The chicken or the egg problem

The methodology outlined above raises one major issue: determining what a right, or a duty, is, is crucially dependent on determining the thus-far vaguely termed "similar conditions". By this, we normally mean the positions held by the interactants. However, if positions are clusters of rights and duties, they are not available as a methodological tool until rights and duties are established and clustered.

In practice, it is generally unproblematic to determine what position people hold, but this is done at the expense of using (explicitly) cultural bias. This approach would be integral to an ethnographic approach, where “utilization of tacit knowledge is inescapable”; but such an approach requires “prolonged” observation, which is not always possible (Cohen et al., 2007). Where this prolonged observation is not possible, then, a more precise, and ordered, approach is sometimes necessary.

The unit of the "episode" takes its full significance here. Indeed, the undifferentiated “right or duty” unit may be ascribed to a given episode. Each episode has an opening: an act that justifies changing the purpose of the interaction. This gives us a first discriminatory element: a way to categorise the rights that are observed afterwards. At this stage, some observations can already be made as to when certain rights are observed or not.

In a second step, we observe “clusters” of these (so far) undifferentiated rights and duties. These are created by collating rights and duties observed in similar episodes (i.e., episodes that have both a similar purpose and a similar

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opening act). These are now dubbed positions. The construct of position depends on the judgment of the researcher on three levels:

the labeling of rights and duties the separation into episodes

the notion of similarity between purposes, and between opening acts. Because of this operational process, it is impossible to consider the construct of position as one that can be reliably, or unequivocally, be derived from data. Therefore, this methodology must be used sensibly and we must build in mechanisms to allow for cases where its output is nonsensical. To that end, multiple rounds of coding are used, after which it is possible to further divide observed positions (described as clusters of undifferentiated rights and duties) into two sub-clusters, and to perform the right vs. duty differentiation after this division.

Multiple rounds of coding are also advisable with regards to the division into episodes itself, especially if the initial division is performed alongside the transcription. Indeed, re-iterating the division process allows the coder to make a decision which is informed by future behaviour (for instance, an episode which was originally thought to be concluded is seen to continue); and allows for the correction of the approximations inherent to the original division. As an analysis in terms of observed behaviour may inform the understanding of an interaction, these further rounds of divisions may happen after a first analysis in terms of positions has been performed. However, this may only be a subdivision into more episodes – a refinement of the grain – and not a grouping of many episodes into one.

Thus, the global methodology may be summarised in the following diagram (Figure 3.1 below)

Figure 3.1 – Outline of the methodology for the analysis of positions. Division into episodes

and storylines Analysis of opening acts Coding of behaviour Grouping of episodes by similarity Grouping of episodes by similarity Clustering of observed behaviours Possible re-division of clusters Separation of rights from duties, and labeling into positions

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3.2.5. Making the data manageable

After this methodology was adopted, it soon transpired that the criterion of the single purpose used to divide the interaction into episodes was yielding a too finely grained analysis. Indeed, it frequently happened that the teacher would call out a student name when they were being rowdy or not focusing, etc. A strict approach to our methodology would require us to have three episodes, as in Excerpt 3.3 below:

14 T: "What sort of things will exposure to radiation do to people or animals?"

15 S: "Mutation"

16 T: "Cause mutations, possibly. What else?"

17 S: [inaudible]

18 T: "Possibly but that's not that's not the um that's not the most significant one. Boys you're not listening you need to be listening. What else?" 19 S: " Kill everyone "

Excerpt 3.3 (Gallifrey Vale, first science lesson)

Here, a strict approach would have led to an episode made up of the bold part of turn 18, and two separate episodes on either side. Whilst considering the bold sentence as an independent episode would reflect the reality of the

interaction, splitting the remaining part of the interaction into two parts would not. Indeed, the separation of the episode into two parts would be decided by the seemingly independent interruption in the middle of turn 18. Notably, this aside is short enough for the teacher to continue with the flow of her speech as though the aside did not take place: there are no markers indicating any rupture. The suggestion to cut the above excerpt into three episodes, then, simply hinges on chronological sequentiality. The need for episodes to be chronologically sequential is at odds with positioning theory’s non-chronological outlook, but is generally necessary for practical reasons. In such cases, therefore, it is acceptable to relax this criterion.

Furthermore, this strict approach would yield little in terms of analysis: if the interruption is limited to this one turn, the behaviour displayed in its episode will be limited – to, strictly speaking, naming the student or barking out an order – which can generally be considered under the umbrella title of “rebuking”. The expense, on the other hand, will be to have one episode with a single purpose cut in two sub-episodes which share a single purpose. Data, being divided, becomes much less manageable; and the disconnection of these two sub-episodes does not reflect the reality of the interaction.

It should be remembered that the purpose of this methodology is not to explain behaviour – though the introduction of a concept of short-term position memory could be used to explain those interruptions in the wider concept of

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behaviour12 - but to describe it. Therefore, unless the focus of the work is to do with discipline specifically (and the maintaining thereof), it is an acceptable approximation to merge these three episodes into one. This approximation is tantamount to assuming the teacher always holds the right to rebuke their students; which should be kept in mind when presenting results.

In the case of our own work, we set the following criteria for merging of episodes:

that the interruption should be limited in length (usually, the name of a student and/or a short command such as “quiet”).

that the preceding and following episodes share one single purpose that the flow of the interaction isn’t broken by the interruption

Where those criteria are not met, e.g. when the preceding and following episodes are different in purpose, the course generally taken is to separate into three episodes. However, given the assumption that the right to rebuke is a background, constantly-held right for the teacher, it makes little difference to include rebuttals at the end of the preceding episode, and it is therefore accepted practice to do so when it makes handling of data easier.