Critical Ethnography in the Study of Comparative Education

Author(s): Vandra Lea Masemann

Source: Comparative Education Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Feb., 1982), pp. 1-15
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Comparative and
International Education Society
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1187920
Accessed: 18-09-2019 02:39 UTC

REFERENCES
Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1187920?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contents
You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

Comparative and International Education Society, The University of Chicago Press are
collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Comparative Education
Review

This content downloaded from 101.203.170.9 on Wed, 18 Sep 2019 02:39:09 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Critical Ethnography in the Study
of Comparative Education
VANDRA LEA MASEMANN

In this essay I consider recent perspectives in educational r

particular the use of critical ethnography in the study of
education. Since the term is relatively new, some introductio
given to other approaches, their origins, and their relations
approaches in the field. The parameters of several approach
implications for the study of comparative education will be
suggestions will be made throughout for research applicati
approaches in comparative education.
"Critical ethnography" refers to studies which use a basi
pological, qualitative, participant-observer methodology but
for their theoretical formulation on a body of theory deriving
sociology and philosophy. 1 The theoretical forebears in this
to Marx, with his critique of bourgeois theories of society, a
ist sociology of Comte.2 The fundamental criticism of po
science embodied in Marx's approach was that the distinction
objective and subjective could not bring together the "is" an
in a way that made possible the construction of a theory o
politics.3 These questions come down to us today in modern
we consider problems in educational research, but their basic
the same: Is it the task of social scientists to seek ever more
define objective methods of researching the social world (o
with possibilities for change seen as simply the result of "re
data" and making choices on the basis of some cost-efficient
cal rationale? Or is it their task to attempt to understand as
possible the subjective understandings that actors have of t
sion of "social reality"? Or, third, is there some way of seein
in Marx's terms that would forever blur the objective/subj
tion and thus make necessary the redefinition of social res
These questions lie at the heart of any discussion of research
SSee Michael Apple, Ideology and Curriculum (London: Routledge Sc Kegan Pa
orientation to this approach.
2 "I shall use the term 'positivism' . .. to characterise an approach to the soci
regards them as being the same as the natural sciences, aiming at the formulation
laws, resting their claims to valid knowledge upon the analysis of some empirica
philosophical intuition, and thus asserting the unity of scientific method, and wh
distinction between scientific statements and value judgements" (Thomas Bottomo
ogy [London: Macmillan, 1975], p. 9, n).
"Ibid., p. 10.
?1982 by the Comparative and International Education Society. All rights reserved
0010-4086/82/2601-0003$01.00

Comparative Education Review 1

This content downloaded from 101.203.170.9 on Wed, 18 Sep 2019 02:39:09 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 MASEMANN

in social science in general as well as in the study of comparative

with which we are concerned here. The history of the develo
educational research demonstrates the interplay of thought on th
questions.

Sociological Approaches

A very useful summary of sociological approaches to educatio

search is given by Karabel and Halsey.4 They document the rise
tionalist approaches in sociology which attempted to legitimize
of education as a scientific endeavor. However, the definition of function-
alism itself does not necessarily carry with it the notion of objectivity with
regard to mode of research. Radcliffe-Brown's original definition of "func-
tion" makes no mention of it: "The concept of functions as here defined
thus involves the notion of a structure consisting of a set of relations
amongst unit entities, the continuity of the structure being maintained by
a life-process made up of the activities of the constituent units."'5 Nonethe-
less, the analogy of the social functioning of society with the biological
functioning of the human body makes it clear that Radcliffe-Brown was
using positivist conceptions of social science.
Such conceptions of society and its institutions, such as education or
the family, were increasingly common throughout the 80 years of this
century and gained far more currency in social science than did Marx's
attempt to see a social science as ultimately ethical. Several reasons for the
nondiffusion of Marx's ideas have been advanced. Mafeje, an African an-
thropologist, suggests, for example, that positivist functionalist ideas were
the ultimate bourgeois conceptions of society which kept the proletariat
from realizing their condition. He suggests that, in America particularly,
the legacy of nineteenth- and twentieth-century French and British positiv-
ist philosophy was accentuated by the historical relativism of Max Weber
in his separation of normative judgments from factual statements, a sepa-
ration which "made it possible for him and his future American followers
to think of science as autonomous and morally neutral."' Moreover, he
also attributes to Weber the relativizing and abstracting of ideology "in
such a way that it ceased to be a question of class conflict and became
merely a problem of interpreting individual intellectual reflexes under
determinate social conditions."'7 The legacy of such an approach is clearly
seen in the development of American "scientific" sociology and psychol-

4Jerome Karabel and A. H. Halsey, Power and Ideology in Education (New York: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 1977).
5 A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, Structure and Function in Primitive Society (London: Cohen Sc West,
1964), p. 180.
6 Archie Mafeje, "The Problem of Anthropology in Historical Perspective: An Inquiry into the
Growth of the Social Sciences, Canadian Journal of African Studies 10 (1976): 313.
7 Ibid.

