171/3, pp. 31-50. Neumann, Sascha (2012): “Some Children are More Different Than Others: Language Practices in Luxembourgian Nurseries.” In: Qualitative Research Journal 12/2, pp. 183-192. Palludan, Charlotte (2007): “Two Tones: The Core of Inequality in Kindergarten?” In: International Journal of Early Childhood 39/1, pp. 75-91. Palomares, Manuel/Poveda, David (2010): “Linguistic Ethnography and the Study of Welfare Institutions as a Flow of Social Practices: The Case of Residential Child Care Institutions as Paradoxical Institutions.” In: Text & Talk 30/2, pp. 193-212. Pennycook, Alastair (2010): Language as a Local Practice, London and New York: Routledge.

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Pujolar, Joan (2010): “Immigration and Language Education in Catalonia: Between National and Social Agendas.” In: Linguistics and Education 21, pp. 229-243. Règlement grand-ducal (2005): “Règlement grand-ducal du 20 juillet 2005 concernant l’agrément à accorder aux gestionnaires de maison relais pour enfant.” In: Mémorial: Journal Officiel du Grand-Duché de Luxembourg 123, pp. 2146-2149. Schatzki, Theodore R. (2001): “Introduction: Practice Theory.” In: Theodore R. Schatzki/Karin Knorr-Cetina/Eike von Savigny (eds.), The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory, London: Routledge, pp. 1-14. STATEC (2014): “Luxembourg in Figures”, October 14, 2014 (http://www. statistiques.public.lu/catalogue-publications/luxembourg-en-chiffres/l luxembourg-figures.pdf). West, Candace/Fenstermaker, Sarah (1995): “Doing difference.” In: Gender & Society 9/1, pp. 8-37.

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The Empiricisation of “Bildung” in Early Childhood Ethnographical-praxeological Perspectives on the (Trans)locality and Corporeality of Education Marc Schulz

A bstr act The identification and empirical reconstruction of children’s education and learning processes is one of the greatest challenges currently facing early-childhood-education research. In particular there is an increasing preference for visual research methods, such as those of ethnography. The aim of these qualitative approaches is to provide insight into the specific logics of children’s education. The German concept of Bildung conveys a specific understanding of child education, which is not fully covered by the concept of learning. Its underlying assumptions are, first, that children’s education differs fundamentally from the education of adolescents and adults, and, second, that it occurs locally. The following article, however, questions these basic assumptions, discussing how child education is produced institutionally from an ethnographicalpraxeological perspective. The central question, then, is not what the structural features of Bildung (in the sense of children’s education) are, in the context of early childhood, but where and how these are made visible, presented and highlighted. This analytical shift leads to a methodological defamiliarisation of the idea of child education and children’s learning processes that are dominant in the theory and practice of early education, as a physical-local, subject-bound and self-referential process. This shift in perspective makes it possible to explain empirically how that which is ascribed to the child as education is repeatedly separated from the child as an object of observation, divided up among various stores of knowledge, while at the same time reconnected to the child. The core thesis of this article is that education thus becomes a translocal phenomenon, since it becomes the object of definitions and negotiations at different times and places – with and without its key actor, the child.

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L ocalising B ildung in e arly childhood In the following section I will first outline the key German concept of Bildung and the ways in which it differs from and connects with other key global concepts in early childhood education (ECE). I will then discuss which perspectives on the empiricisation of child education have been formulated within educational theory.

The German key concept of Bildung A comparison between international and German discourses on ECE reveals a striking difference: while “learning”, “development”, and “care” are key concepts in the international discourse (cf. Wells 2009; Bruce 2011), in the German-speaking areas Bildung is the central concept for the entire life span. Viewed historically, the term has been shaped by a long tradition of educational and humanist theory. Wilhelm von Humboldt and his reflections on the purpose of Bildung are regarded as an important point of reference; the purpose is not the fulfilment of external expectations, such as those of the state, but an inner strive for development. Bildung therefore refers to an active, functional, self-active subject, and to the processes of change within that subject’s relationship to itself and the world (cf. Koller 2012). The first key feature, then, is the subject’s constitution inherent in the concept. It refers in particular to the idea of the dignity of the subject: subjects form or educate themselves and cannot be formed or educated by others. This historically evolved, emancipatory, and refractory content of the term is still central to current reflections on educational theory (cf. Miethe/Müller 2012). The second key feature is the local connectedness of Bildung: it happens “in situations, [it] is tied to its practical implementation and thus dependent on the subject and its body” (Tervooren 2012: 104). The idea that Bildung is not possible without the body of the subject conceives the subject as a local event. Bildung is therefore indivisible; it is bound to specific individuals, places, and times. Consequently, the concept of Bildung not only implies the idea of a self-active subject, but turns the body of the subject into both the place and the medium of its Bildung. Or, to put it briefly: the subject body can only form or educate itself (sich bilden) where the subject body is located, and Bildung can only take place when this subject allows it. The German-language ECE debate radicalises this hypothesis of a bodybound and time-bound locality of Bildung: subject-oriented approaches such as that of Selbstbildung (self-education) (Liegle 2002; Schäfer 2005, 2011) emphasise children’s self-activity and conceive Bildung as a “mixture of inner concepts and outer structures” (Schäfer 2005: 26). In particular, the dignity of children’s educational processes is emphasised here; this “is dependent on the ‘building material’ provided by [the child’s] social and cultural environment” (ibid 2011:

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21). At the same time, Bildung in (early) childhood differs from adulthood, in that the former takes place within a highly compressed time frame and can be described as a process of constitution rather than one of transformation. The dominance of “autopoiesis” (Liegle 2002: 62) is regarded as a particular structural feature of early-childhood-educational processes, since these are “more strongly determined by sensory activity and corporeality than in the later phases of life” (ibid).1 For various theories of Bildung in early childhood, forms of implicit or exploratory learning are regarded as a constitutive element of children’s experience of themselves and the world. Here the focus is on the physical and practical modes of implementation, i.e. sitting up and listening, mimetic repetitions, sensory experience, and the tentative practicing and local/material boundedness of these processes of experience, appropriation, and inscription (cf. Schulz 2015). This background helps to explain why Bildung cannot be straightforwardly replaced with the global key terms “education”, “learning”, or “development”. First, these terms largely lack the political idea inherent in the German concept of Bildung, the idea of a subject that is emancipatory or capable of criticism. Bildung in childhood means more than learning, the accumulation of knowledge, or the development of various skills. Second, the term refers to the interplay between subjects, their meaning-giving processes, and their cultural and social contexts, and goes therefore beyond institutions and their pedagogical intentions. Hence, Bildung does not mean introducing school-like structures into early childhood, since Bildung takes place at various times and in various spaces, and cannot be divided up into as the effects of individual places. Public discourses in Germany, however, use the term Bildung no longer as a ‘mono-discursive’ educational science concept. Instead, it is a diffuse and simultaneously universalising catch-all term, which, against the background of the global debate on human capital, is used to formulate and ultimately homogenise different, often contradictory expectations placed on both self-educating subjects and on public educational institutions (cf. Lange 2010). Standing at the beginning of children’s institutional educational careers, children’s day-care centres in particular are expected to help ensure that the younger generation participates in education as much as possible and as early as possible (Neumann 2014a: 145), and to provide public evidence of this contribution to the educational achievement of every single child. These teleological expectations of the performance of ECE institutions can be seen as part of a globalised expansion and technologisation of (public) education and care in early childhood,

1 | At the same time, corresponding theories also use the concept of life history to trace the gradual departure from this self-referentiality, which is particularly relevant for toddlers.

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in which supranational organisations – such as the OECD (2001), the World Bank, or UNESCO – play a central role (cf. Scheiwe/Willekens 2009). Bildung’s heuristic potential for international discourses on ECE lies above all in how it emphasises the meaning-giving processes of subjects. The term is constituted through the assumption of a fundamentally possible difference between subjective and societal interests and purposes, and thus makes researchers in this field more aware of this tension-laden difference. But, as outlined above, the epistemological content of the term itself is expanded through the technologisation and finalisation of Bildung. This constitutes a major methodological challenge for qualitative educational research on early childhood, as I will show in the following section.

Trends in qualitative educational research on childhood Given the conception of children’s educational processes outlined above, it seems obvious to focus mainly on children’s local forms of action and interaction in qualitative research on early childhood education (cf. Stamm/Edelmann 2013). Here we find a preference for visual research methods (cf. Schäfer/Staege 2010; Tervooren 2012): “Ethnography, participatory and videographic observation are among the core methods […] [, since] these methods can be used to observe children in their everyday actions, i.e. largely uninfluenced by researchers’ interventions” (Nentwig-Gesemann 2013: 761). By emphasising the specific corporeality and materiality of these processes, this kind of educational research confronts the challenge of describing, attentively and appropriately, the obstinacy and otherness of children’s education as a locally occurring process of exploration. This line of research empiricises child education as a fact that is local and at the same time independent of observation, one that occurs on or in the child, who moves from place to place. To put it briefly, children’s education can, from this perspective, be observed and analysed in the relevant subject in situ. Here the locations are frameworks that encourage children’s learning to a greater or lesser degree. This makes this line of research compatible with international ECE research, which empiricises children’s learning processes in a similar way (cf. Spodek/Saracho 2013). This premise of the corporeality of child education, however, produces a systematic blind spot: localistic educational research focused on children’s forms of action and interaction can overlook the fact that education, as discussed above, is also a political and pedagogical goal, and, at the same time, the normative aim of the institutions. A second line of enquiry in qualitative educational research is concerned with this deep entanglement between the politically and economically motivated desire to form specific subjects (of Bildung), and the forms these actually take. In other words, it is concerned with an ethnographic approach to the global agendas and local practices by which

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children’s education is produced, inscribed, and routinised in public institutions of early childhood (cf. Honig/Neumann 2013; Jergus/Koch/Thompson 2013; Neumann 2014b). This line of research casts methodological doubt on the premise that child education occurs locally as a practice bound exclusively to the child’s body, and as a fact independent of observation. Instead, it focuses on children’s education as a specific social practice produced within public institutions of childhood. This line of research thus connects with international research, such as sociology of childhood and institutional ethnography (cf. Neumann 2013). This raises the epistemological question of how child education – as a product of institutions or a social practice – can be empiricised without suspending the normativity and the potential of educational theories (Krinninger/Müller 2012). I will try to provide an answer to this question by using the example of a German ethnographical study, in which I was involved. The project’s title was “Professional monitoring of learning and educational processes in day-care centres”2, and its main object was to reconstruct the observation and documentation of children’s educational processes in the everyday practice of children’s day-care centres. The aim was to investigate how the early-years practitioners use assessment techniques to identify and document children’s activities as a corporeal and locally situated phenomenon of Bildung, ultimately in order to lend support to these processes as one of the key services provided by these institutions. The project thus connects with international research that analyses the practices of child-focused assessment by so-called “pedagogical documentations” (cf. Alasuutari/Markstroem/Vallberg-Roth 2014; Kalliala/ Pramling Samuelsson 2014). In a methodological suspension of knowledge, the project excludes early childhood knowledge about Bildung as a local and corporeal phenomenon. Instead it uses a praxeological methodology (Schmidt 2012) to empiricise the everyday, situative implementation of children’s education as a central practice of early childhood education. A key concept from cultural studies which is relevant here is the theory of the performative. This theory focuses on the actual occurrence of events, their perception by the senses, and their aesthetic form (cf. Schulz 2011). Thus child education is empiricised as a multi-local event, comprising processes of construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction. At the same time this does not negate the fact that these practices may develop relevance for the educational processes of individual actors, since these processes can also be plausibly analysed. This relevance, however, is not taken as a given.

