Research design

The design of this study is based on the assumption that how one speaks and writes about literacy and how one “does literacy” reflects the literate habitus of individuals. This research, like much other literacy research, particularly in New Literacy Studies (Heath, 1983; Prinsloo & Breier, 1996; Street, 1993) has ethnographic elements in its design. Social research terminology often overlaps, and ethnographic studies can be case studies as well (Hammersley, 1994; Oliver, 2010). This is supported by this research as the study contains elements of both ethnographic and case study methods.

3.6.1 Ethnographic elements of the study

Ethnography examines the behaviour and interactions of people in order to “uncover their beliefs, values, perspectives, motivations, and how all these things develop or change over time or from situation to situation…It is their meanings and

interpretations that count” (Woods, 1986 in Basit, 2010:22). Examining literate habitus implies an attempt to understand deeply-entrenched, embodied meanings and interpretations an individual has about literacy, and so the data was analysed, focussing on the beliefs, values and feelings of each participant. It also examined the participants’ discussions of their use of literacy. This was all done to understand these teacher-students’ literate habitus.

Oliver (2010:82) identifies two common features of ethnographic research. Firstly, it tries “to adopt the viewpoint of those people who make up the social setting”.

Secondly, the researcher assumes that “people may look at the same social event in different ways depending upon their own perspective” (Oliver, 2010:83). So an ethnographic researcher examines the ways in which meaning functions and develops and, more specifically, how different social groups perceive and value things differently (Oliver, 2010). This study focused on a group of participants who, ostensibly, come from similar communities and who were, as a group, experiencing an intervention together, in the same, new field. How each participant brought his or her own meaning to the experience and how this related to his or her personal

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literate history was the focus of this research. In addition, whether and how meaning as it was related to literacy developed as a result of the disruption of each

participant’s fields was also examined in this research.

Bloome (2012), in discussing classroom ethnography, differentiates between qualitative research and ethnography. He argues that qualitative methods refer to research that allows “researchers to focus on the quality of human experience including interactions, thinking, emotions, imaginations, views, etc. of an individual group within the contexts in which the experiences occurs” (Bloome, 2012:9-10). Ethnographic studies, however, use theoretical principles which have been grounded in social anthropology. Bloome (2012) argues for the use of the term “ethnography” because it builds on epistemological principles and is concerned with examining a particular group of participants from an insider rather than outsider point of view. Classroom ethnography, in particular, considers how classroom interactions “reflect and refract” (Bloome, 2012:11) the many historical and social contexts represented in that space. By looking at what people do, questioning what that means and reflecting on who they are, their social and historical contexts are examined. My study was not a classroom ethnography but it examined interactions, reflections, actions and contexts of classrooms in relation to the teaching of literacy and how this related to the participants’ literate habitus.

Bloome (2012) also distinguishes between ethnographic tools and an ethnographic perspective. Ethnographic tools are the techniques usually associated with

ethnography such as participant observation, taking field notes, open-ended interviewing and the collection of artefacts. Bloome (2012) cautions that a study cannot be defined as ethnographic based on the tools used, but that it should also use an ethnographic perspective. This requires acknowledging and investigating the “multiple (and sometimes competing) social and historical contexts that are

themselves constantly evolving and shifting” (Bloome, 2012:12). As a result, an ethnographic perspective relates what was observed compared to the larger contextual influences (Bloome, 2012).

So how were these ethnographic perspective applied to my research? Although the data collection included some ethnographic tools such as field-notes, texts produced by the participants, interviews and focus-groups to understand personal literacy and

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classroom practices, more broadly, it examined how these practices related to the historical and contextual influences on the participants. In Bourdieusian terms, the study examined the effect of each habitus and social field on practice. And so, I would argue, there was an ethnographic perspective guiding this study.

Hammersley (1994) raises two criticisms usually aimed at ethnographic studies. Firstly, that ethnography looks only at the exterior and the apparent and, secondly, it is limited to recording phenomena as they are, rather than discerning how they can be improved on or changed. I recognised the challenges faced in using the external and apparent in attempting to understand a deeply-ingrained disposition, but I also believed that the concept of habitus was both “heuristic and explanatory” (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992:131). As a result, habitus could be applied to examining the relationship between texts and practices and enabled the researcher to demonstrate the ways of being, doing and valuing literacy.

In answer to the second criticism, I acknowledge that this study is limited in examining the literate habitus of the participants constituting a unique group of Foundation Phase teachers. However, I believe that the study has important

implications for literacy interventions, teacher training and short courses. Concerns about teachers’ literate habitus are not confined to rural areas of South Africa, so the insights gained from this research will have implications for understanding teachers’ literate habitus beyond the Limpopo context.

3.6.2 Case study elements of the study

The arrival of this large group of practising rural teachers provided a unique

opportunity to examine the possibilities and constraints offered by a four-to-five year intervention. As this intervention removed the participants from social fields they had grown up and worked in, it offered an opportunity to research what the effect of this long-term rupture was on their literate habitus. In addition, focussing on one situation could assist in understanding other situations and similar cases.

Case studies also recognise that social truths are multifaceted and entrenched as they examine “discrepancies between participants’ perceptions” (Basit, 2010:20) and a “multiplicity of perspectives” (Richie & Lewis, 2003:52). Basit (2010:20) indicates that the “rich description” of a case study as includes the:

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details of the lived experiences of specific cases or individuals and offers an understanding of how the individuals perceive the various phenomena in the social world and their effects on themselves.

This study includes case study elements as it is an in-depth examination and interpretation of the literate habitus of selected participants. In addition it examines the importance of the relationship between different social worlds and the effect of ruptures and interactions in and between these fields on participants’ perceptions and understanding of literacy.