2 February 1982

This content downloaded from 101.203.170.9 on Wed, 18 Sep 2019 02:39:09 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 CRITICAL ETHNOGRAPHY

ogy and their influence on the direction of educational res

strong emphasis on the individual as the unit of analys
collection of objective data on a large scale.
Thomas Bottomore, a sociologist, concurs that such object
es may well have been buttressed by their place in the rep
bourgeois culture, but he also suggests that there is much ev
obstacles that have been put in the way of Marxist social s
universities of many Western countries."8 Moreover, he view
of the Marxist political orthodoxy in the USSR as a deterren
opment of Marxist conceptions of social science there and
Comparative education as a field of research has largely r
currents of thought. Early research in the field focused on
national educational systems and paralleled attempts in ant
sociology to define societies by their "type."' As interes
empirical research, attention shifted to large-scale survey-ty
of educational outcomes or effects."' Karabel and Halsey disc
opment of the "human-capital" approach to education, with
on the post-1945 expansion and diffusion of educational sy
concomitant development of the human capital (skills and
the person becoming educated." This approach turns away
in typologies of educational systems, or even schools as such, to
uals as products of a system. The recent "equality" research
States reflects such concerns, although recent writers have t
the importance of school processes which are left unresear
studies."2

Anthropological Approaches

During these same 80 years, there was a parallel development in the

history of ethnographic (anthropological) approaches to the study of so-
ciety. The major shift from the typologies of anthropologists such as Tylor
or Fraser'3 occurred with the rise of functionalist anthropology in the early
years of this century.'4 However, whereas sociology became a science
which examines large-scale societies and developed research strategies
which could manage large amounts of data, anthropology tended to remain
rooted in small-scale participant-observation modes of research. The theo-

8 Bottomore, p. 30.
9 Edward B. Tylor, Primitive Culture (London: Murray, 1871).
10 E.g., the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement studies (see
Comparative Education Review, vol. 18 [June 1974]).
" Karabel and Halsey, pp. 12-16.
"2 Christopher Jencks et al., Inequality: A Reassessment of the Effect of Family and Schooling in
America (New York: Basic, 1972).
"13 James Frazer, The Golden Bough (New York: Macmillan, 1928).
"4 Radcliffe-Brown; Bronislaw Malinowski, "The Group and the Individual in Functional Analy-
sis," American Journal of Sociology 44 (1939): 938-64.

Comparative Education Review 3

This content downloaded from 101.203.170.9 on Wed, 18 Sep 2019 02:39:09 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 MASEMANN