2  |  The project was carried out at the University of Hildesheim Foundation from 2009 to 2014 by Peter Cloos, Kaja Kesselhut, and Marc Schulz (cf. Schulz/Cloos 2014).

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The production of child education in day - care centres In the following section I first outline the discursive framework for the pedagogical support of child education. I then demonstrate the processes by which Bildung is presented, with reference to three aspects: first, the time frame when children’s education takes place; second, the locality of children’s education; and third, its multi-locality.

Supporting education in day-care centres The conceptions of child education and children’s learning processes outlined above also has practical consequences for the way childcare professionals deal with young children. It places early-years practitioners in a specific position in relation to the “self-educating child”; despite the fundamental “unavailability” of child education, the childcare professionals are not generally absolved from responsibility. Instead, the ECE concepts position them as the assistants of child education. Though children’s educational processes can only be indirectly formed, forming them becomes the practitioners’ core duty. In practical terms, they have to develop modes of indirect support. An example of this is the “Pädagogik des Innehaltens”, a pedagogy based on pausing and reflecting (Schäfer 2011: 80). This reactive support, which waits for the right moment, occurs both materially – through an environment rich in stimuli, expected to be set up as such by the childcare professionals – and personally – through a communicative, child-oriented relationship (Liegle 2002; Schäfer 2011). If, alongside this, one analyses the expectations formulated about day-care centres in current German education policy debates, early-years practitioners are not simply encouraged to produce these arrangements for children’s educational processes and to follow children’s actions (cf. Bischoff et al. 2013).3 They are also expected to document these arrangements, to test them for positive effects, and to provide evidence of them to other actors. The assumption here is that these processes have potential, that they will reinforce each other, connect with each other, and initiate further positive processes. On the other hand, the day-care staff is not only obliged to verify the pedagogical efficacy of these conceptual assumptions in general, but to do so for every individual child. In other words, if children’s education can be supported institutionally at the ‘right time’, then it must be possible to reveal the effect on individual children. This constellation therefore calls on educators to carry out a double evaluation: the

3 | Chris Jenks points out that surveillance is nothing new when it comes to children. Rather, the “child emerges […] as a social status embedded in programmes of care, routines of surveillance and schemes of education and assessment” (2005: 5).

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constant external evaluation of the child’s actions, and the self-evaluation of the practitioner’s own actions in the name of Bildung. To fulfil this mandate, numerous approaches have been developed and introduced in Germany over the last 15 years, in parallel with international developments in ECE. These approaches are focused on assessment and documentation, and are based on visual methods (Mischo et al. 2011; Bruce 2011; Brodie 2013);4 they can be subsumed under the term “pedagogical documentation”. They are meant to help practitioners to look systematically at individual children, to write up observations regularly, to analyse these following specific criteria, considering aspects of children’s education, and ultimately to facilitate detailed documentation of these processes with reference to the individual child. These methods are based on the postulate that the production of knowledge in early childhood education is accomplished by means of attentive observation, the registering and documenting of children’s activities. They highlight the observational perspective from which children’s activities can be observed as learning activities, and the accumulation of these explorations can be analysed as educational processes. At the same time these methods also conceive early-years practice as a research process, and are closely based on scientific methods from qualitative social research, such as participatory observation, interviews or “thick descriptions”. Quasi-scientific metaphors, such as “changing lenses”, also belong to this topos. A good example of this can be found in the following introduction to early childhood education: the “importance of observations [lies in] using a variety of lenses through which to tune into and understand the children’s development and learning” (Bruce 2011: 207). According to this understanding, “lenses” do not produce uncertainties, but new pedagogical discoveries. By modifying the gaze, they promise to make visible individual processes of children’s learning processes. This systematic visualisation, constant surveillance and unobtrusive support of child education is made possible by the assumption that Bildung is at least indirectly visible when it is revealed in something. This visibility is conceptualised firstly as a corporeal, local process, and secondly as a practical, situative implementation. If we compare educational research focused on the (inter)actions of children with early-childhood-education practice, the two – metaphor-

4 | In Germany three approaches based on educational theory are especially popular: first, an adaptation of ‘learning stories’, an approach that originated in New Zealand (Leu et al. 2007); second, an adaptation of the English “early excellence” approach (Hebenstreit-Müller 2013); and third, the “infans” concept (Andres/Laewen 2005), developed in Germany, in a national pilot project in 2001. Most of these concepts are in global circulation.

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ically speaking – stand side by side, supposedly observing the same thing, i.e. the self-educating child, from similar, scientifically founded positions.

Timing of Bildung According to these approaches, the observation situation is as follows: early-years practitioners can begin to observe a child deliberately anytime and anywhere, over a limited period of time (some approaches suggest 10 to 15 minutes), while the child is engaged in a self-selected situation (cf. Brodie 2013). In practice, this combination of an activity chosen by the child itself, and the recognition of its “educational relevance” by the educators, is often pragmatically modified. In the following discussion this is illustrated by a selection situation in a kindergarten group: During the opening of the kindergarten early in the morning the educators had discussed the plan to observe a boy, Maximilian, on this day – no explicit reason is given for the decision. But the teacher, Ms Ackermann, was later informed that Max was not coming today, as he had slept badly because of the storm the previous night. ‘So another child will have to be observed today’, says Ms Ackermann. The three practitioners go up to the ‘children’s clocks’ hanging on the wall cupboard in the group room. These are three round disks of coloured construction paper, each of which has the picture of a practitioner in the middle, and seven or eight portraits of children around the outside, like the numbers on a clock. 5

Using the three “children’s clocks”, the three childcare professionals discuss seven children who are present, and weigh up whether they should or should not be observed and why. One reason for exclusion is that three of them are “completely new”, while others “have already had a turn”. In the end they choose a boy called Cem, who, according to one of the practitioners, “whose turn it hasn’t been [for a long time]. We have to take Cem today. […] Because he’s here today. But it has to be today. Who knows if he’ll come tomorrow.” Comparable decisions, which seem pragmatic at first glance, can be observed in all the groups subjected to ethnographic analysis. They have the same form: children are not selected for observation on the basis of their current activities, but on the basis of their physical presence, and of an objectively identifiable criterion, the temporal distance between two observations. This decision-making pattern is justified with institutional time frames and rhythms: according to the educators’ statements, the time available to observe all the children systematically at intervals in “open situations” is reduced by project weeks, children’s 5 | The quotes stem from the ethnographic data material of the research project.

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holidays and/or absences, and staff holidays and sick leave. It is noticeable, however, that the practices of selection are similar throughout all the groups; in all cases objects such as the “children’s clocks” or “observation lists” are used to help make decisions.6 These visual objects represent the different groups and individual children. During their selection, then, the childcare professionals are looking at these medial representations, which they have developed, while the real children themselves are effectively behind their backs. The implementation of this requirement – that early-years practitioners document children’s education-related activities regularly and in writing – leads to an approach that is at odds with the educational theory perspective outlined at the beginning. The child who is to be observed is not selected because he or she is doing something that can be identified as relevant to children’s learning at the time. Instead the child – who is actually present but represented in media form during the selection – becomes the starting point for his or her education. At the same time, however, these practices of selection pick up the discursive logic analysed at the beginning, of the perpetual, temporally and spatially limitless process of children’s education: without the act of selection by the childcare professionals this process would not be revealed. This also takes on material form in the visual hierarchization of the “children’s clock”, which has the educators in the centre of the picture and the children arranged around her. Since children’s learning is always taken as a given, it seems to be irrelevant for the selection of what the chosen child is actually doing at this point in time. The beginning of the observation of children’s education takes place without the child. Thus this creative act of selection shows that the observation of Bildung can begin without the visible physical presence of the child, since the act of selection reflects one of the key tasks performed by the institution. The following section will discuss, with reference to the real presence and absence of children, how children’s activities, as practices of self-education, are translated and represented in different media changes as child education on the child’s body, and as child education beyond the child’s body.

Local places: Bildung on the child’s body The localisation of child education, which occurs via the representation of the child, must subsequently be connected to the practices of observation. Here it may be noted that the field constitutes its observation situations, insofar as an educator takes up position very close to a child – so education is observed locally. The practitioner is equipped with objects such as a clipboard, a sheet of paper attached to it, and a pen – and either watches the child or takes notes. The child, 6 | Alternatively, a direct selection in the group room would be conceivable, yet this explicitly did not occur.

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in turn, does something, plays with things and/or interacts with other children, as described in the following extract: The two boys Cem and Eric are playing with cars on the road rug, I’m sitting with them. Ms Ackermann is sitting at the round table, and I notice that she looks in our direction for a while and then comes over with a clipboard […]. She sits down on the carpet, at arm’s length from the boys, watches the boys and keeps writing things down. I notice that her attention is focused on Cem.

Across the groups, no preferences can initially be discerned in the choice of place or of children’s activities: observation situations are created, for example, in the entrance area or the group room, in craft areas, in washrooms and toilet areas, or in remote parts of the outdoor area. Thus the places for education-related observations can in principle be anywhere within the kindergarten space. The children’s activities under observation also vary considerably between ‘creative’, play, and motor activities. This form of constitution suggests that here, too, the postulate of the specificity of child education, outlined at the beginning of this article, has practical implications. The kindergarten space with its diverse spatial and material features is conceived as a stimulating place for children’s learning, which encourages children’s activities. The normative assumption of being able to observe Bildung in the form of local, embodied activities simultaneously gives the children a space for being in the spotlight. The proximity to the object of observation in turn gives the observer a detailed view of children’s (inter)actions. We can, however, identify three central patterns, which pre-form the apparent openness in the choice of place and activity, and thus present children’s education in a specific manner: First, the observation does not involve covert or concealed surveillance on the part of the educators; instead the act of writing makes it visible as a practice of public observation for all those present. Framing by the observing practitioner serves to draw attention to the child: as in the extract quoted above, the ethnographer noticed how the teacher marked a boundary by focusing on the boy Cem, who had previously been selected from the “children’s clock”. The specific form of the observation thus brings about a performative separation between the stage and the audience, with the practitioner positioning herself as the director, at the intersection between these spaces. At the same time, the public performance of writing notes directs the spectators’ gaze and makes assertions about what is relevant. It functions as a pointer, drawing attention to an event. Other people can briefly enter the action on the stage, but cannot participate for any length of time. At the same time, all those involved are permitted to observe the stage area as spectators at any time, and both children in the group and other educators actually do so.

