Field access

I first met the research participants of my doctoral study in August 2011, when I conducted initial fieldwork. I met the teachers in the staff room, the parents at parents’ meetings, and the students in classes and during breaks. I introduced myself as a researcher interested in language and education.

I arrived to the field as a new member of a team of language researchers, who had carried out

fieldwork in the school setting from 2009 (Madsen, Karrebæk and Møller 2015). This ensured my formal access to the field, and it indeed supported my informal access. The staff, teachers and students were used to having participant observers in and out of classrooms, and most of them were familiar with the identity label, “language researcher”.

From the beginning of my fieldwork, I deliberately conceived of myself as an “instrument of the ethnography” (Heath and Street 2008: 57). I strived, on the one hand, to establish trustful and respectful relationships with the research participants in order to gain understanding of their world views, and, on the other hand, to establish analytical distance to what I observed, and the lenses through which I observed, as shaped by my previous experiences, in order to facilitate a reflexive research process. Although the school that was the setting of my study constituted an unknown field to me, my background as a student in various educational settings, and as an educator in a teacher’s college shaped familiarity. Throughout fieldwork, I strategically worked on establishing analytical distance in order to enhance the validity of my study, by placing myself in a position comparable to what Corsaro (1996: 425) has labelled the “atypical adult”. The atypical adult is a person who strives not to enact like what children may conceive of as typical adult roles in the field. In the school setting the typical adult would be the teacher. In the home the typical adult would be the parent.

I arrived in school with my black backpack filled with notebook, pens, camera, and audio- and video-recording devices. I distributed microphones among children, took notes, followed cohorts of students across mainstream classes and Arabic heritage language classes, remained silent as far as possible and communicated according to what I perceived as local norms. Hence, I made myself available for questions from the research participants. Most of all, I observed and listened patiently and extensively to students, teachers and parents. I did not engage in typical adults’ activities, such as teaching, praising or disciplining students in the school, nor did I enact in maternal ways towards children in the home. Unless situations of force majeure emerged, I refrained from helping children manage conflicts. I sidestepped invitations to engage in intimate friendships, and I did not advise the teachers.

It was easy for me to build rapport with the research participants. I had children around the same age as the focal participants, and I was about the same age as many of the parents. This

demographic mutuality shaped trust. Several research participants volunteered to be my gatekeepers (Hammersley and Atkinson 2007). For instance, a couple of parents invited me to visit their homes.

The relationships I established with the participants also varied with the contexts. For instance, during home visits I engaged extensively with children and parents, whereas during classroom activities I could take a more distanced and observant position.

In short, I strived to strike a balance between proximity and distance by participating according to local norms, being aware of, and distinguishing between what I observed and my interpretations of the research participants’ actions. For instance, in school I took notes during observations, but in the home of Mohsen, I made field entries after leaving, as the participant-observation I conducted there entailed by a larger degree of close involvement. I strived to “resist my preconceptions” during fieldwork (Heath and Street 2008: 42) by avoiding socially irresponsible entries and distinguishing verbatim respondent items from my own interpretations during data collection. My colleague Hyttel-Sørensen (2017), commenting on my field diaries, noted that they were:

“extremely thorough and detailed, with objective descriptions of what the pupils say and do. Her field notes often contain examples of writing made by either teachers or pupils. Her observations also involve several meta-comments relating to the

ethnography itself, such as deliberations on how the pupils react to the presence of the ethnographer, or what status the ethnographer has in comparison with a teacher”.

(Hyttel-Sørensen 2017: 32-33).

Hyttel-Sørensen notes that I describe the actions of the research participants and reflect upon the ethnographic process itself while observing. Thus, I aimed to establish a balance between proximity and distance by distinguishing between what I observed (what students and teachers said and how they behaved) and how I interpretated the situations I observed and participated in. Students, teachers, and parents, positioned me in a variety of roles, at different times, that can be described along a continuum ranging from insider and outsider positions, as well as novice and expert

positions. For instance, students positioned me as a teacher, friend, ethnic Dane, adult caretaker and researcher. Teachers positioned me as a researcher. As the fieldwork progressed, the teachers increasingly trusted me. After classes they often contributed unsolicited comments on what had taken place and provided me with their views on the students. In these situations, the teachers were

using me as a vehicle to unburden themselves after what may have been a frustrating or stressful situation. Parents positioned me as a friend, an ethnic majority Dane, adult caretaker and researcher.

Across time, my role as atypical adult thickened, and turned out to be a helpful aspect of the research process.

I have only very limited linguistic knowledge of Arabic language and literacy. In particular, the children, but also their parents, came to see me as an “incompetent” adult (Corsaro 1996: 449) who did not master the linguistic repertoires they practiced daily. For instance, on home visits in several families, the children arranged informal and playful teaching activities so that I could improve my poor Arabic skills. These activities provided a window for me to better understand the parents and children’s understandings of language and schooling. It was during such activities in Mohsen’s home that Mohsen’s mother repeatedly told me about her views on schooling, language, her concern for Mohsen not learning, and his transnational family history of schooling that – as I later figured out - helped shape Mohsen’s trajectory as a smart student. Thus, the role I came to inhabit across time, as an imcompetent adult, helped me gain insight into crucial issues.