retical underpinnings of anthropology remained firmly functi

the perspectives of sociology were linked to the ruling classes in the
society, Mafeje linked them to the colonizing activities of Euro
Until the last decade or so the use of traditional anthropologic
ods in educational research has been sporadic. More complete su
of the relationship of anthropological studies to comparative edu
ready exist.'6 Suffice it to say here that the interest of early anthro
was in the socialization of children as part of the ongoing functio
small-scale society.'7 The influence of Freud led later to the devel
an interest in how culture influenced personality.'8 With the p
establishment of schools in newly independent areas, interest tur
role of schools as agents of modernization and value change. A fe
graphic studies were published of schools in (formerly) British-c
areas.'9 In America, George Spindler and his students produced
voluminous literature on educational ethnography in the 196
1970s.20 Some attempts at theory formulation have been advan
recently,2" although generally in a functionalist framework, wit
phasis on transaction. A Marxist anthropology of education i
advanced than Marxist sociology of education, while both exist
dominantly functionalist environment.22 The most frequent us
ethnographic research in the 1970s was in evaluation research, w
was an adjunct to sociological and psychological data gathering c
ing school or program effects.23 Very little has been done to d
"critical ethnography" which could transcend the limitations of
tionalist social science. I shall return to this discussion later.
Before I leave this discussion of ethnographic approaches, they sho
be discussed in terms of the subjective/objective dichotomy. Within t
framework of functionalist anthropology, considerable effort has been
15 Mafeje, pp. 317-22.
16 Vandra Masemann, "Anthropological Approaches to Comparative Education," Compara
Education Review 20 (1976): 368-80; Douglas Foley, "Anthropological Studies of Schooling in Dev
oping Countries: Some Recent Findings and Trends," Comparative Education Review 21 (19
311-28.
"17 Margaret Read, Children of Their Fathers: Growing Up among the Ngoni of Nyasaland (New
Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1960); John Middleton, From Child to Adult (New York: Natural
History Press, 1971); Margaret Mead, Coming of Age in Samoa (New York: Morrow, 1928).
18 Clyde Kluckhohn, Henry Murray, and David Schneider, Personality in Nature, Society, and
Culture (New York: Knopf, 1964).
19 G. Waton, Passing for White (London: Tavistock, 1970); F. Musgrove, "A Uganda Secondary
School as a Field of Social Change," Africa 22 (1952): 234-48.
20 George Spindler, Education and Cultural Process (New York: Holt, Rinehart Sc Winston, 1974).
For a review of the socialization literature, see Patricia Draper, "Comparative Studies of Socializa-
tion," Annual Review of Anthropology (Palo Alto, Calif.: Annual Reviews, 1974), pp. 263-77.
21 Frederick O. Gearing and B. Allan Tindall, "Anthropological Studies of the Educational Pro-
cess," Annual Review of Anthropology (Palo Alto, Calif.: Annual Reviews, 1973); also recent issues of
Anthropology and Education Quarterly.
22 Apple.
23 See any collection of work on evaluation of U.S. bilingual education programs; e.g., F. Cordas-
co, Bilingual Schooling in the United States (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1976).

4 February 1982

This content downloaded from 101.203.170.9 on Wed, 18 Sep 2019 02:39:09 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 CRITICAL ETHNOGRAPHY

pended by anthropologists to define "whose" definition of r

discussing.24 It has been considered debatable whether rese
be searching for an objectively analyzable set of phenomen
they should seek to discover the models of, for example, k
informants' minds. Generally, however, even such "subject
from an informant have been considered as "objective" dat
thropologist. It becomes a very interesting point to ponder
which the anthropologist can acquire an inside understandi
jective reality of the informant, even if he/she is adept at
replicating appropriate language and behaviour in anoth
Such problems in research lead directly to a discussion of th
tive philosophical and symbolic interactionist approaches.

Interpretative Approaches

The several approaches under this rubric have been va

symbolic interactionist, phenomenological, ethnomethodolo
"new" sociology of education. Their fundamental assumptio
inadequate to study either the formal structure of social in
cational systems) or to survey the effects of such institut
predefined by the researcher. Rather, the task is to uncover th
for example, educational systems in terms of their meanings fo
ipants, either as teachers or learners. This approach derives
ogy of knowledge perspective which exemplified itself in a
phenomenological approach in Europe and an ethnometh
proach in America.26 The phenomenological approach ultim
as the researchable question the meaning of events and
ethnomethodologist is primarily interested in demonstrating
of tacit understandings underlying daily social interaction
negotiated by people in their daily lives.27
Richard Heyman has written recently on the utility of su
in comparative education.28 He strongly criticizes the taken
ness of many of the concepts used previously in comparati
research (e.g., political socialization, economic developm
formation). He argues that "the macroanalysis character
comparative education research must be replaced by the sys

24 Michael Banton, ed., The Relevance of Models for Social Anthropology (Lo
1964).
25 Foley, p. 313.
26Karl Mannheim, Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul,
1952); Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1970).
27 Karabel and Halsey, p. 49.
28 Richard Heyman, "Comparative Education from an Ethnomethodological Perspective," Com-
parative Education 15 (1979): 241-49.