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Second, children’s performance under the spotlight is the object of on-going work. One key practice is that the children’s bodies are always kept in motion by the teachers, so that the practice of observing can have its full effect. This is exemplified by the following sequence. Here a boy is observed by a practitioner with a view to finding out something about the learning schemas he has developed.7 The boy, Frederico, leaves the group room to go outside. Ms Ackermann accompanies him with a slight delay. From a climbing frame he watches the other children who are busy with sand molds under the climbing frame, for a long time. […] Ms Ackermann had informed me beforehand that she wanted to observe him. I sit down next to her and she says: ‘This is a classic, what’s happening now. It’s just the schema of ‘being on top’. He’s been sitting up there … for five minutes already … That’s the question now. Is the observation usable or not. He’s observing.’ In the end she calls out to him, asking if he would like to play ‘coffee bar’ with the other children.

The practitioner’s statement indicates that the boy is not showing enough for a learning-related observation. This might mean that the observation will be “unusable”. In the end she tries to encourage him to play a game. This allows us to deduce that a specific kind of performative displaying is required of children’s bodies, so that the process of representing child education can actually succeed. The children’s bodies must make themselves observable by displaying a minimum of outwardly distinguishable activities, which can, in turn, be evaluated as elements of “learning”. However, an analytical comparison of the ethnographised observation situations not only shows that it is problematic for the practice of observing if children display a low level of activity. An excessively high degree of activity can also become a problem – for example when children move about too much between the rooms, when it is difficult for the observers to maintain an overview of the children’s interactions, or when they cannot hear what is being said. One teacher, Ms Klink, evokes her ideal observation situation at a team meeting: a situation in which she can easily keep track of the children, both in their radius of movement and in their chosen activities: “I have to say: that was a textbook observation. The two of them sat there, next to each other. […] And they played Ministeck [mosaic-making craft activity] together really nicely.” Third, the objects of the observation and the note-taking formats also shape the selected situations. Depending on how these can be utilised in the observation process, the writing materials, for example, help to select the situation and direct the practitioners’ attention. The comparison between different strategies 7 | The theory of learning schemas, based on the work of Jean Piaget, is a key component of the “early excellence” approach (cf. Brodie 2013: 19).

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for writing observations showed that some of the writing surfaces needed a stable base and were therefore supported on knees or tables. Other writing surfaces could also be used when standing or walking. Thus even the instruments used by the childcare professionals pre-form specific representations of child education. The inclusion and analysis of further ethnographic material shows that Bildung is constantly being revealed: within the observation situation, for example, the children’s performance under the spotlight becomes an issue. In the observation situations, the children are regularly called on by the educators to be partners in the self-observation of their actions. At times the children’s gesture of sitting up and taking notice (Aufmerken, in a phenomenological sense) (Waldenfels 2000: 139) indicates surprise and affective concern, and they respond to situations sensitively and receptively. They seem to be just noticing something, without there being a specific expression for what it actually is. This ambiguity, the non-sharing of practical understanding, is evident among the children observed, for example in small talk, with which they try to involve the educators in conversation. It is also apparent, however, in attention-attracting actions, in the naming and showing of things, and in gestures towards the observers. Among the children looking on, this noticing shows itself, for example, in surprised glances that seem to look for something and thereby interrupt their own activities. Above and beyond this, the final result of the processes of writing and analysis is education-related documents, e.g. a “learning story” in the form of a letter (Leu et al. 2007). Such stories not only describe the various child activities that have been observed, putting them into chronological order and making some attempt to analyse them, but also invite the child to express an opinion about this representation of his or her Bildung. Using the distinction between experience and education made by John Dewey (1998), we can therefore observe, first, that the practitioners are observing modes of child experience. Second, the childcare professionals use these representations to interpret, order, and document these experiences as child education, on behalf of the child.

Multi-local places: Bildung beyond the child’s body The above reference to documents such as the “learning story” (Leu et al. 2007) or the “children’s clock” has hinted at how knowledge about children’s learning processes is scattered over many different entities and discussed in contexts in which the child is absent. Hence this non-concurrence between the child’s body and the places of knowledge production can be understood as a translocality of child education. In the following section, two exemplary situations of interaction will be outlined against the background of their knowledge production: First, the ethnographic descriptions show that the observers do often analyse the content of the situations observed, in terms of their content, immediate-

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ly after the observation. In addition, the analysed observations are presented for discussion at team meetings. This practice follows the procedural guidelines, which suggest that individually tailored support for individual educational processes should be developed based on the results of the joint analysis. In the team meetings the observation situations described are retold orally and thus replayed in a new setting. The documents on a child’s learning processes are therefore subjected to medial transformations in the course of their further processing (cf. Bollig/Schulz 2012). In the interplay between written and oral expression, the things that have been observed and analysed are viewed from constantly changing perspectives. The practitioners achieve this mainly by expanding the documented material with additional information, and incorporating it into further narratives. These narratives may also be about other relevant actors, such as the parents of the child. This opening up of the content only becomes possible through the change in media, such as the change from written report to oral narration. This narrative practice allows educators to incorporate different stores of knowledge about the child and his or her Bildung, and intersubjectively verify their plausibility. Here the documents are not regarded as authoritative postulates on the basis of which further decisions are made. The narrative practice, together with the documents produced, does not consolidate the individual findings about child education, but stimulates constant processes of transformation, through loose links between pieces of information instead of close connections. They therefore produce shifts in perspective in relation to the “real” process of children’s education. Deviations from this narrative practice are explicitly framed. Second, the documents produced are put to use in various situations, involving different groups of people such as children, their parents, or schoolteachers. Different types of work on children education can be identified, particularly between the conversation formats “talks with parents” and “talks with school teachers”. In the conversations between parents and educators, a specific interpretation of child education takes place. A central effect of these conversations is that the institution’s achievements are made plausible by means of the textually documented learning effects of the child. This practice of dividing up children’s educational processes through institutional specification makes two things possible: it allows us to define the child’s educational processes in terms of not just people but locations, and to distinguish clearly between the parts played by kindergarten and family. In the conversations between schoolteachers and early-years practitioners, however, this institutional interpretational sovereignty is overturned. The work of the early childhood educators is deconstructed, then reassembled in a different form. Thus pedagogical documentation created by the kindergarten, such as portfolios or “learning stories”, is often not read at all or only read selectively by school-based actors. And if these actors do read such documents, they claim that they cannot understand them.

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While in the context of the kindergarten, a child’s performance was referred to as “unusable” for a recorded observation, the representation of child education by early childhood educators becomes unusable for the pedagogical sphere of action that follows chronologically, i.e. school. These practices of (negative) distinguishability make it possible to establish a new object of education for the institution of school. From the perspective presented here, the translocality of children’s education can be conceived differently: Children’s education is not tied to the child’s body, which, as the bearer or medium of education, changes location (cf. Schäfer 2011), or takes part in interactions in different places of education (cf. Nentwig-Gesemann 2013). Instead, translocalisation becomes apparent again and again, when that which is attributed to the child subject as Bildung is perpetually multiplied and rematerialised outside the subject. At the same time this is dispersed over various people and documents to be assembled by them, without any need for an internally consistent picture of child education, whatever form the latter might take. Instead this can be read as an institutional pre-forming of the subject forms “family child”, “kindergarten child”, and “school child”.

C onclusion The perspective taken here can show that one of the central topoi of early childhood education – the self-educating child – cannot be taken as a given. Instead it is produced with and in the practices of the field, and with approaches that seek to evoke the perception of child education. These create, performatively, a complex and fundamentally asymmetrical process: a child is selected and his or her activities are observed, written down, and spotlighted. At the same time, these activities are observed by spectators. Subsequently the activities are discussed and analysed in different contexts, and, in the process, valorised as Bildung or devalorised. Here three aspects strike me as central: First, the concept of local totality can become established, because the practice of early childhood education demonstrates to itself, in its public, practical performance, that children’s learning processes take place everywhere, and that the field can observe its practical efficacy (cf. Neumann 2013). This is tied to the body of the child whose activities are being observed. Second, the expectations of the childcare professionals indicate, however, that this spotlighting of particular children is not random, but must take place in a specific form. The children are positioned in a specific manner so that the object of observation, child education, can be revealed in and through them. Thus the practitioners give a practical enactment of the potency of the discursive elements that influence the paradigm of the child’s body as the medium of

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child education (cf. Jergus/Koch/Thompson 2013). The participants constantly try to reach agreement about what children’s education is, and to verify this with reference to its embodiment in the child. This means that differing insights can be linked back to the child’s body. Third, this collective work on the local embodiment of child education constitutes it as an event (cf. Schulz 2011; Tervooren 2012). At the same time ethnography allows us to reconstruct at least partially how child education is distributed across different stores of knowledge, and how it reappears jointly and individually in various places. Hence child education can be input and output without reference to the physical presence of the “educational body” constituted by the child. As mentioned, it is these practices that reveal child education in the first place, through collective work in various “sites” to establish what is meant by it. This also allows discussing the quantitative and qualitative expansion of private and public education and care arrangements: child education does not belong to the child, which moves between places at different times, but is identified and marked as children’s learning processes in different places. At the same time these constructions are always precarious. The contingency of these constructions becomes clear at the very moment when the limitations of the individual institutional logics are revealed, for instance, in the negotiation between family and kindergarten or kindergarten and school. Ethnographic analysis of these practices of reconstruction and deconstruction shows that children’s education is neither substantive nor local. The qualitative education research outlined at the beginning of the article, which examines children’s actions and interactions from a solid theoretical perspective, and with an awareness of its own normativity, is absolutely valid as a discipline. In particular, it helps to clarify what Bildung is not. At the same time, more systematic consideration should be given to connections with various contextual logics, as well as the intrinsic logic of pedagogical practice. Thus education research with a focus on cultural theory is very much concerned with the empirical analysis of how the field as a local practice appropriates and uses the concept of Bildung. Since these practices can be imputed to have a reality-constituting character, researchers should pay special attention to their practical effects: the child education that is observed in the child and also negotiated outside the child produces specific margins within which the participating children are able to act and “join in”. Children are integrated into these practices as active participants, so that these processes can be presented jointly. At the same time, they show the constant tension in which children are caught, between “being formed” and “self-forming”.

