Ethnographic "Experimental Collaborations" As Practitioner Methodology

Abstract

In this paper we discuss emergent cross-cutting themes across a series of educational intervention projects in which practitioners-in-training adopted and adapted in their proposals and work design the logic of ethnographic experimental collaboration (XCOL) and participatory action research (PAR) (Clark, 2010; Estalella & Sánchez-Criado, 2018) perspectives. We were involved in three interventions developed in Madrid (Spain) across formal and informal learning contexts as part of the internship/practicum of future educational psychologists. Our work was designed in response to the identified needs and demands of the internship sites. Yet, as educational interventions, they were explicitly conceptualized and implemented in ways that depart substantially from the common expectations of process-product educational intervention and dominant ways, at least in Spain, of constructing educational accountability (cf. Berliner, 1989; Gage & Needels, 1989). We unpack four themes relevant across the three projects, which emerged from our joint discussions of the three interventions: (a) how "outcomes/results" are reconstructed in XCOL/PAR educational interventions, (b) the transformations in our emergent professional identities, (c) the place of different materialities and expressive media in the work we planned (d) how space-time constraints were construed in our unfolding projects.

Only Connect: The Growth of Relationship when Prisoners and College Students Study Together

“…Such work has enabled socially engaged educational researchers to recognize that pre-structured educational approaches are T "ONLY CONNECT" 4 largely ineffective with hard-to-reach vulnerable populations such as incarcerated learners. Thus, Poveda et al (2021) argue that research should incorporate the voices of those impacted by proposed educational interventions, offering the concept of ethnographic experimental collaboration as a remedy.…”

“…As described by Poveda et al (2021), ethnographic experimental collaboration approaches "research design" as an open-ended, performative process where researchers and participants coconstruct an inquiry "in which research goals, procedures and data emerge as the result of the joint efforts of all social actors involved" (p. 1477). In the prison class we designed, the professors sought to reconfigure an educational intervention as "a shared social space in which participants frame and reframe the objectives of the social/educational intervention and may have room to negotiate the procedures through which these objectives are achieved" (p. 1477).…”

Teaching songs from diverse cultures to pre-service teachers using a “Four Step Flipped” method

“…The workshops described in this paper focused on learning by "doing." In the Spanish educational system, however, "educational programs and interventions are [often] framed and assessed within the expectations of process-product" (p. 1477), as opposed to "learning by doing" (Poveda et al, 2021(Poveda et al, , p. 1478. It is important to remember that although "learning by doing" is not a new concept in and of itself, it might have been new to the students enrolled in this course.…”

“…It is important to remember that although "learning by doing" is not a new concept in and of itself, it might have been new to the students enrolled in this course. According to Poveda et al (2021), "adopting some of the principles of collaborative approaches to plan and implement an educational intervention, at least in Spain and Spanish educational organizations, will probably be perceived as an unconventional path" (p. 1492).…”