Comparative Education Review 5

This content downloaded from 101.203.170.9 on Wed, 18 Sep 2019 02:39:09 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 MASEMANN

vation and analysis of the microcosmic world of everyday life."29

cizes the supposed objectivity of various categories of measuremen
macrocosmic research and the use of large-scale questionnaire su
since they are conceived and carried out without reference to
subjective interpretation of them. His suggestions as to future d
for comparative education are that it should "(1) ... focus its atte
the problem of describing how the social reality called education
the lived world (2) ... study those aspects of social reality whi
directly observable and therefore recordable ... (3) concentrate o
detailed analysis of social interaction as the most obvious source
social reality of education."" Moreover, he advocates that it be mi
in its analyses, and be based on the interpretation of audio- and/o
taped interaction.
The ethnomethodological approach can thus be distinguishe
efforts to be rigorous in the microanalysis of small segments of inter
whereas phenomenology comprehends a far larger philosophical
tion toward understanding the subjective interpretation of events
Related to such approaches are developments in other interpr
approaches in Britain and, more recently, North America. The w
Michael Young and Basil Bernstein laid the foundations for an int
tion of school life and the use of language which lent a more comp
largely unresearched) theoretical framework to educational re
Bernstein's work exists somewhere between the "given" categori
called objective social science and the essentially fluid and subjec
terpretations of the phenomenologists. Young's contribution in pa
was to question the "givenness" of categories of school organizat
as curriculum or discipline and to relate them to the interests of t
controlled the structure of school organization (a somewhat Webe
tion). Bernstein's contribution was to attempt to delineate the w
which language was used, taught, and learned (or resisted) by thos
that educational and social framework. Bernstein's early analy
somewhat static, his later work provides an adequate framework f
language as controlled by particular class interests.
Young's and Bernstein's work was accompanied by the rise of a
pretative approach used by several researchers.32 Many studies h
published which document the "problematic" definition of the r
"29 Ibid., p. 245.
30 Ibid., p. 248.
31 Michael Young, Knowledge and Control (London: Collier Macmillan, 1971); Basil
Class, Codes and Control, vol. 1, Theoretical Studies towards a Sociology of Language
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1971), vol.2, Applied Studies towards a Sociology of Languag
Routledge 8c Kegan Paul, 1973), and vol.3, Towards a Theory of Educational Transmissio
Routledge &8 Kegan Paul, 1977).
32 Michael Flude and John Ahier, Educability, Schools, and Ideology (New York: Wil
Peter Woods and Martyn Hammersley, School Experience: Explorations in the Sociology o
(New York: St. Martin's, 1977).

6 February 1982

This content downloaded from 101.203.170.9 on Wed, 18 Sep 2019 02:39:09 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 CRITICAL ETHNOGRAPHY

schooling and particularly curriculum. These interpretative

with the ethnomethodologists the emphasis on the subjecti
tion of events by the actors and the necessity to interpret t
sequences of interaction.
These scholars, who are beginning to have an impact on
North America, all emerged from the British research tra
views on primary education were influenced by the long h
gressivism in English education, and particularly in that p
abolition of the 11+ examination for secondary school entr
they were particularly receptive to ideas of spontaneity, f
openness in curriculum and definitions of curriculum as "n
"created" by teacher-student interaction. Whitty has terme
thinking "possibilitarian," in that researchers and teachers
alike thought that the "new" sociology could open up new p
improving classroom life and education in general.35
The values and limitations of the "new" sociology for
education are difficult to discern and complex in their natu
backs of doing classroom research with little reference to th
social structure are again evident as with other phenom
proaches. However, it seems even more difficult to consider
school organization as problematic in countries with (a)
centralized political control as in France, or (b) a history of
and veneration of colonial education, or (c) a strong religio
to education. I would argue that the new sociology in Englan
historically and socially specific development. It arose in a c
strongly decentralized educational system in which teacher
autonomous professional association (the National Union
and a great deal of control over curricular innovation, and
elite private educational sector was performing the task of
duction for the elite."6 In comparative studies, one would n
the cultural context of studies of classroom interaction and
In countries in which formal education is a scarce and v
seems unlikely that a high degree of flexibility would exis
organization. In ex-colonial countries (which often have ties
pole), where schools are derived from foreign models and w
bus has strong external roots, a spontaneous approach to th
unlikely. Moreover, where high school entrance is controll

"33 Margaret Archer, Social Origins of Educational Systems (London and Bev
Sage, 1979), pp. 567-68.
"34 Richard J. W. Selleck, English Primary Education and the Progressives 1
Routledge &c Kegan Paul, 1972).
35 Geoff Whitty, "Schools and the Problem of Radical Educational Change," in
pp. 112-37.
36 Archer, chap. 8.