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R eferences Alasuutari, Maarit/Markstroem, Ann-Marie/Vallberg-Roth, Ann-Christine (2014): Assessment and Documentation in Early Childhood Education, Oxon and New York: Routledge. Andres, Beate/Laewen, Hans-Joachim (2005): “Bildung und Erziehung in der Kindertageseinrichtung – Das infans-Konzept der Frühpädagogik.” In: Ludger Pesch (ed.), Elementare Bildung, Band 2: Handlungskonzept und Instrumente, Weimar and Berlin: verlag das netz. Bischoff, Stefanie/Pardo-Puhlmann, Margaret/de Moll, Frederick/Betz, Tanja (2013): “Frühe Kindheit als ‘Grundstein für eine erfolgreiche Bildungsbiografie’: Deutungen ‘guter Kindheit’ im politischen Diskurs.” In: Bettina Grubenmann/Mandy Schöne (eds.), Frühe Kindheit im Fokus: Entwicklungen und Herausforderungen (sozial-)pädagogischer Professionalisierung, Berlin: Frank & Timme, pp. 15-34. Bollig, Sabine/Schulz, Marc (2012): “Die Aufführung des Beobachtens: Eine praxisanalytische Skizze zu den Praktiken des Beobachtens in Kindertageseinrichtungen.” In: Sabine Hebenstreit-Müller/Burkhardt Müller (eds.), Beobachten in der Frühpädagogik: Praxis – Forschung – Kamera, Berlin and Weimar: verlag das netz, pp. 89-103. Brodie, Kathy (2013): Observation, Assessment and Planning in The Early Years: Bringing it All Together, Berkshire and New York: Open University Press. Bruce, Tina (2011): Early Childhood Education, 4th Revised Edition, London: Hodder Education. Dewey, John (1998): Experience and Education: The 60th Anniversary Edition, New York: Kappa Delta Pi. Hebenstreit-Müller, Sabine (2013): Beobachten lernen: Das Early ExcellenceKonzept, Berlin: Dohrmann. Honig, Michael-Sebastian/Neumann, Sascha (2013): “Ethnografie der Frühpädagogik: Einführung in den Themenschwerpunkt.” In: Zeitschrift für Soziologie der Erziehung und Sozialisation 33/1, pp. 4-9. Jenks, Chris (2005): Childhood, London and New York: Routledge. Jergus, Kerstin/Koch, Sandra/Thompson, Christiane (2013): “Darf ich dich beobachten? Zur ‘pädagogischen Stellung’ von Beobachtung in der Frühpädagogik.” In: Zeitschrift für Pädagogik 59/5, pp. 743-761. Kalliala, Marjatta/Pramling Samuelsson, Ingrid (eds.) (2014): “Special Issue: Pedagogical Documentation.” In: Early Years 34/2, pp. 116-118. Koller, Hans-Christoph (2012): Bildung anders denken: Einführung in die Theorie transformatorischer Bildungsprozesse, Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Krinninger, Dominik/Müller, Hans-Rüdiger (2012): “Hide and Seek: Zur Sensibilisierung für den normativen Gehalt empirisch gestützter Bildungs-

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theorie.” In: Ingrid Miethe/Hans-Rüdiger Müller (eds.), Qualitative Bildungsforschung und Bildungstheorie, Opladen and Farmington Hills: Barbara Budrich, pp. 57-76. Lange, Andreas (2010): “Bildung ist für alle da oder die Kolonialisierung des Kinder- und Familienlebens durch ein ambivalentes Dispositiv.” In: Doris Bühler-Niederberger/Johanna Mierendorff (eds.), Kindheit zwischen fürsorglichem Zugriff und gesellschaftlicher Teilhabe, Wiesbaden: VS, pp. 89-114. Leu, Hans-Rudolf/Flämig, Katja/Frankenstein, Yvonne/Koch, Sandra/Pack, Irene/Schneider, Kornelia/Schweiger, Martina (2007): Bildungs- und Lerngeschichten: Bildungsprozesse in früher Kindheit beobachten, dokumentieren und unterstützen, Weimar and Berlin: verlag das netz. Liegle, Ludwig (2002): “Die besonderen Strukturmerkmale frühkindlicher Bildungsprozesse.” In: Ludwig Liegle/Rainer Treptow (eds.), Welten der Bildung in der Pädagogik der frühen Kindheit und in der Sozialpädagogik, Freiburg im Breisgau: Lambertus, pp. 51-64. Miethe, Ingrid/Müller, Hans-Rüdiger (eds.) (2012): Qualitative Bildungsforschung und Bildungstheorie, Opladen and Farmington Hills: Barbara Budrich. Mischo, Christoph/Weltzien, Dörte/Fröhlich-Gildhoff, Klaus (2011): Beobachtungs- und Diagnoseverfahren in der Frühpädagogik, Köln and Kronach: Carl Link. Nentwig-Gesemann, Iris (2013): “Qualitative Methoden der Kindheitsforschung.” In: Margrit Stamm/Doris Edelmann (eds.), Handbuch frühkindliche Bildungsforschung, Wiesbaden: Springer VS, pp. 759-770. Neumann, Sascha (2013): “Unter Beobachtung: Ethnografische Forschung im frühpädagogischen Feld.” In: Zeitschrift für Soziologie der Erziehung und Sozialisation 33/1, pp. 10-25. Neumann, Sascha (2014a): “Bildungskindheit als Professionalisierungsprojekt: Zum Programm einer kindheitspädagogischen Professionalisierungs(folgen)forschung.” In: Tanja Betz/Peter Cloos (eds.), Kindheit und Profession: Konturen und Befunde eines Forschungsfeldes, Weinheim and Basel: Beltz Juventa, pp. 145-159. Neumann, Sascha (2014b): “Die sozialen Bedingungen der Bildung: Erkundungen im Feld der Frühpädagogik.” In: Christiane Thompson/Kerstin Jergus/Georg Breidenstein (eds.), Interferenzen: Perspektiven kulturwissenschaftlicher Bildungsforschung, Weilerswist: Velbrück Wissenschaft, pp. 243-267. OECD (2001): Starting Strong: Early Childhood Education and Care, Paris: OECD Publications.

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Schäfer, Gerd E. (2005): Bildungsprozesse im Kindesalter: Selbstbildung, Erfahrung und Lernen in der frühen Kindheit, Weinheim and München: Beltz Juventa. Schäfer, Gerd. E. (2011): Was ist frühkindliche Bildung? Kindlicher Anfängergeist in einer Kultur des Lernens, Weinheim and München: Beltz Juventa. Schäfer, Gerd E./Staege, Roswitha (eds.) (2010): Frühkindliche Lernprozesse verstehen, Weinheim and München: Juventa. Scheiwe, Kirsten/Willekens, Harry (eds.) (2009): Child Care and Preschool Development in Europe: Institutional Perspectives, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Schmidt, Robert (2012): Soziologie der Praktiken: Konzeptionelle Studien mit empirischen Analysen, Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Schulz, Marc (2011): “Die Aufführung des Bedeutsamen: Eine performativitätstheoretische Perspektive auf die institutionelle Herstellung von Bildungsrelevanz.” In: Peter Cloos/Marc Schulz (eds.), Kindliches Tun beobachten und dokumentieren: Perspektiven auf die Bildungsbegleitung in Kindertageseinrichtungen, Weinheim: Beltz Juventa, pp. 49-64. Schulz, Marc (2015): “Informelles Lernen, Alltagsbildung und (frühes) Kindesalter.” In: Ursula Stenger/Doris Edelmann/Anke König (eds.), Erziehungswissenschaftliche Perspektiven in frühpädagogischer Theoriebildung und Forschung, Weinheim and Basel: Beltz Juventa (in press). Schulz, Marc/Cloos, Peter (2014): “Professionelle Begleitung von Bildungsund Lernprozessen in Kindertageseinrichtungen.” In: Peter Cloos/Katja Koch/Claudia Mähler (eds.), Entwicklung und Förderung in der frühen Kindheit: Interdisziplinäre Perspektiven, Weinheim and Basel: Beltz Juventa, pp. 194-208. Spodek, Bernard/Saracho, Olivia N. (eds.) (2013): Handbook of Research on the Education of Young Children, Oxon and New York: Routledge. Stamm, Margrit/Edelmann, Doris (eds.) (2013): Handbuch frühkindliche Bildungsforschung, Wiesbaden: VS. Tervooren, Anja (2012): “Bildung und Lebensalter: Bildungsforschung und Bildungstheorie zwischen Prozess und Ereignis.” In: Ingrid Miethe/HansRüdiger Müller (eds.), Qualitative Bildungsforschung und Bildungstheorie, Opladen and Farmington Hills: Barbara Budrich, pp. 93-109. Waldenfels, Bernhard (2000): Das leibliche Selbst: Vorlesungen zur Phänomenologie des Leibes, Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Wells, Karen (2009): Childhood in a Global Perspective, Cambridge: Polity Press.

Family Life as Education Ethnographic Perspectives on how Familial Education Emerges in Families and in Educational Family Research Dominik Krinninger

A bstr act This article discusses theoretical and methodological issues that an educational analysis of family life has to deal with. To that end, two aspects will be put to the fore: in what way does the educational significance of the family emerge from familial practices, and how is educational research constructing this process both theoretically and methodologically? A core methodological argument is that an educational analysis of complex social constellations, like the family, benefits from a broad theoretical framework. On a theoretical level, the layered contexts of familial practices are a crucial factor in regard to which a categorisation of family as an educational figuration and a sensitising figure of practical reflexivity are presented. Thus, the educational constitution of the family is made visible by theoretically processing familial practices. The conceptual debates are held against the backdrop of an ethnographic research project on family education.

I ntroduction The family is one of the most important places where children grow up. That is why the family has a high significance with regard to pedagogical questions about how children grow up. Any attempt to distinguish these questions further in light of specific phenomena of family life, however, proves to be intricate. In essence, one of the pivotal challenges of educational family research is to consider the complexities of the family as a way of life from a pedagogical point of view. Two questions in particular are raised: First, which specific practices bear educational relevance within the diverse and varied contexts of family

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life? What happens within the family, what the respective family members do, and how they interact with one another is embedded in a layered framework, at the very least in the family’s provision, its household management, and its (intrafamilial) relationships. This practical interconnectedness of familial performances also structures the pedagogical circumstances within the family and thereby raises a second question. If the pedagogical relevancy of practices is not directly inferable due to them taking place in the context of the family, it then becomes important to reflect upon the way (educational) research highlights the educational constitution1 of the family in order to gain a pedagogical perspective on it. This article brings up the question of the educational constitution of the family in two respects: In what particular way does educational research reveal how educational constitution is established in the field? In order to debate this set of intertwined questions on methodologies and subjects, I will proceed by presenting a research project on the subject of family to serve as a catalyst for further discussion on theoretical and methodological aspects. In conclusion, the conceptual and methodological strategies presented herein will be validated with the aid of an empirical example. One of the central arguments made in this article is that research necessitates a broad theoretical framework, if pertaining to non-explicitly pedagogically marked as well as complex social constellations like the family. In order to grasp the complexity of the family fully from an educational point of view, I suggest using, akin to Norbert Elias, the category of educational figuration. This also serves to demonstrate, at the same time, both the conditionality as well as the scope of familial practices. Based on this societal framing of familial practices, another aim is to show how educational constitution of familial practices can be interpreted via the sensitising figure of practical reflexivity. This figure manifests in the participants’ practical awareness of their practices. This awareness can effectively be used, en passant, in performance of practices to inter-subjectively address what is happening at that particular moment.