Comparative Education Review 7

This content downloaded from 101.203.170.9 on Wed, 18 Sep 2019 02:39:09 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 MASEMANN

bottleneck by nationally administered examinations, the primary

pupils' parents are unlikely to want them to "learn at their own
Last, the blurring of the work/play distinction in philosophies of
sive education would clearly find an unsympathetic audience in p
who perceive a highly structured formal education as the key to
children's future. Thus a comparative study of teacher education i
countries would probably not uncover the same extent of "possibi
thinking as in the English setting.
This raises another topic of concern for comparative education
implicit evolutionary thinking about pedagogy in which teaching
ceived as progressing from "rote" to "structured" to "open." The
supported by the educational literature on innovation and diffus
which more modern or sophisticated methods are seen as diff
Third World countries or to more "rigid" systems.37 An interpr
analysis of the adoption of various kinds of educational innovati
yield extemely interesting data (for example, in attempts to teach
Math in West Africa).38 However, it is important to understand
extent such interpretative analysis, itself the product of a particu
and political climate, would serve to mask the social context of ed
al innovation in economically dependent, neocolonial, highly stru
educational systems.
To end this section on interpretative approaches, one can consid
issues in comparative education and how they might be illuminat
such approaches. Far too often the trivia of everyday school life
into the "taken-for-granted" categories of questionnaires or check
servation sheets. These interpretative approaches could be used to
tage to dissect the taken-for-grantedness of such terms as social st
tion, achievement, curriculum, pedagogy, school discipline, innov
teacher training, and now such newer terms as competency-base
tion, behavioral objectives, therapeutic intervention, change agent
on. Some useful comparative interpretative studies could be done o
tivity to new curriculum units, to students' perceptions of the sc
achievement hierarchy, or of the education/employment relat
However, from a noninterpretative standpoint all such studies ar
ently limited by their lack of generalizability, their lack of connec
wider theoretical framework, and their essentially (suppressed) fun
ist analysis of social relations. While they give insights into the w
of an educational reality, the sum of all such realities does not add
study of comparative education which would satisfy those interes
more general theory of school/society relationships.
37 Douglas Foley, "Colonialism and Schooling in the Philippines from 1898 to 197
Altbach and G. Kelly, eds., Education and Colonialism (New York: Longman, 1978).
"8 John Gay and Michael Cole, The New Mathematics and an Old Culture (New Y
Rinehart &c Winston, 1967).

8 February 1982

This content downloaded from 101.203.170.9 on Wed, 18 Sep 2019 02:39:09 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 CRITICAL ETHNOGRAPHY

Critical Approaches

Critical approaches are distinguished from interpretati

primarily by their connection to theoretical perspectives w
to a general theory of society and a concept of social struct
beyond the actor's perception of it. Conflict sociology can b
step away from functionalist approaches, while recent st
neo-Marxist approaches are somewhat further removed, or
thetical. Critical approaches emphasize class conflict, the d
ests of various classes, and their differing relationship to
from) the workings of the educational system.
Conflict approaches in sociology generally parade under
an inverted functionalism. In the writings of Weber and
emphasis was still on social integration rather than on ba
tions or a social dialectic. The legacy of such thinking
proaches in the sociology of education has been a search fo
of conflict (e.g., teacher-student interaction as in Lacey's
studies), and the ignoring of massive contradictions in th
between schools and student culture."9 Bowles and Gintis,
not only conflict theorists but neo-Marxists, carry this s
somewhat further.46 They use statistical analysis in an att
strate that social class structure is reproduced by schools
various classes of children for their roles in the workplace
class-based personality traits. Not enough critical analysis
their study, except for attempts by Michael Apple to analy
of personality traits that actually exist in the workplace.41
such as Olneck and Bills's, use essentially similar statistica
demonstrate the accuracy (or lack thereof) of Bowles and Gint
Probably of greater utility than the emphasis on perso
Bowles and Gintis's "theory of correspondence," that the
of production are mirrored in the social relations of educ
complex industrialized societies, with reasonably indigeno
systems, a one-to-one correspondence between the functio
of the schools and their relationship to the economic syste
class relationships often does not exist. From a comparati
view, it is an even more complex issue to examine the sch
class/status legitimation in former colonial countries wit
education and competing indigenous status systems. Few s
19 Colin Lacey, Hightown Grammar (Manchester: Manchester University Pr
Hargreaves, Social Relations in a Secondary School (London: Routledge &c Ke
40 Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America (New
41 Michael Apple, "The Other Side of the Hidden Curriculum: Corresponden
Labour Process," Journal of Education 162, no.1 (Winter 1980): 47-66.
42 Michael R. Olneck and David B. Bills, "What Makes Sammy Run?: An Emp
the Bowles-Gintis Correspondence Theory" (Discussion Paper no. 574-79, Instit
Poverty, Madison, Wis., 1979).

Comparative Education Review 9

This content downloaded from 101.203.170.9 on Wed, 18 Sep 2019 02:39:09 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 MASEMANN

amined "resistance" to Western education except as some kind of

of "failed" foreign aid, and there is only one that I can cite that ex
the contradictions that students experience in certain aspects of the cu
lum or school organization.43 The greater task posed in Bowles and
work, however, would be to examine correspondence in countries wh
social relations of industrial production are basically foreign own
place to start on this task is, for example, Canada. The 1976 OECD
on Canadian education clearly documents its lack of national purp
its continuing reliance on American pedagogical models.44 Another
investigation that would tie in to Bowles and Gintis's work is the s
higher education in Third World countries and its reliance on the
relations of higher education" of the metropole. Such work has been
being done by Philip Altbach and Robert Arnove, and several o
issues are briefly taken up in the volume on colonial education ed
Altbach and Kelly.45 However, they need to be set in a theoretical
work in which colonialism is examined not sui generis, but as par
larger theory of social relations.
A work of far more structuralist derivation is that of Pierre Bourdieu in
France, but its implications for comparative education may be similar to
those of Bowles and Gintis.46 Bourdieu postulates that the educational
system reproduces in stratified form the cultural capital (in the form of
ideas, rather than physical capital) of the dominant class. He shows how
children come to acquire the correct framework of thinking about the
material they are learning.47 In a way similar to the British "new" soci-
ology of education, however, the very rigid French structuralist approach
could be viewed as itself a cultural product compatible with the highly
centralized French educational system. Thus to apply such an analysis
comparatively, one would have to fit it to a similar type of system. It would
probably be useful to have such an analysis, for example, of the Russian
educational system, with particular reference to ethnic minorities and cul-
tural reproduction. Another interesting comparative analysis would be of
cultural reproduction in former French colonies. In this way the data from
Clignet and Foster's "Fortunate Few" in the Ivory Coast could be seen in

43 Philip Wexler, "Educational Change and Social Contradiction: An Example," Comparative

Education Review 23 (1979): 240-55.
44 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, Reviews of National Policies for
Education: Canada (Paris: OECD, 1976).
45 Philip Altbach and Gail Kelly, eds., Education and Colonialism (New York: Longman, 1978);
Robert Arnove, "Comparative Education and World-Systems Analysis," Comparative Education Re-
view 24 (1980): 48-62.
46 Pierre Bourdieu and Jean-Claude Passeron, Reproduction in Education, Society, and Culture
(London: Sage, 1977).
47 Pierre Bourdieu, "Systems of Education and Systems of Thought," in Roger Dale, ed., School-
ing and Capitalism (London: Routledge &c Kegan Paul, with the Open University Press, 1976),
pp. 192-200.

10 February 1982

This content downloaded from 101.203.170.9 on Wed, 18 Sep 2019 02:39:09 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 CRITICAL ETHNOGRAPHY

an entirely new light.48 The role of higher education in

countries could also be usefully viewed from such a perspe
would greatly enhance the "elite formation" or "studen
literature.
One note of caution concerning structuralist approaches. An overem-
phasis on the formal properties of educational systems can lead back to the
classic definition of comparative education as the comparison of national
systems of education and their structures. It seems important not to forget
that formal systems do not necessarily operate in a flawless manner to
dispense cultural capital in prescribed doses, nor do they need to in order
to fulfill their function. Archer, for example, documents how regional,
class, and ethnic interests are so poorly served in centralized educational
systems, and yet this is not apparently undermining the legitimacy of the
education endeavor itself.49
Neo-Marxist approaches, unlike structuralist approaches, are far re-
moved from postulating a simple correspondence between the form
properties of systems and their ideal workings. As Young's and Bernstein
work presaged, neo-Marxist interpretations of school life have questione
the established categories of education and have raised fundamental que
tions about the social control functions of schools and the social contradic-
tions they create or participate in. Sharp and Green's study of progressive
primary education in an English school uses a Marxist framework in
which to insert an ethnographic account of teachers' use of the rhetoric of
progressivism to control working-class students.50 However, their analysis,
while referring briefly to the social class composition of the surrounding
community, does not go much beyond the classroom.
Paul Willis's account of the school experiences of a group of working-
class "lads" in the English Midlands goes further toward tying together
the world of control in school and in the workplace.51 He postulates that
working-class resistance to middle-class control, which legitimates the
lads' identity in their own eyes, seals their destiny as manual workers in the
capitalist system. Willis seeks to explore the social relations which exist
beyond the lads' perceptions of them. As he expresses it: "This most cen-
tral point of reference is an absent or at least silent centre beneath the
splendid bedizenment of a culture. It is impossible to prove its rational-
ity. ... That is why the ethnography of visible forms is limited."52