F amily as a milieu of cultur al education : an e thnogr aphic rese arch project The basis for the theoretical and methodological reflections disseminated in this article is a research project focusing on educational performances and po1 | This term allows for questions of a specifically educational-science-oriented kind. First, how actors and institutions operating within fields – generally acknowledged as educational, like schools or preschools – organise these fields. Second, with regard to fields and practices which like family are not explicitly or unambiguously marked as educational, the question of their educational relevant content bears asking.

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tentials in everyday family life2 . In eight families, scenes of everyday life as well as self-descriptions of familial events and family history were recorded by means of videography, interviews, and photographic self-documentations. During these surveys, particular attention was given to such practices as playing, watching television, and eating meals as a family. These practices were not just chosen due to their part, in some form or another, in everyday family life, but also because they are not marked as intrinsically pedagogical and allowed for intra- as well as inter-generational constellations. To ensure comparability of family life cycle stages, the surveys were conducted within families featuring at least one preschool-aged child. Acquisition was facilitated via preschools attended by the children in question. The participating families were acquired by a combination of two strategies: the pedagogical staff of the institutions acted as ‘gatekeepers’ (Merkens 1997) to establish contact; the families within the preschools were addressed by way of information flyers and posters, for example, with the purpose of self-activation. As initially touched upon, it is necessary to consider, with regard to family education, how the process of research reveals the family as a pedagogical community. According to this, consequences for the resulting image of the family can be detected as early as during field approach and during development of survey strategies. The sample’s composition showed a significant cluster formation, hinting at the research project’s specific resonance with middle-class milieus. The strategy of acquisition turned out to be successful in general, and the families volunteering for the project formed a heterogeneous sample, especially with regard to family type. However, there are a notably greater number of middle-class families to be found within the sample, notwithstanding the several families from underprivileged social milieus. On the one hand, this necessitates a reflection on questions of socioeconomic conditions. In this respect, the project’s response was to form clusters not according to the socioeconomic situation of the families surveyed, but instead according to correlations regarding the forms of familial practices. On the other hand, some of the specific arrangements within the families need to be considered against a backdrop of shifting middle-class values. If, for example, both parents within a family are working part-time, markedly focusing their attention on the intra-familial milieu, the family in question need not only be able to afford this lifestyle financially. In addition, an attitude such as this also corresponds with a rise in estimation of familial lifestyles within middle-class milieus. Thus, it is necessary to note that our strategy of acquisition elicited a particularly strong re2  |  The research project was carried out between 2007 and 2012, led by Hans-Rüdiger Müller und Dominik Krinninger, University of Osnabrück and sponsored by the DFG (“German Research Foundation”). The project has already yielded several publications, like Krinninger/Müller (2012a), Müller/Krinninger (2014), for instance.

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sponse among socially secure and culturally established factions, which, aside from a distinctive affinity towards the institution of family, also exhibit an open mind regarding issues of public education and a predisposition towards their children’s success within educational institutions. Apart from these attitudinal patterns, there is a conspicuous tendency among the families involved in the project to demonstrate pedagogical mindfulness, which can be linked to the socio-cultural background of some of the families sampled. On a related note, discursive and argumentative modes of behaviour between parents and children were more prevalent than those rather concerned with everyday life practical performance. Generally speaking, it is important to note that these families cannot be considered ‘more pedagogical’ than others. It is not the research project’s interest to delve into explicit markers of family as a pedagogical structure, but to explore how families design their social structures through practices, and how the various family members, especially the children, are thereby enabled to acquire a reflexive stance towards that structure. The surveys conducted in the acquired families reveal their educational constitution in a specific way. It was crucial to gain access into their everyday life; accordingly, this led to social situations in which a sphere usually governed by intimacy and privacy was subjected to the overt gaze of scientific research. Descartes (2007) points out that in ethnographic family studies, the relationship between ethnographer and research participant is characterised by the participant’s sensitivity towards times and spaces that are considered private. In order to address this problem, our project combined two survey-strategic aspects. First, a resource-oriented approach was used to appeal to the families, while a particular interest in familial ‘accomplishments’ was emphasised during acquisition. Second, the surveys were conceived to draw on forms of behaviour that are usually inherent in families. For example, the family surveys were framed as ‘visits’ by the ethnographers, who purported to be ‘guests’ of the respective families. Additionally, photographic and videographic material was not produced by the researchers but by the families themselves. Here, too, the project seized upon the widespread habit of self-documentation within families (which, as family portraits, photo albums, video tapes of shared activities or holidays etc., comprise the material portion of the collective family memory). In marked contrast to Schinkel (2013), who seeks to minimise the camera-induced irritation by the simultaneous presence of the ethnographer himself during his video-ethnography of familial life, this approach favours a different strategy that refers to practices of ‘displaying family’ (Finch 2007). Practices of representation constitute a significant portion of a family’s social constitutionalisation. Families tend to present themselves as such towards their environment – the point is to display belonging and proper compliance with familial duties, but also to project a specific image of one’s own family. In this regard, the surveyed families draw on strategies of positive self-representation and of-

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fer their definition of what is pedagogically ‘desirable’ to the research project. Thus, the previously documented familial practices are imbued by the social dynamic between researchers and familial protagonists, the consequence being that the data gathered cannot be considered a mere reproduction of everyday family life. The families’ consent to participate in the research project, the presence of the camera in the field, as well as the resultant indirect presence of potential observers (researchers, audience of professionals) all serve to generate feedback effects. Nevertheless, it becomes possible to gain insight into the inner life of the family, not in spite of, but rather due to their behaviour during the research situation, which is invariably based on their very own patterns of representation and self-conception. In keeping with this article’s methodological focus, the research project’s results will be presented below, along with the theoretical thoughts developed during the course of data evaluation. To start with though, matters of methodology take priority.

M aking the family ’s educational constitution visible : me thodological aspects The family can be considered a classic example of the complexity of social phenomena. It does not exist as a static and locally fixed community, but rather in a multitude of dynamically interwoven societal and biographical relations. This basic structure primarily manifests itself in the supersession of domestic perspectives on the family by characterisations of the family as a network. The perspective on the family developed during the course of the presented research project also originates from the basic concept of interconnection. It encompasses a network of (inter-)personal relationships, objects, and topics, in which familial provision, care, support, and education take place, and which stretches further than the narrowly defined parent-child constellation. However, while, with regard to the research strategy, insight into the localised dispersion, dynamics, and interconnectedness of social phenomena is often interpreted as a reason to ‘follow’ (Marcus 1995; Fenwick/Edwards 2010) the subjects, artefacts, and objectives along their respective paths, a different approach was chosen for this project. Indeed, it incorporates the variable connections determining the social coexistence of parents and children (societal institutions, the field of labour, but also the respective family members’ biographies). The reconstruction of these specific interconnections, however, was not dependent on the survey following individual subjects or objects on their pathways into and through the familial network. Far from perceiving the family as a locally fixed ‘in-house-community’, the research project focused on domestic activities of families in order to trace their congregation as well as their specific manner of interconnecting their own social and cultural relations. This strategic position-

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ing of the survey – appreciating and seeking to portray accurately the fluidity and dynamics of family – is a key factor to analysing ethnographically the complexity of family education processes. George Marcus poses this as a potential complementary approach towards the strategy of ‘following’: “The strategically situated ethnography attempts to understand something broadly about the system in ethnographic terms as much as it does its local subjects […]” (1995: 111). To avoid a ‘domestication’ of the family by merely focusing on selectively chosen parts of the survey’s strategic positioning mentioned above, the research project integrates a sociological conceptualisation of family education into the analytical process to serve as a springboard for discussion. This theoretical processing of the subject, accompanying the empirical segment, applies to more than one level. It fuels the sensitising concepts at the beginning and the systematic discussion of empirical observations at the end of the research process, and yet it also constitutes a continuous and integral element of the latter’s analysis. This combination of empirical and theoretical approaches seizes upon methodological debates pursuing a productive dynamisation of the interrelation between empirical research and theoretical thought. Amann and Hirschauer (1997) make a case for an enjeu of theories, which only express their innate productivity drawing upon the empirical subjects of ethnographic research. Regarding issues of theory construction, Udo Kelle (2008) advocates an empirical research method derived from theory and able to generate new subject-related theoretical designs by means of a methodology of discovery. Similar discussions are led in German-speaking educational science (Miethe/ Müller 2012). Yet another factor of importance for the project is educational theory’s progressive shifting away of focus from the family as a place and community of education3. Taking into consideration this dearth of suitable theoretical designs, an empirical family research focused on educational theory is reliant upon the development of distinctly new, pertinent subject approaches, which will be outlined in the following. From a methodological perspective, this might conceivably call for an alternative approach, maybe one that attempts to develop its designs solely from the data at hand. This would make it possible to derive categories by interpreting case comparisons; those categories, in turn, would allow for a systematic arrangement of the findings. However, if or how these empirically developed constructs are applicable to the discourse of educational theory would only become discernible towards the end of the research process, in the sense of requiring a secondary study of the findings. With such 3  |  This somewhat marginalised position of the family in German-language educational theory might be rooted in family education not normally being a field of professional pedagogical activity, but only becoming one if symptoms of dysfunction threaten or start to show. The functional everyday life of families thus turns into a rather uncared-for subject (in greater detail: Müller/Krinninger 2015).

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a theorisation ‘after the fact’, the relation between empirical reconstruction and educational theorisation remains vague. There is also the matter of heuristic reasons, which can be levelled against a merely inductive approach – to this effect, it is worth bearing in mind Udo Kelle’s admonition regarding the danger of an inductivist misapprehension (Kelle 2008), which argues against the notion of the mere emergence of theoretical designs from empirical data. Furthermore, certain potentials would remain untapped: those contributing more systematic theory-oriented perspectives and being predicated upon the creation of productive disassociation by means of abstraction. Inherent in these potentials is the facilitation of a self-reflective or self-critical approach towards the question of how pedagogical circumstances can be construed as early as during theoretical access. In addition, they allow for a reflective interaction with the relationship between field-immanent normativity (what the familial actors deem appropriate and desirable) and the normativity being projected upon the field (when using theoretically predetermined concepts such as ‘education’ to describe practices within the family) (Krinninger/Müller 2012b). Dennis Beach, too, points out these potentials of integrating theory. For him, theoretical framing can be a means of reflexivity concerning how data is produced and how the object of study is being shaped in the process of research: “[…] being aware of these contingencies and how they have operated means that one becomes more able to act back on and eventually change them to open up new avenues of investigation […]” (2014: 123). During subject construction and categorical assessment of the familial practices observed, hermeneutic strategies are also brought to bear. Paul Ricoeur’s approach provides orientation. Ricoeur (1971) outlines a reflexive hermeneutic which significantly emphasises the distinction between the intrinsic structure of meaning of a specific document or action (in this case, of a recorded family environment) and its interpretation in light of the interpreter’s own preconceptions. This way, the dynamic interaction of the “specific plurivocity” (1971: 551) in recorded practices and the hypotheses based on them can itself be rendered subject to analytical study. It thereby becomes possible to interconnect the multi-layered contents of empirical data with the discourse of educational theory – not just subsequent to the development of a descriptive systematisation from the data, but as early as during categorical assessment. For this purpose, construction and internal distinction of categories was conceived in such a way as to tap successively into the data’s intrinsic meaning while at the same time being applicable to questions of educational theory. With this approach, the analytically structuring perspective towards the data becomes intertwined with the theoretical discussion of empirical findings. Complementary to the development of a categorical structure, the potential for distinction inherent to the empirical data can also be utilised to distinguish the theoretical referenc-

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es.4 With this in mind, it becomes imperative to frame these theoretical references accessibly in a dual sense. With the heuristically intentioned theoretical frames of reference, one has to be mindful not to be led towards an inaccessible deductive strategy, in order for them not to lose their analytical function concerning the characteristics of the field. Towards that goal, it becomes necessary in turn to disclose the accompanying theoretical considerations, i.e. making them explicit and leaving them criticisable. For the research project’s analytical approach, simply developing a heuristic at the start of the research process will not suffice – instead, theoretical discussion serves as an enduring and integral procedural element. The premise of the family being more than just what is happening ‘at home’ is closely connected to another methodological aspect. In dealing with the question of how familial order evolves out of the performance of familial practices, the project draws on instruments of reconstructive social research. On the one hand, this serves to connect individual performances to the logic of practice from which they originated. Additionally, there is a recursive action required: the sum of situations reveals familial forms of practice against the backdrop of which individual actions can be ascribed specific relevancy. Procedures such as this have for some time now been among the methodological school of documentary interpretation, as Meuser (2007) points out with respect to Garfinkel. They are of limited use, however, when it comes to reconstructing practices in the context of their social strata. This proves significant, especially in the case of the family, which does not constitute a self-sufficient entity, but is presented with exogenous challenges from a variety of other areas of society. These challenges it has to adapt to by means of its own distinctive familial system. On the other hand, as a result of this adaptation effort, case comparison also figures prominently. A comparative analysis allows for an examination of the question whether categorical formation is in fact stable and applicable to varying cases, yet still capable of describing their differences. Recursiveness and comparability represent crucial elements of an analysis of practical sense and are rewarding when applied to the subject of the family. This combination, of a perspective focused on the inherent educational sense of the respective familial constellation with comparative analyses in the manner of reconstructive social research, exhibits similarities to other ethnographic studies, such as those presented by Kathrin Audehm (2007) and Sebastian Schinkel (2013). Family studies involving such ‘loops’ can be traced back to the, largely speaking, relative tenuity of research-mandated contact with the respective families. Longer-term observations of families uninhibited by boundaries of familial intimacy, however, can be considered scarcely feasible. 4  |  On the problem of structuring the research process in view of content and temporal distinction encountered in this context, see Müller/Krinninger (2014).

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F amily as educational configur ation : theore tical aspects This chapter aims to specify, with regards to content, the theoretical formations whose enjeu was methodologically established above. To that effect, two concepts will take centre-stage: the category of educational configuration, which illustrates the complexity of the social constellation of actors described as ‘family’; and the figure of practical reflexivity, which allows for a systematic description of how a family not just maintains and shapes its order in everyday life, but makes it a subject of inter-generational practices. The category of educational configuration is based on theories of Norbert Elias (1970; 1987 [1939]; 2003). Employing the concept of figuration, Elias tries to comprehend the relationship between individuals and society in such a way as to avoid a dichotomous partition between the two, choosing instead to emphasise the reciprocal dependencies and fundamentally linking the two. The individual is, in this concept, not superordinate towards his social contexts, but rather exists only within these social contexts. The inter-dependencies between individuals and social entities preform both the relations and the scope of the individuals’ actions, yet they are also created, as social formations, by people’s actions. Thereby, the subjects’ dynamic and productive activities in creating social circumstances come into focus, as well as the force of prevalent circumstances, which exist in relative autonomy from the active subjects supporting their conduct, follow their own particular logic, and thus exert a structuring influence on the actors. Borrowing from this concept allows for the eschewal of dualistic juxtapositions and rigid demarcations between family and society. Family, too, can be reconstructed as a social figuration, based on its specific relations to and dependency on its environment – a social figuration that is in turn connected to other such constructs, i.e. the workplace, the educational system, the sphere of cultural orientations, residential environment or neighbourhood (so the family therefore can rightly be termed a configuration). In this context, a subject model of the family as a social configuration is able to encompass both the family’s contingency upon social conditions as well as its active role in adapting to its circumstances. Finally, the heuristic appeal of the concept of figuration lies in Elias’ raising of questions about individuation in social contexts within the framework of a theoretical transcension of the dichotomy between individual and sociality. He thereby conveys this pedagogically significant aspect from a substantialist to a relational notion. Admittedly, other relational social theories could conceivably offer similar and compatible concepts. The research project’s theoretical discussions also raised the issue of the term ‘network’, while John Dewey’s paradigm of “Social Medium as Educative” (1980 [1916]: 20) was an equally important point of reference. The concept of figuration, however, underlines to a remarkable extent the aspect of the relative scope of individuals in their figurations and, respectively, of figurations in their

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inter-relationship with other figurations. This makes it particularly suitable for pondering the fundamental question to what extent family, aside from its frequently outlined role in the reproduction of social (unequal) circumstances and alongside professionally operating public institutions of the educational system, can also be considered a community of pedagogical practices. The social and cultural context being highlighted by the modelling of the family as an educational configuration is significant due to one more facet. Framed as dynamic structures, figurations represent not a fixed state, but a sort of process. Regarding the dynamic of family as an educational configuration, the family becomes discernible as a sphere of processing differences. Constellations of difference characterise the family in several respects: family is an institution in which social recognition is imparted, yet also an intimate community of care. The impossibility of total congruence regarding the parent’s social backgrounds constantly leads to incongruities in the parental system.5 Finally, the co-existence of parents and children is invariably affected by the social dimensions of inter-generational relationships. Pedagogically intriguing is how these constellations of difference are processed in family practices and in what particular dynamic with regards to the specific familial order this results. The category of educational configuration offers a framework for the description of the family in its social and cultural context. Exactly how a family’s educational configuration is shaped in intra-familial practices, and in what way a family is acting pedagogically in the process, remains to be seen. Against this backdrop, arguments of practical theory play a vital role to the modelling of educational constitution within the family. Family is thus regarded as a product of practical performances, intertwining both social and material aspects within its practices, which are themselves specifically linked with other social practices and which actors and actor constellations enter into. On the one hand, the corresponding practices thereby inscribe themselves into the actors; on the other hand, the actors help shape the practices through their specific conduct. In addition, the family is characterised here by the initially mentioned interconnectedness of familial performances with heterogeneous and reciprocally layered contexts. This suggests eschewing a primary focus on finding distinct, ‘pure’, so to speak, pedagogical forms of action and intentions when performing a pedagogical analysis of the family. In this respect, research interest is directed at everyday interconnections of routines and intentionality, whereby intentionality itself should not be narrowly interpreted to mean just the rationality of a sovereign subject, but also interpreted as intrinsic to the performance and materiality of practices. The project’s theoretical guidelines were established by Andreas Reckwitz (2003), but also by Thomas Alkemeyer (2013), who, in the 5 | This aspect is also relevant to single-parent and insemination families, albeit in a different way. In those cases, the absence of the ‘other’ needs to be processed.

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process of debating social practices with regard to their inherent subjectivisation, points out some pedagogically significant aspects. For a start, he raises the issue that participation in practices establishes practical competencies and thereby not only engages the subjects into an existing practice, but also enables them to help shape reflectively and intentionally the progression of that practice and critically comment on it. Furthermore, he underlines a specific type of practices, which reflexively refers to other practices and aims to provide dispositions that are of relevance to those practices. The aspects of performative and practical competencies cultivated from participating in a practice, coupled with an explicitly reflexive relationship between social practices, combine into an empirically accessible perspective on family education. In light of the interconnection of contextual actions with their practical types of logic within the family, the analysis employs a specific sensitising figure in order to shed light on the educational constitution of familial practices. This figure of practical reflexivity serves as a connection between the performative and practical competencies cultivated from participating in a practice and the aspect of an explicitly reflexive relationship between social practices, which lends structure to explicit pedagogies. However, it does not immediately direct itself towards the specifically communicative forms of knowledge producing such relationships. The figure of practical reflexivity manifests a practical knowledge of practices, which is shaped by participating in those practices and which is able to address the selfsame practices in the process of their performance. This makes it possible to ascertain a pedagogical relevancy of familial practices, without having to restrict oneself to explicit markers of actions, such as regulations or admonitions. That relevancy of familial practices gets attached inasmuch as they are able to refer reflectively to the reality made subject within them, as well as to their own selves. This marks a point of vital importance to a theory of education inspired by practice theory. Only the possibility, be it explicit or implicit, of practices referencing other practices serves to establish pedagogical scopes. Within this accessible theoretical orientation, the pedagogical analysis of familial practices is directed towards forms of practical reflexivity regarding the coexistence of different generations. This broadens the perspective on education in the family beyond interactions within parent-child constellations, which conform to the traditional image of the pedagogical dyad, and beyond an explicit mode, towards including the pedagogical content of practices performed by the family as a community. At the same time, there is a demarcation towards a perspective based on socialisation theory, by inquiring after a participation in familial practices that is moderated in a distinctive way instead of merely asking about participation in these practices. The operational scopes for such a moderation rest upon the family’s relative autonomy as an educational configuration and the specific manner in which practices are implemented by the familial actors who display particular practical competencies. A certain affinity

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towards approaches of network theory can be found herein – these approaches do not assume agency to be located within an individual’s self-sufficient intended actions either, but rather within the dynamic inter-connections in which a network is created and developed. Thus, Fenwick/Edwards posit the following as a basic principle of the actor-network theory: […] what appears to be […] agency is an effect of different forces, including actions, desires, capacities and connections […] Yet, while networks and other flows circulate through the practices, […] actions, desires, and so on are not determined by the network, but emerge through the myriad translations that are negotiated among all the movements, talk, materials, emotions and discourses […]. (Fenwick/Edwards 2010: 21)

Empirically speaking, one admittedly does not directly encounter a general figure of practical reflectivity in the field, but rather specific circumstances of socio-structural, cultural, family-biographical etc. conditions and familial practices at a time. The theoretical perspectives adduced for the purpose of sensitisation and accompanying the formation of categories and the observable familial practices converge in several indices, which emerge in distinctive empirical contexts, one of which will be presented here. With recourse to Karl Mannheim, this index will be termed as “hints” (Mannheim 1982: 216) (orig.: “Fingerzeige”, Mannheim 1980: 240). The works of Mannheim offer not just the fundamental distinction between communicative and conjunctive knowledge, he also develops categories for transitions or intermediate states between an explicitly and discursively available knowledge and an implicitly permanent, practical knowledge. Familiarity with the processes and contents within a shared sphere of experience has the potential to turn a group into a community of “connoisseur[s]” (Mannheim 1982: 216), which, within the scope of their respective perceptional habits, introduces the actors to the possibility of pointing out what is pivotal. Families are acquainted with their own regular procedures (dinner, teeth brushing, reading out stories), and the family members involved in them are both practiced in the communal act of processing such recurring everyday situations as well as versed in dealing with each other. Ordinarily, these things happen as they do and need not be explicitly addressed. However, if and when disturbances arise – or are anticipated – ‘hints’ are a possible tool for the family members to reflexively and regulatively reference their own practices. For example, while surveying one particular family, it was possible to observe a significant glancing gesture employed by a mother of four. This gesture was used, for instance, during the complicated process of eating semolina pudding with the three youngest children, and to moderate the actions and interactions of both the five-year-old daughter and eight-year-old son while at the same time feeding the ten-months-old baby. Practical reflexivity appears here as a sensorium for potential conflicts between the functionality

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of familial practice and opposing impulses emanating from individual actors. Also important to note is the lack of necessity, when employing the medium of attention-directing ‘hints’, to abandon or interrupt the current practice in order to switch to another mode, for instance one of explication or admonition. Aside from such gestural structuring of practical performances, which serves as guides for subsequent body movements, the organisation of the familial environment also appeals to each family member’s practical competencies. The family’s self-organisation is in this sense understood to be an ensemble of indications through which it arranges its shared existence, by guiding towards, or at least suggesting, specific corporeal-material-practical arrangements. In this context, things and rooms become more than merely objects and containers, but givers of impulses possessing an innate quality and co-structuring familial practices; they are, however, also cast into a specific staging by the familial actors. This notion of organisation of environment as an operational form of education, which also refers to Dewey, focuses on how the social environment itself develops a distinctive directedness and prefigures plots, yet at the same time introduces specific operational scopes.

L e arning how to sit in the E ngler family : an e x ample What a depiction based on the modelling of family as educational configuration and on familial education as practical reflexivity might look like is best illustrated by the following short example of the Engler family. The mother, Eva (38), teaches maths and music at a grammar school. The father, Egon (45), works as a physical therapist. Both parents attempt to spend as much time as possible with their children. Part of the family milieu is a cultural routine offered to their daughters Edith (8) and Elisa (5), who attend horse-riding and swimming classes, learn to dance and play the flute. Both girls attend preschool (Elisa) or school (Edith) solely in the morning. This necessitates a sophisticated coordination of both the parents’ varying working hours as well as the children’s activities during the afternoons. The family benefits from a network of friends and neighbours to ensure their children’s supervision and transport to and from the respective activities. Consistently shared family time is found during the daily evening dinner and on the weekends. The Englers can be classified as a middle-class family. They live at the end of a small row of houses on the outskirts of town and do not own a TV set (a laptop is used to watch television through the internet, though only a few times per week). In contrast, the living room is classically equipped with bookshelves and a piano, which do not just feature here as a statement towards a specific tradition of cultural education, but are also related to the mother’s occupation. Being professionally and socially secure, the parents focus on providing a harmonious family life by actively

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advocating a social and ecological value orientation: they buy ‘eco-fair’ goods, and the entire family partakes in anti-nuclear protests. These aspects depict the family as a place of growing into a culture represented by the adults. Thus, the Engler family’s educational configuration can concisely be summarised as being informed by material security – while simultaneously championing post-materialistic values – and by an affinity of cultural education, though mostly on the mother’s part. Within this framing, the family’s educational gestus is primarily directed towards creating a consistent agenda for the cultivation of the two daughters; at the same time, a marked restraint regarding explicit regulations can be observed. The materiality of the familial environment conforms to this gestus as well, which can be illustrated by describing how the arrangement of dining table and chairs – as an ensemble of ‘hints’ – leads to ‘proper posture’ at the table. A videographed meal shows the Engler family at the dining table. Along each of the table’s long sides, one parent and one child is seated. Both mother and father are thus positioned next to a child and able to assist them in the process of eating in case it becomes necessary. In reality though, such interventions are few and far between, and the parents only act if requested to do so. The seating arrangement also strongly indicates a generational distinction. The Engler family’s chairs are either designed for children or for adults. The adults are seated on chairs with long back- and armrests, while the children sit on chairs that are adjustable to their height and feature not just a seating surface, but also a small footrest. The question of who lays claim to what place within the community is hence also structured by the pre-scripts the family bestows upon itself in the process of its organisation. The seating furniture around the table is designed to adapt ergonomically to the bodies using them, each in their own way. The flexible backrests of the parent’s chairs are divided along the midst in order to offer space to the spine and dynamically support the back muscles. With Elisa’s and Edith’s height-adjustable chairs on the other hand, the footrests help to bridge the gap between seat and floor more acutely experienced by the children. There is an intrinsic bodily relation to these artisanal details of furniture, which, on the one hand, is determined by an object’s adaptation to the characteristics of the body making use of it, but on the other hand also prefigures the manner of the body’s usage while interacting with the object. This aspect of ergonomics corresponds to the Engler family’s pedagogical gestus, which is informed by a strong developmental sensitivity, while at the same time being oriented towards a cultivation of the infantile body. In the context of the videography (the analysis of which will, for lack of space, be presented here in summarised form instead of detailing the approach), it becomes evident that the younger daughter, Elisa, does not always do what adults sitting at a table would typically do. Without being regulated by her parents, she takes to experimenting with various positions of her body on

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the chair: she kneels on the seat to be able to reach further down the table. She swings her upper body back and forth between the table’s edge and her chair’s backrest. She stands on the chair seat and uses the salad tongs to pick salad from the bowl. She briefly remains standing on the footrest, then descends from the chair and fully circles the table once (this figure of movement appears concurrent to a question regarding the salad’s fair distribution that gets addressed during dinner conversation). She climbs back up on her chair, one leg placed on the footrest, holds her dish out towards her father and says: “Und ich? Kuck mal ... ich!” (“And me? Look ... me!”). These motions can be described as a physical demeanour exhibiting a lower standard of disciplining and cultivation in relation to her parents’ and her older sister’s conduct. At the table, as a place of quietly set legs and of a lower body concealed beneath it, Elisa still acts differently than the other family members. Although she has got her own place within the fixed seating arrangement and takes part in the shared performance of family meals, she is also situated beyond the manners of posture, practical cooperation, and dinner conversation practiced by the rest of her family. The meaningfulness of these actions is connected to a childlike relation towards space and objects, in which one’s own position is not only comprehended both visually and cognitively, but in which the act of physical ‘measuring’ and one’s own movements also play a part. In this sense, Elisa’s act of striding around the table serves to claim her place in the family, in which conjoint care and individual needs require balancing. Her behaviour is furthermore contingent on the furniture and the order of objects in the room. The swinging motions between backrest and table’s edge, the testing of range from the location of her chair or the differing sitting postures point to the contours of specifically cultural forms of posture and communal togetherness, manifested in the constellation of table and chair, and prefiguring both the individual’s and the group’s behaviour. Arnd-Michael Nohl (2011) offers an in-depth discussion of such a materialisation of education. In this sense, a practical reflexivity idiosyncratic to the Engler family becomes apparent by the way the family designs its living environment. The ‘hints’ provided therein address the practical competence on the part of the familial actors and prefigure a corresponding participation among the children not yet versed in the practices performed within the family. In this context, the largely absent direct regulations of the children’s behaviour observed with the Engler family, coupled with its strongly pronounced educational aspirations (in both cultural and institutional respect), can be considered as characteristic. In contrast, arrangements of indirect education by way of the material environment appear to be dominant, as do the cultural contents made available to the children through their afternoon classes. The family’s educational configuration is the frame in which this specifically pedagogical gesture of family evolves. Another issue, beside the family’s sociocultural situation, is the father’s deliberate attempt to distance himself from his educational ex-

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periences growing up with his original family, which he describes during the course of an interview. In order to validate this interpretation of familial practices, it is crucial to be able to rediscover the practice models summarised as the family’s pedagogical gestus in a variety of situations and contexts, and for the familial actors to express perspectives and attitudes compliant to this gesture also within their narratives and self-reflections.

A short conclusion The modelling of the family as an educational configuration and of familial education as practical reflexivity are part of a research strategy that does not take an educational relevancy of family as given per se with the fact that in families children and their parents are living together. In fact this relevancy emerges from the specific practices of the family in specific forms – and it also emerges from the specific way research highlights these practices. Therefore special attention has to be given to theoretical framework and formation of categories. These are not just obligatory steps in the research process but essential and decisive elements of the entire ethnographic analysis. How we think of education in families is part of how we see education in families. This also has to be taken into account with respect to methodical challenges in exploring the complexity of social phenomena. Whether one ‘follows’ the actors and artefacts, or whether one strategically positions oneself according to their dynamic, as with this project – it is necessary throughout to account for the respective constructiveness of the research perspective. Complex figurations like family, in particular, are always more than just pedagogical. Using an educational spotlight only serves to highlight particular aspects. The approaches showcased in this article present one possibility to uncover empirically and theoretically the educational constitution of familial practices. In order to do so, such is the core argument of this paper, the question in what way the family can be considered as pedagogical needs to be posed twofold: in what specific way does research uncover how educational constitution is constructed in the ‘field’?

R eferences Alkemeyer, Thomas (2013): “Subjektivierung in sozialen Praktiken.” In: Thomas Alkemeyer/Gunilla Budde/Dagmar Freist (eds.), Selbstbildungen: Soziale und kulturelle Praktiken der Subjektivierung, Bielefeld: transcript, pp. 33-68. Amann, Klaus/Hirschauer, Stefan (1997): “Die Befremdung der eigenen Kultur: Ein Programm.” In: Stefan Hirschauer/Klaus Amann (eds.), Die Be-

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fremdung der eigenen Kultur: Zur ethnographischen Herausforderung soziologischer Empirie, Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, pp. 7-52. Audehm, Kathrin (2007): Erziehung bei Tisch: Zur sozialen Magie eines Familienrituals, Bielefeld: transcript. Beach, Dennis (2014): “Identifying Scandinavian Ethnography: Articulating Notions of Theory and Objectivity in the Ethnography of Education.” In: Anja Tervooren/Nicolas Engel/Michael Göhlich/Ingrid Miethe/Sabine Reh (eds.), Ethnographie und Differenz in pädagogischen Feldern: Internationale Entwicklungen erziehungswissenschaftlicher Forschung, Bielefeld: transcript, pp. 119-132. Descartes, Lara (2007): “Rewards and Challenges of Using Ethnography in Family Research.” In: Family and Consumer Sciences Research Journal 36/1, pp. 22-39. Dewey, John (1980 [1916]): “Democracy and Education.” In: Jo Ann Boydston (ed.), John Dewey: The Middle Works, 1899-1924, Volume 9, Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press. Elias, Norbert (1970): Was ist Soziologie? München: Juventa. [Published in English as Elias, Norbert (1978): What is Sociology? London: Hutchinson.] Elias, Norbert (1987 [1939]): Die Gesellschaft der Individuen. Ed. by Michael Schröter, Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. [Published in English as Elias, Norbert (1991): The Society of Individuals, Oxford: Blackwell.] Elias, Norbert (2003): “Figuration.” In: Bernhard Schäfers (ed.), Grundbegriffe der Soziologie, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, pp. 88-91. Fenwick, Tara/Edwards, Richard (2010): Actor-Network Theory in Education, London and New York: Routledge. Finch, Janet (2007): “Displaying Families.” In: Sociology 41/1, pp. 65-81. Kelle, Udo (2008): “Strukturen begrenzter Reichweite und empirisch begründete Theoriebildung.” In: Herbert Kalthoff/Stefan Hirschauer/Gesa Lindemann (eds.), Theoretische Empirie: Zur Relevanz qualitativer Forschung, Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, pp. 312-337. Krinninger, Dominik/Müller, Hans-Rüdiger (2012a): “Die Bildung der Familie: Zwischenergebnisse aus einem ethnographischen Forschungsprojekt.” In: Zeitschrift für Soziologie der Erziehung und Sozialisation 32/3, pp. 233249. Krinninger, Dominik/Müller, Hans-Rüdiger (2012b): “Hide and Seek: Zur Sensibilisierung für den normativen Gehalt empirisch gestützter Bildungstheorie.” In: Ingrid Miethe/Hans-Rüdiger Müller (eds.), Qualitative Bildungsforschung und Bildungstheorie, Opladen, Berlin and Toronto: Barbara Budrich, pp. 57-75. Mannheim, Karl (1980): Strukturen des Denkens. Ed. by David Kettler, Volker Meja and Nico Stehr, Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp.

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Mannheim, Karl (1982): Structures of Thinking. Text and translation ed. and introduced by David Kettler, Volker Meja and Nico Stehr. Trans. by Jeremy J. Shapiro and Shierry Weber Nicholson, London, Boston and Henley: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Marcus, George (1995): “Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-Sited Ethnography.” In: Annual Review of Anthropology 24, pp. 95-117. Merkens, Hans (1997): “Stichproben bei qualitativen Studien.” In: Barbara Fiebertshäuser/Annedore Prengel (eds.), Handbuch qualitative Forschungsmethoden in der Erziehungswissenschaft, Weinheim and Munich: Juventa, pp. 97-106. Meuser, Michael (2007): “Repräsentation sozialer Strukturen im Wissen.” In: Ralf Bohnsack/Iris Nentwig-Gesemann/Arnd-Michael Nohl (eds.), Die dokumentarische Methode und ihre Forschungspraxis: Grundlagen qualitativer Sozialforschung, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, pp. 209-224. Miethe, Ingrid/Müller, Hans-Rüdiger (eds.) (2012): Qualitative Bildungsforschung und Bildungstheorie, Opladen, Berlin and Toronto: Barbara Budrich. Müller, Hans-Rüdiger/Krinninger, Dominik (2014): “Theorie Gestalten: Auf dem Weg zu einer empirisch gestützten Bildungstheorie.” In: Anja Tervooren/ Nicolas Engel/Michael Göhlich/Ingrid Miethe/Sabine Reh (eds.), Ethnographie und Differenz in pädagogischen Feldern: Internationale Entwicklungen erziehungswissenschaftlicher Forschung, Bielefeld: transcript, pp. 63-78. Müller, Hans-Rüdiger/Krinninger, Dominik (2015): “Familie als Bildungskonfiguration: Theoretische und methodologische Aspekte eines erziehungswissenschaftlich begründeten Forschungszugangs.” In: Doris Edelmann/ Anke König/Ursula Stenger (eds.), Erziehungswissenschaftliche Perspektiven in frühpädagogischer Theoriebildung und Forschung, Weinheim: Beltz Juventa, pp. 203-220. Nohl, Arnd-Michael (2011): Pädagogik der Dinge, Bad Heilbrunn: Klinkhardt. Reckwitz, Andreas (2003): “Grundelemente einer Theorie sozialer Praktiken.” In: Zeitschrift für Soziologie 32/4, pp. 282-301. Ricoeur, Paul (1971): “The Model of the Text: Meaningful Action Considered as a Text.” In: Social Research 38, pp. 529-562. Schinkel, Sebastian (2013): Familiäre Räume: Eine Ethnographie des ‘gewohnten’ Zusammenlebens als Familie, Bielefeld: transcript.

Notes on Contributors

Sabine Bollig is a postdoctoral researcher in the research group Early Childhood: Education and Care at the Research Unit INSIDE at the University of Luxembourg, where she currently conducts the research project “Children in the Luxembourgian Day Care System (CHILD)”. Her main research interests are the social construction of childhood in educational and medical fields, socio-material and spatial approaches to children’s everyday lives, qualitative methods, and practice-analytical ethnography. Sarah Doyle is a doctoral student at the University of Stirling and is currently working as a Fellow in Medical Education at the University of Edinburgh. Robert Fairbanks II is a Lecturer and Fellow in Urban Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. His fields of interest include urban ethnography, urban studies, welfare state theory, and critical social policy analysis. His most recent book, How it Works: Recovering Citizens in Post-Welfare Philadelphia (University of Chicago Press, 2009), is an ethnographic project that examines how unlicensed, unregulated drug and alcohol recovery houses operate as street-level anti-poverty strategies and mechanisms of governmentality in post-industrial Philadelphia. Tara Fenwick is a Professor of Professional Education at the University of Stirling in the UK. She is also Director of ProPEL, an international network for research in professional practice, education and learning. Her recent publications include: Reconceptualising Professional Learning: Sociomaterial Knowledges and Practices (with M. Nerland, Routledge 2014), Governing Knowledge: Comparison, Knowledge-based Technologies and Expertise in the Regulation of Education (with E. Mangez and J. Ozga, Routledge 2014), and Materialities, Textures, Pedagogies (with P. Landri, Routledge 2014).

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Michael-Sebastian Honig is Professor of Social Work and head of the research group “Early Childhood: Education and Care” at the University of Luxembourg. His main research interests are childhood studies, policies and practices of nonfamilial care, and the methodology of ethnographic analyses. His major publications include the volume “The Palgrave Handbook of Childhood Studies” (paperback edition 2011) co-edited with Jens Qvortrup and William A. Corsaro. Yuki Imoto is Assistant Professor at Keio University, Japan. She holds a doctorate in Social Anthropology from the University of Oxford and has conducted ethnographic research on various aspects of education, youth and globalisation in Japan. Her major publications include the volume “A Sociology of Japanese Youth: from Returnees to NEETs” (2011) co-edited with Roger Goodman and Tuukka Toivonen. Helga Kelle is Professor of General Educational Science at Bielefeld University. Her main research interests focus on (early) childhood studies, theories of education, methods and methodology of qualitative research, and practice analyses of developmental diagnostics. Her recent co-edited publications include the Special Issue 2015 of “Children & Society” on “Documentation in Childhood”, co-edited with Maarit Alasuutari. Jane Kenway is a Professorial Fellow of the Australian Research Council, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences, and a Professor in the Education Faculty, Monash University, Australia. She is recognised internationally for her research expertise on the politics of educational change in the context of wider social, cultural, and political change. Her current five year Australian Research Council project, with an international team, is Elite Independent Schools in Globalising Circumstances: A Multi-Sited Global Ethnography. Her more recent jointly written books are Haunting the Knowledge Economy, Masculinity Beyond the Metropolis, and Consuming Children; Education-Advertising-Entertainment. Her recently co-edited books include Asia as Method in Education Studies: A Defiant Research Imagination (Routledge, 2015). Gunther Kress is Professor of Semiotics and Education at the UCL Institute of Education, University of London. His interests are in communication and meaning(-making) in contemporary environments. His broad aims are to continue developing a social semiotic theory of multimodal communication, and, in that, to develop an apt theory of learning and apt means for the ‘recognition’ and ‘valuation of learning’. Some books along the road are: Language as Ideology; Social Semiotics (both with Bob Hodge); Reading Images: The Grammar of Graphic Design; Multimodal Discourse: The Modes and Media of Contemporary

Notes on Contributors

Communication (both with Theo van Leeuwen); Multimodality: A Social Semiotic Approach to Contemporary Communication. Dominik Krinninger is a research associate at the University of Osnabrück’s Department of Educational Science. His research interests are educational family research, theories of education, educational ethnography, and aesthetic education. A recent publication (together with Hans-Rüdiger Müller) is: “Theorie Gestalten: Auf dem Weg zu einer empirisch gestützten Bildungstheorie.” In: Nicolas Engel et al. (eds.), Ethnographie und Differenz in pädagogischen Feldern: Internationale Entwicklungen erziehungswissenschaftlicher Forschung transcript (2014). Christoph Maeder is Professor of Educational Sociology at the University of Education Zurich, Switzerland. Ethnographic research has been at the centre of his scientific endeavours for many years. It has always been his interest to look at the state “in operation at the eye level” in prisons, hospitals, welfare agencies, unemployment programs, and – over the last years – public schools. His current focus is on school reforms in relation to systems of knowledge in Switzerland. Maureen Michael is a visual artist and a doctoral student at the University of Stirling. She has conducted research with the Glasgow School of Art. Sascha Neumann is Professor of Educational Research at the Department of Educational Sciences of the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, and head of the University’s Centre for Early Childhood Education Fribourg (ZeFF). He currently leads an ethnographic study on bilingualism in day-care centres in the western part of Switzerland. His main research interests include childhood studies, early childhood education, methods and methodology in ethnographic research, as well as multilingual education in the early years. Tobias Röhl is postdoctoral researcher in the Sociology Department at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. His research interests are the sociology of knowledge and education, material culture, qualitative methods, and theories of practice. A recent publication is Dinge des Wissens: Schulunterricht als sozio-materielle Praxis [Engl. Things of Knowledge: Education as Socio-Material Practice] (Lucius & Lucius, 2013). Jennifer Scoles is a doctoral student at the University of Stirling. Her past work includes studies of higher education assessment practices and coordinating an internship programme.

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Oliver Schnoor is a PhD student at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland) and a teacher in educational sciences at the University of Trier (Germany). His main areas of research and publication have been childhood and youth studies, informal learning, sensual modalities and artistic media, qualitative and ethnographic research methodology. His thesis deals with vocality in the social practices of early education. Marc Schulz is Professor of Sociology of Early Childhood and Family at the Cologne University of Applied Sciences. Before, he was Assistant Professor of Educational Theory with a focus on informal learning in childhood at the University of Siegen. He has been doing research in the fields of childcare and youth work since 2003. Claudia Seele is a PhD student in Education at the University of Luxembourg. Her thesis deals with multilingual language practices and processes of institutionalisation in Luxembourgish early childcare settings. Her research interests are in the fields of educational ethnography, childhood and migration studies, as well as multilingualism in educational settings. Stephan Wolff is Professor at the Institute for Social and Organizational Pedagogy, University of Hildesheim, Germany. His main areas of work and research are in the fields of applied organisational research, transnational social support, conversation analysis, document analysis and the sociology of art.