48 Remi Clignet and Philip Foster, The Fortunate Few (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University
Press, 1966).
49 See n. 33 above.
50 Rachel Sharp and Anthony Green, Education and Social Control (London: Routledge &c Kegan
Paul, 1975).
51 Paul Willis, Learning to Labour: How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs (West-
mead: Saxon House, 1977).
52 Ibid., p. 121.

Comparative Education Review 11

This content downloaded from 101.203.170.9 on Wed, 18 Sep 2019 02:39:09 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 MASEMANN

Michael Apple has taken Willis's analysis further in his examin

resistance among workers and among teachers themselves."5 He ar
the increasing professionalism of teachers' jobs removes increasin
of the task-related decisions from their immediate ken, as in the use of
prepackaged curriculum materials with the directions outlined in the
minutest detail. This process is analogous to that in the factory, where
workers are being deskilled by highly sophisticated machinery which re-
moves their decision-making capacity for even the simplest tasks. Apple
refers also to the deskilling of women workers in computerized "word
processing centres" (formerly known as typing pools). In addition, the
deskilling of parenthood has occurred as more reliance was placed on
outside experts and child-rearing manuals and that of housework with the
invention by men of labor-saving devices for women.54
To place this analysis in comparative perspective, it is not difficult to
view the diffusion of Western education intenationally as part of a massive
deskilling process of Third World populations in terms of indigenous
systems of language, symbols, art, folklore, music, and knowledge itself.
Moreover, indigenous systems of technology and "science" have been par-
ticularly undermined, so much so that anthropologists have debated for
some years as to whether indigenous "science" ever existed.55 The underly-
ing ethos of "development education" itself was the assumption that eco-
nomic systems and thus, automatically, knowledge systems, were undevel-
oped. The protests of those who resist the label of "undeveloped" are
largely squelched or muted in the colonial experience. If one views the
persistence of Koranic schooling as a form of cultural resistance, one has
only to look at Western distrust of the Moslem world to understand how
threatening is the refusal of many to be called "undeveloped."
Thus the comparative study of the worldwide trend toward educational
entropy, formerly thought to be "enlightenment," would be an interesting
one. The progressive deskilling of teachers and students alike in computer-
assisted, packaged, individualized learning systems in North American
schools and the diffusion of such techniques to countries effectively con-
trolled economically from outside present a rich field for research.

Critical Ethnography

The final topic for discussion in this essay is the specific utility to the
study of comparative education of critical ethnography. What particular
aspects of ethnography and critical perspectives are embodied in such an
approach?

53Michael Apple, "Curricular Form and the Logic of Technical Control: Building the Possessive
Individual," mimeographed (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1979).
54 Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism (New York: Warner, 1979).
55 Claude Levi-Strauss, The Savage Mind (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966).

12 February 1982

This content downloaded from 101.203.170.9 on Wed, 18 Sep 2019 02:39:09 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 CRITICAL ETHNOGRAPHY

From ethnography, the main emphases are on participan

of the small scale as a method, with an attempt to understa
and symbolic life of the actors involved. Willis points out
pant-observation, and the methods under its aegis, displ
towards naturalism and therefore to conservatism. . . . Still we cannot in-
vent a form out of its time. . . . The ethnographic account, for all its faults,
records a critical level of experience and through its very biases insists on a
level of human agency which is persistently overlooked or denied. ... ."56
Willis places such a study firmly within a wider theoretical framework of
cultural forms and reproduction in which the researcher can make state-
ments about the researched that they themselves would never say: "Capi-
talist freedoms are potentially real freedoms, and capitalism takes the
wager, which is the essence of reproduction, that the freedoms will be used
for self-damnation. The dominant class could never batten down the hatch
on these freedoms without help from below."57
Thus Willis uses a language and concepts derived from perspectives
that are not ultimately the actors', even though the method he uses to
gather their perceptions is very similar to that used by the phenomenolo-
gists or the symbolic interactionists. In the study of comparative educa-
tion, it should also be possible to use such a method to investigate the lived
life in schools while not necessarily limiting the analysis to the actors'
perceptions of their situation. Arnove's work on world systems analysis
demonstrates the interlinkage of life chances for students in all countries,
depending on their particular position in the hegemonic structure, as
recipients of educational "aid" or as potential elites.58 It should be possible
to ground theoretical perspectives on such problems in ethnographic
studies of educational innovation (or conservatism). Detailed studies of
curricular diffusion from the metropole and cultural reproduction in the
recipient countries could be carried out. Studies of the diffusion of educa-
tional television might be even more important.
Diffusion studies of "information" have, however, generally been done
on the assumption that the intent of the information senders was to en-
lighten, or at least to convince, the recipients. Foley's recent work on
critical ethnography based on Habermas's work on miscommunication
questions this assumption. The concepts which he sees most useful in
investigating by critical ethnography are those of labor in the schools,
student alienation, reification and fetishization of ideas, and commodifica-
tion of many aspects of educational life such as curriculum "packages,"
educational credentials, subject credits, and ultimately the educational life

56 Willis, p. 194.
57 Ibid., p. 175.
51 See n. 45 above.

Comparative Education Review 13

This content downloaded from 101.203.170.9 on Wed, 18 Sep 2019 02:39:09 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 MASEMANN

itself. Foley sees the need to uncover the basic contradictions in th

of school existence and in the school/work dichotomy.
Foley's suggestions for a "description of alienated communicat
school" are the study of the conditions of production and nature o
in schools and of the concomitant social relations of productio
relations give rise to certain patterns of socialization and (mis) com
cation which occur in classrooms. Teachers and students "manipu
transform managerial norms of production and techniques of con
various tactics, such as work avoidance, trivialization by cheat
tancing work by "cool demeanor," playing with work, escaping w
absenteeism or ritual disruptions, literalizing work by "mindless a
or rebelling against work.59
In such a setting, students learn "the set of dispositions and c
nicative incompetencies needed to legitimate post-industrial capita
Under the label of "technological rationality," teachers and studen
to transform questions of ethics into questions of technique, and
ing becomes an attempt to carve up knowledge into manageable c
lum pieces. Knowledge becomes conceived as "(1) form with little
diate substance or use value and (2) a commodity with consider
change value through the organization's credit and credentiall
tem."61 Such knowledge also becomes theoretical and disassociate
praxis; indeed praxis itself becomes irrelevant, as knowledge and
tials are hoarded for future "use."
Foley notes that the only way of studying the techniques that scho
and teachers use to organize, model, practice, and reward the behaviors
socialize students into the technological rationality is in critical ethno
raphy.62
The implications of such an approach in comparative education are
profound. It would be possible to study village schools in any country in
terms of socialization into preferred language dialects or national lan-
guage, for example. At the secondary school level, various forms of sociali-
zation into the national political culture could be examined. At the univer-
sity level, socialization of elites and concomitant value orientations could
be studied. In general, all forms of penetration of dominant ideology or
imported innovative "rationality" could be studied in a comparative sense.
Systems of student credentialling, the socialization of Third World gradu-
ate students in the universities of the metropole, and the penetration of
computer technologies into high school classrooms are all topics that
59 Douglas Foley, "Labour and Legitimation in Schools: Notes on Doing Ethnography " (revised
version of paper presented at the Comparative and International Education Society meeting, Ann
Arbor, Mich., 1979), mimeographed (University of Texas at Austin, Department of Anthropology,
1980), p.31.
60 Ibid., p. 34.
61 Ibid., p. 35.
62 Ibid., p. 38.

14 February 1982

This content downloaded from 101.203.170.9 on Wed, 18 Sep 2019 02:39:09 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 CRITICAL ETHNOGRAPHY

could be studied ethnographiclly and also in macrolevel surve

the process of educational entropy which consists of the ever m
spread of certain old and new forms of "rationality" could b
lenging new field of research in comparative education.

Comparative Education Review 15

This content downloaded from 101.203.170.9 on Wed, 18 Sep 2019 02:39:09 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms