TY - JOUR
AU - Smith,, Yvonne
AB - Abstract Ethnographic studies of people at the margins of society, struggling with complex and intertwined personal and social problems, have provided useful insights to social work students and practitioners. Similarly, ethnographic studies of social work practice have provided deeper understandings of how professionals work with individuals, groups and organizations. It has been argued that, given the similarities in the skills required to be an ethnographer and a professional social worker, ethnography should be included in social work curricula, both as an approach to research and as a way to enhance practice skills. The main contribution of this article is to extend this argument using the novel approach of exploring the similarities and divergences between the epistemological approaches of ethnography and social work, in terms of how knowledge is sought, constructed and critically questioned. epistemology, ethnography, social work research Ethnography has been used as a research approach to develop insights into work and workplaces generally (Lave and Wenger, 1991; Maynard and Clayman, 1991; Smith, 1991) and social work practice in, for example, child welfare (De Montigny, 1995; Gillingham, 2009; Ferguson, 2010; Hardesty, 2015), children’s residential care (Smith, 2014, 2017, 2018), mental health care (Brodwin, 2013; Jobling, 2014), substance abuse treatment (Carr, 2011) and mental health policy implementation (Spitzmueller, 2013). Ethnographic studies conducted by social work researchers are, however, relatively rare compared to other forms of interpretivist research conducted by social work researchers. In a study of seventy-five dissertations completed between 2008 and 2010 in US social work doctoral programs, Gringeri et al. (2013) found that ethnographic methods were mentioned in only 13 per cent of studies. As mentioned by the authors cited in this introduction (e.g. Shaw, 2011; De Montigny, 2018), ethnography as an approach to social work research is rarely taught or practiced at undergraduate or postgraduate levels. To both authors, admittedly both ethnographers, the relative scarcity of ethnographic research and teaching seems given the clear similarities between the knowledge and skills required for social work practice and for ethnographic research (Carr, 2011; Gioia, 2014). For example, Shaw (2011), citing Goldstein (1994), describes the affinity between social work practice and ethnography and proposes ethnography as both a source and a model for social work practice. Floersch et al. (2014) draw attention to the participant-observer aspect of social work practice, in which practitioners observe situations and use theory to try to understand and make sense of them. De Montigny (2018) argues that ethnographic studies of the ‘messy’ and complicated world of social work, grounded as it is in the day-to-day reality of service users’ lives, make a useful contribution to social sciences. The main contribution of this article is to further the case for the inclusion of ethnography in social work curricula, as both a research approach and a way to enhance social work practice. While there are both ontological and even axiological similarities between ethnography and social work, a novel approach has been taken in this article to explore the similarities and divergences between the epistemological approaches of ethnography and social work, in terms of how knowledge is sought, constructed and critically questioned. As part of this exploration, one’s aim is to explain and therefore de-mystify some of the lexicon of ethnography, a lexicon that can discourage both students and developing researchers. Before exploring these domains, a brief definition of ethnography for social workers is provided. Defining ethnography for social workers Volumes have been written which explore the history and development of ethnography as an approach to research, but space precludes a full exploration. For the purpose of this article, it is sufficient to provide a simple description of what ethnographers do and the end result of their endeavors. Ten Have (2002) describes traditional ethnographic data collection (or ‘fieldwork’), in the context of studying work practices, as ‘closely observing situated activities in their natural settings and discussing them with the seasoned practitioners, to study the competences involved in the routine performance of these activities’ (p. 7). Although ethnographic studies can include a range of specific data collection techniques, including quantitative components, sustained participant observation in the lifeworlds of participants is typically at the center of ethnographic inquiry. Ten Have’s description might also fit ethnographic studies of service users or other marginalized groups. For example, in a study of homeless youth, the competences required in the routine performance of activities may involve negotiating with government and non-government agencies for money and services and finding food and a safe place to sleep. Such a study might be described as ‘microethnography’ as it focuses on ‘the face-to-face interactions of members of the group or institution under investigation’ (Berg, 2001, p. 136). Exploring broader social and economic contexts of these interactions to understand how, using the example of youth homelessness, government policy shapes the lives of these young people are referred to as ‘macroethnography’. At their best, ethnographic studies (and social work education) can make visible the complex processes that cross the artificial divide between micro- and macrosocial work practice, showing the ways in which the actions of workers respond to and shape theories, organizations, policy and social conditions and vice versa. For example, Hardesty’s (2018) study of social workers and foster parents in a US adoption agency uses close attention to the conversations of informants to demonstrate the ways in which adoption policy and the cultural assumption that parenting is necessarily outside the labor market shape the experiences of foster parents and the quality of services available to children in care. Her close attention to the speech of informants also reveals processes through which problematic assumptions about the value of ‘women’s work’ are reproduced at the institutional level. Social work educators generally go to great lengths to design curricula that encourage students to consider the wider social context through the study of sociology, social policy, politics, law and ethics. The challenge for students is understanding how contexts for practice and the social problems they aim to address are created, sustained and changed and how they affect individuals, groups and communities. In short, they are tasked throughout their studies with understanding the connections between micro- and macro-level phenomena, otherwise conceptualized as the personal and the political (Halmos, 1978), the sociological imagination (Wright Mills, 1959), or, more recently, through theories of practice that attend to the co-productive relationships between social structure and human agency (e.g. Bourdieu, 1977; Giddens, 1991;). We suggest that the skills of ethnographic inquiry are uniquely well-suited to helping students both understand these complex relationships and help service users based on these understandings. Key tenets of social work and ethnography We suggest that social work and ethnographic inquiry share in common at least seven different epistemological tenets that are fundamental to the practice of both. It is to be expected that further debate and research will elicit new insights into the similarities and differences in the epistemologies of ethnography and social work. There is considerable overlap between some of the domains and, while some may be intertwined and/or interdependent in practice, they have been artificially separated for the purpose of discussion. Relationships are fundamental Ethnographic fieldwork typically involves prolonged engagement with participants to develop a detailed, in-depth account of how people understand and behave in their particular social context. This may mean spending weeks, months or years observing and interacting with research participants in their own everyday contexts, for example, with child protection workers in public agencies (Gillingham, 2009), police officers on patrol (see Lumsden and Black, 2018) or parents of children with disabilities at home, at school and in hospitals (Mattingly, 2014). The long-term relationships that the researcher builds with her or his informants facilitate reliable, longitudinal accounts of informants’ experience with sensitivity to how the world appears from the situated perspective of the informant. Relationships between social workers and service users are fundamental to social work practice. Social work texts emphasize the importance of relationship at every stage of the social work process (e.g. Shulman, 2006). These texts, following on from Biestek’s (1957) principles of social work, are also very clear about the elements that constitute a sound professional relationship, such as trust, a non-judgmental attitude and confidentiality. In clinical practice, contemporary research has robustly demonstrated that the therapeutic relationship is not simply a context in which an intervention is ‘delivered’ but is itself a powerful active ingredient in positive change (Duncan et al., 2010). Relationships between social workers and service users have been considered as the ‘basic means’ of social work intervention (Proctor, 1982), and the ‘importance of human relationships’ is included as a value in the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) Code of Ethics, with the ethical principle: Social workers understand that relationships between and among people are an important vehicle for change. Social workers engage people as partners in the helping process. Social workers seek to strengthen relationships among people in a purposeful effort to promote, restore, maintain, and enhance the well-being of individuals, families, social groups, organizations, and communities. (NASW, 2018) These elements also apply to relationships between an ethnographer and research participants, except that confidentiality might be couched in terms of anonymity. While relationship building with participants and service users might follow similar processes, their aims are obviously different. Although the ethnographer may, indeed, view her or his research as a vehicle for social change, the production of knowledge is always the primary goal. For the social worker, the production of knowledge about service users and their social contexts is in the service of facilitating positive change of some kind. For both ethnographers and social workers, any achievement of goals though is highly dependent on the relationships that they can establish with research participants and service users. Dialogic production of knowledge At the simplest level, dialog can be defined as a conversation between two or more people. In the context of the disciplines of communication studies and education, using the word ‘dialog’ to describe a verbal interaction implies that each participant is able to make statements with reference to validity claims rather than power claims, that is with reference to facts or experiences rather than the rank or positioning of the speaker. The aim of dialog is to develop a shared understanding (Wells, 1999), with ‘participation’ and ‘empowerment’ as underlying principles (Phillips, 2011). This definition fits well with the practice of social work and ethnography. Social workers rely heavily on communication with service users to develop mutual understanding and discovery (Gioia, 2014; De Montigny, 2018). Indeed, ethnographic research has been used to expose and understand how authority works in particular social work contexts (e.g. Carr, 2011; Hardesty, 2015). Engaging people in discussion about what they do and why it is considered as an essential skill in qualitative research generally and ethnographic fieldwork in particular (Van Maanen, 2011). But the development of understanding in ethnographic studies may be more one-sided as the aim for the researcher to understand the practices of research participants. The participants may or may not come to understand more about ethnographic research but that is not typically the aim. However, anthropologists have conceptualized the ethnographic endeavor itself as a kind of reflexive dialog between different worlds of experience and meaning that can shed new light on the theories and constructs of the field site and those of the academy (Carr, 2011). N = 1 Though the single case in social work practice is not the same as the single case referred to by ethnographers, there are similarities. Social workers frequently work with groups of individuals, such as families and people in residential or daycare settings and even whole communities defined by geography and/or similarities. Consequently, there is resonance between the notions of the single case in social work and ethnography. As Floersch et al. (2014) have put it, ‘each client represents a particular, a case, and it is never that a social worker confronts a client as a generalized other (the client is an N of 1); in practice a statistical average is an abstraction’ (p. 3). Contexts and social problems that have their origins in social structures, such as poverty and homelessness, may be similar across cases but the way that any individual reacts to their circumstances and the resources they bring into a situation may be very different. In the epistemology of social work practice, even groups—like families, therapy groups, or communities—are viewed as single, potentially unique cases. This remains fundamental even as the evidence-based practice movement in social work has called practitioners to engage with ‘big N’ quantitative studies as a primary way of determining how to intervene in a particular service user system (Drisko and Grady, 2012). Although ethnographic studies are often informed by quantitative research, they typically focus on a phenomenon as it occurs in a single or just a few sites. Although ethnographic studies sometimes report the number of people who participated in the study, they typically still frame the field site as a whole as a single case. An organization or institution, such as a psychiatric hospital or a day center for people with disabilities, might be considered a field site. So might a group of three online communities of, for example, people with autism spectrum disorders. Organizations may have several branches or area offices and an ethnographic study may compare and contrast how employees in one location react to a phenomenon, such as new work practices or digital technologies with another location. This can be especially insightful in social work organizations when new practice models or directives are implemented with the aim of promoting consistency in service delivery (Gillingham, 2009) or more effective, ethical or efficient care (Spitzmueller, 2014, 2018). Data analysis and assessment Ethnographers use a range of approaches and techniques to analyze their data, according to the form of the data, which may include field notes, audio- or video-recorded interviews, important locally circulated documents, and photographs or videos of events. Some ethnographers analyze their data by identifying emic (or internal) themes within the texts created from their field notes (Lundberg and Syltevik, 2016) akin to ‘thematic analysis’ of qualitative data as described by Braun and Clarke (2006). These emic accounts are often reflexively placed in dialog with etic accounts informed by academic theories and knowledge such that the two perspectives inform one another (Carr, 2011). Ethnographers also use different sources of data in comparative ways to ‘triangulate’ their findings (Rubin and Babbie, 2005) and/or explore the differences between policy (espoused theory) and practice (theory in use) (Argyris and Schön, 1996). Distinct theoretical approaches or conceptual frameworks may be used to guide data analysis, such as critical discourse analysis (Ladner, 2016). Ethnography, as the suffix ‘graphy’ implies, is about the process of writing an account of the findings of research. For many ethnographers, writing a detailed narrative (Sloane, 2016) about their findings is very much part of data analysis and interpretation. This detailed narrative has been referred to as a ‘thick description’. As Geertz (1973) explains, a ‘thin description’ may note what participants say about their behavior or a cursory accounting of observed actions, but ‘thick description’ makes available to readers the situated meanings and import of social action. An important part of creating a ‘thick description’ is understanding and accurately conveying the meanings and understandings of participants ‘as they make sense in that cultural context’. To this end, a key strategy in qualitative research is ‘member checking’ (Lincoln and Guba, 1985), where the researcher might reinterview participants and/or share some of their findings with participants to check the accuracy of their interpretation. Ethnographers have the advantage when conducting long-term participant observations of being able to check their interpretations with participants continuously as part of fieldwork rather than a distinct stage of the research (Smith, 2014). Another strategy is to employ the idea from Grounded Theory (Glaser and Strauss, 1967; Corbin and Strauss, 2014) of ‘theoretical sampling’. Data are analyzed iteratively as data collection proceeds and the questions, ideas, concepts, contradictions and tentative theories that emerge are used to guide subsequent data collection. Subsequent data collection may involve asking more questions to seek clarification of what has been observed (Gillingham, 2016). Watson (2012) describes how ethnographers work as ‘theorists in the field’. Both established theory and emerging theory may be a resource for guiding fieldwork, with the new theory being the outcome of the thinking process stimulated by the process of putting new data in conversation with existing and emerging theories. Hammersley and Atkinson (2007) describe this as an iterative process in which ‘ideas are used to make sense of data and data are used change . . ideas’ (p. 159). The notion of ‘theorists in the field’ also describes how social workers use theories, ideas and professional experience to interpret meaning when they interact with service users. They might use a range of decision-making tools, based on different theoretical approaches, to make sense of a service user’s situation or be mandated to use a particular set of decision-making tools (Gillingham et al., 2017). Qualified social workers will also have learned about how social work theory has been developed from various streams of psychology, sociology and the humanities more generally (see, e.g. Payne, 2014). Healy (2014) stresses the importance for social workers to relate theory not just to practice but also to the context of that practice. De Montigny (2018) points out the similarity in approaches to theory between ethnographers and social workers: ‘for both social workers and ethnographers, a generic approach and eclecticism are justified by a real-world pragmatism which outweighs and displaces theoretical and systematic purity’. Inductive and deductive reasoning This section is closely related to the previous section but has been separated from data analysis to distinguish between ‘doing’ (analysis) and ‘thinking’ (reasoning). Carr (2011) argues that both ethnography and social work practice require inductive reasoning. Ethnographers, who typically build and sustain relationships with their informants over many months, work inductively to assemble more general theoretical understandings from the highly particular and context-dependent data they collect in the field. This process, she argues, is much like the ongoing work of assessment and intervention in social work: As in participant observation, inductive social work builds theories based on evidence accumulated from grounded interactions with clients and colleagues, along with evidence and theoretical perspectives accrued in training and research. (p. 227–8) Social workers, she argues, ought to proceed much as ethnographers do, acknowledging the theories that shape their own perspectives, resisting deductive judgments and patiently constructing working theories from the data they collect in ongoing interaction with service users. Indeed, both social workers and ethnographers also use deductive approaches. In ethnography, while an ‘open mind’ is, for many, the desired state in which to enter the field to collect data, the reality is that previous experience or even just preparatory reading may lead to deductive as well inductive reasoning. While some phenomenologists imagine that the researcher can effectively ‘bracket’ their own perspective (Tufford and Newman, 2012), ethnographers and social workers are well aware that they bring theories and knowledge borne of professional experience and training to the process of developing understanding. Gioia (2014) describes how ethnographers are engaged in a ‘complex dance’ between inductive (emic or from the perspective of the participants) and a deductive (etic or from the perspective of the researcher) approaches as they try to make sense of data. This process may be overwhelming as data may be abundant and varied, or perhaps even contradictory, which resonate with accounts of professional practice that emphasizes the need to tolerate ambiguity and uncertainty (Schön, 1983). Watson (2012) proposes that switching back and forth (sometimes even minute to minute) between the inductive and the deductive is more productive than either approach on its own. Uncertainty may be resolved to some extent as the social worker moves towards a resolution of their assessment, in some cases, a formal diagnosis, and an ethnographer begins to make modest generalization in relating their findings to previous research. However, new information or data and changing contexts may make resolution only a temporary, false and fleeting sensation. Respect and curiosity for local knowledge Respect and curiosity for local knowledge, by both ethnographers and social workers, are implied in previous sections but pointing out this orientation to the source of knowledge for both groups is significant because it is contrast to other disciplines and professions which traditionally espouse a mostly quantitative and deductive approach to generating knowledge, such as public health and psychology. Ethnography is premised on the notion that members of a culture—including organizational and professional cultures—are the experts on their own lives and lifeworlds. The very idea, for example, that an ethnographer could learn about a culture by spending time with members of that culture presumes as much. One way this relationship of insider expertise and outsider learning has been conceptualized is as a learner or researcher’s ‘legitimate peripheral participation’ in a new site of practice (Lave and Wenger, 1991, p. 29). From this perspective, learners (including ethnographers—see Lave, 2011) move from clueless newcomers to experts through long-term exposure to the practices of expert old-timers. Through the use of many ethnographic case examples, the authors demonstrate that it is this extended ‘peripheral’ but in vivo exposure to the everyday practices of experts through which expertise is gained. This is the case, they argue, with or without an explicit ‘teaching curriculum’ of tasks and skills. To the extent that we accept field education as social work’s ‘signature pedagogy’ (Wayne et al., 2010), we acknowledge the importance of the kind of apprenticeship learning. Lave and Wenger (1991) describe the education of social workers. We recognize that some of the most important learning students do rely on their own kind of participant observation among service user and practitioner ‘experts’ in particular sites of social work practice. And viewing service users as ‘experts’ resonates with a long tradition of social work scholarship that urges workers to respect the expertise of their service users on their own experience, feelings and social context (e.g. Anderson and Goolishian, 1992; Saleebey, 2013). This decentering of the practitioner-as-expert has also been elegantly reiterated in the shift from teaching models of cultural competence to models of cultural humility (Fisher-Borne et al., 2015). Regarding service users as experts in their own lives and including their ‘lived experience’ have become an important part of social work assessment (Helm, 2011). Service users may also be included in social work education, both in the classroom (Scheyett and Diehl, 2004) and in the background contributing to curriculum development (Robinson and Webber, 2013). However, whereas local knowledge and lived experience are the very essence of ethnography (Wolcott, 2003), this has not always been the case in social work. Professional expertise in social work has long been a topic for debate and research in social work (Fook et al., 1997). Social workers have made claims to expertise to legitimize their roles in multidisciplinary settings but others have questioned whether these claims and the power associated with expertise are at odds with the fundamental value of social work to empower service users (Hill, 2007). Rather than conceptualizing professional and service user expertise as being in competition, it has been proposed that combining these two forms of expertise will lead to the best outcomes (Hill, 2007). From the field of medicine, a domain where a discourse of professional expertise would be expected to dominate, evidence-based medicine proponents. Haynes et al. (2002) proposed that professional expertise is the product of synthesizing the patient’s experiences, clinical observations and research evidence in the service of making good clinical decisions. The second author has used ethnography of knowledge use in social work practice to argue that, in fact, what some practitioners may regard and even celebrate as inherent, ‘common sense’ knowledge is better understood as local knowledge that they have acquired through practice in their organizations. This study suggests the importance of considering the complex ways that the so-called professional theoretical and research-based knowledge may subtly come to characterize organizational cultures, making tidy distinctions between ‘local knowledge’ and ‘professional’ emic and etic perspectives insufficient for understanding how knowledge is used in social work (Smith, 2017). This brief foray into the debates about social work expertise demonstrates that, for the purpose of this article, while there may be strong similarities between ethnography and social work in how they regard local knowledge, social workers are expected to demonstrate expertise and take action to address problems. What they respond to and how they act may be enshrined in legislation that grants social workers statutory powers, thereby reducing the scope for including the expertise of service users (Hill, 2007). Even in such situations though, legislation, court processes and practice models emphasize the importance of user involvement in decision-making which demands that local knowledge be included, to whatever extent possible. Even if the inclusion of local knowledge in social work may vary according to the situation, both ethnographers and social workers place it in dialog with existing theory and evidence. This may not be straightforward as they may be a lack of fit between theory and what is observed in practice. Again, this invokes Schön’s (1983) analogy of the swampy wastelands of professional practice, which both social workers and ethnographers are obliged, at times, to navigate. Developing a critical and explicit approach to knowledge production Both social workers and ethnographers strive to develop a critical approach to knowledge production and have similar ways to achieve this. Ethnographers, as mentioned above, may use member checking to ensure the accuracy of their understandings and social workers may be continually checking and developing their understanding as they work with service users. Reflexivity, as part of a practice approach for social workers and an approach to knowledge production for ethnographers and other qualitative researchers, has been discussed at length in both research and practice literature (D’Cruz et al. 2007a, b). For social workers, Taylor and White (2000) define reflexivity succinctly: reflexivity implies that they [social workers] subject their own knowledge claims and practices to analysis. In other words, knowledge is not simply a resource to deploy in practice. It is a topic worthy of scrutiny. (p. 198) Other terms such as reflectivity, critical reflectivity and critical reflection are sometimes used interchangeably and while there might be subtle differences between these terms (see Kondrat, 1999; D’Cruz et al. 2007a), they all involve some level of scrutiny of the process by which knowledge is constructed. This scrutiny can be applied by individuals or be part of professional supervision for social workers and a key function of reflection is to identify subjective bias and develop new perspectives on a service user’s situation. As Davies (2008) notes, the notion of reflexivity in research can be invoked in debates about objectivity and subjectivity and states that: In the context of social research, reflexivity at its most immediately obvious level refers to the ways in which the products of research are affected by the personnel and process of doing research. (p. 4) Davies (2008) explains that subjectivity is a particular concern in ethnographic research as the ethnographer might spend a long period of time with participants and thereby might be perceived to have become too enmeshed in their lives to be able to provide an ‘objective view’. This has been referred to as ‘going native’ (O’Reilly, 2009), though the researcher who is attributed with first using the phrase, Malinowski (1922), meant that a researcher should strive to participate in native practices rather than just observe them. Indeed, a basic premise of participant observation is that one must become at least a minimally proficient social actor in the field site to understand the phenomena being studied. Kanuha (2000) reflects on the challenges faced by a social worker conducting an ethnographic study of social work practice, which she describes as ‘being native’ rather than ‘going native’ or being an insider with intimate knowledge of the study population and an outsider as researcher. Kanuha (2000) describes both the possible advantages and disadvantages of these challenges, but the key point is that she does not ignore or dismiss them but acknowledges her positioning in relation to the research (Riessman,1994) and how this might affect the knowledge generated from it. Many qualitative research articles and theses include a section on the identity of the researcher and their positioning in relation to research. In ethnography, the ‘ethnographic self’ has to be accounted for explicitly (Coffey, 1999). Clearly, social workers might also experience the same challenges as ethnographers when they are part of the same social group as service users or share certain characteristics and problems, such as single parenthood, childhood poverty, substance addiction and so on. Going back to Biestek’s (1957) principles of social work, social workers were instructed to practice ‘controlled emotional involvement’ to remain ‘objective’. At that time, reflexivity was conceptualized as a means to counter subjectivity and the emotional responses that might undermine objectivity (see Kondrat,1999). Research has shown that ‘controlled emotional involvement’, particularly when it equates the suppression or denial of emotion, is a key contributor to ‘burnout’ in social work (Kondrat, 1999; Lloyd et al., 2002). More recent definitions of reflexivity encourage social workers to acknowledge the emotions their work invokes in them. Similarly, subjectivity is regarded as inevitable but is open to scrutiny (Parton and O’Byrne, 2000). Ethnographers’ interpretations of their data are scrutinized through the peer review process of academic journals and, in some cases, this can be a destructive or constructive process or indeed both (Biagioli, 2002). In the same way that a social work supervisor may suggest different perspectives from which to think about a service user and their problems, peer reviewers may suggest different theoretical approaches and concepts to interpret findings. Ethnographers, though, are not strictly accountable to peer reviewers, as social workers are to their supervisors. However, perhaps they share the strongest sense of accountability towards research participants (Levinson, 2010) and service users (see Section 1.01 of NASW, 2018), who must be considered the ultimate arbiters of the validity of interpretations (Table 1). Table 1: Epistemological Siblings. Domain Ethnographer Social worker Relationships are fundamental Learn through relationship with key informants Relationship is both primary means of assessment and active ingredient in interventions Dialogic production of knowledge Literal dialog as data collection strategy and figurative dialog between ‘parallel worlds’ of experience Literal dialog accounting for multiple perspectives N=1 Typically one case, though many individuals may participate Service user or service user system is unit of analysis—even if system is a family, group or community Data analysis and assessment Braiding of emic and etic perspectives Braiding of service user and practitioner perspectives Inductive and deductive reasoning Patient, iterative construction of theory from particulars but in dialog with academic theory and research Patient, iterative construction of understanding and assessment from particulars but in dialog with academic theory and research// deductive application of categories (diagnosis) Respect and curiosity for local knowledge Sustained attempts to understand local knowledge while maintaining awareness of researcher’s own perspective and knowledge base; informants as cultural experts Sustained attempts to understand local knowledge while maintaining awareness of researcher’s own perspective and knowledge base; service user as expert on their own lifeworld Critical and explicit approach to knowledge production Expectation of reflexivity and accounting for multiple perspectives Expectation of reflexivity and accounting for multiple perspectives Domain Ethnographer Social worker Relationships are fundamental Learn through relationship with key informants Relationship is both primary means of assessment and active ingredient in interventions Dialogic production of knowledge Literal dialog as data collection strategy and figurative dialog between ‘parallel worlds’ of experience Literal dialog accounting for multiple perspectives N=1 Typically one case, though many individuals may participate Service user or service user system is unit of analysis—even if system is a family, group or community Data analysis and assessment Braiding of emic and etic perspectives Braiding of service user and practitioner perspectives Inductive and deductive reasoning Patient, iterative construction of theory from particulars but in dialog with academic theory and research Patient, iterative construction of understanding and assessment from particulars but in dialog with academic theory and research// deductive application of categories (diagnosis) Respect and curiosity for local knowledge Sustained attempts to understand local knowledge while maintaining awareness of researcher’s own perspective and knowledge base; informants as cultural experts Sustained attempts to understand local knowledge while maintaining awareness of researcher’s own perspective and knowledge base; service user as expert on their own lifeworld Critical and explicit approach to knowledge production Expectation of reflexivity and accounting for multiple perspectives Expectation of reflexivity and accounting for multiple perspectives Open in new tab Table 1: Epistemological Siblings. Domain Ethnographer Social worker Relationships are fundamental Learn through relationship with key informants Relationship is both primary means of assessment and active ingredient in interventions Dialogic production of knowledge Literal dialog as data collection strategy and figurative dialog between ‘parallel worlds’ of experience Literal dialog accounting for multiple perspectives N=1 Typically one case, though many individuals may participate Service user or service user system is unit of analysis—even if system is a family, group or community Data analysis and assessment Braiding of emic and etic perspectives Braiding of service user and practitioner perspectives Inductive and deductive reasoning Patient, iterative construction of theory from particulars but in dialog with academic theory and research Patient, iterative construction of understanding and assessment from particulars but in dialog with academic theory and research// deductive application of categories (diagnosis) Respect and curiosity for local knowledge Sustained attempts to understand local knowledge while maintaining awareness of researcher’s own perspective and knowledge base; informants as cultural experts Sustained attempts to understand local knowledge while maintaining awareness of researcher’s own perspective and knowledge base; service user as expert on their own lifeworld Critical and explicit approach to knowledge production Expectation of reflexivity and accounting for multiple perspectives Expectation of reflexivity and accounting for multiple perspectives Domain Ethnographer Social worker Relationships are fundamental Learn through relationship with key informants Relationship is both primary means of assessment and active ingredient in interventions Dialogic production of knowledge Literal dialog as data collection strategy and figurative dialog between ‘parallel worlds’ of experience Literal dialog accounting for multiple perspectives N=1 Typically one case, though many individuals may participate Service user or service user system is unit of analysis—even if system is a family, group or community Data analysis and assessment Braiding of emic and etic perspectives Braiding of service user and practitioner perspectives Inductive and deductive reasoning Patient, iterative construction of theory from particulars but in dialog with academic theory and research Patient, iterative construction of understanding and assessment from particulars but in dialog with academic theory and research// deductive application of categories (diagnosis) Respect and curiosity for local knowledge Sustained attempts to understand local knowledge while maintaining awareness of researcher’s own perspective and knowledge base; informants as cultural experts Sustained attempts to understand local knowledge while maintaining awareness of researcher’s own perspective and knowledge base; service user as expert on their own lifeworld Critical and explicit approach to knowledge production Expectation of reflexivity and accounting for multiple perspectives Expectation of reflexivity and accounting for multiple perspectives Open in new tab Discussion and concluding comments In this article, seven different domains have been presented which demonstrate that the approach to developing knowledge and understandings in social work practice and ethnography are similar. Social workers and ethnographers both rely on relationships with participants and service users, build understanding through dialog, both focus on one person or system and their context, both use similar ways to analyze and interpret data and both value local knowledge and they have similar strategies to develop knowledge in critical and explicit ways. There may be many more domains and we are certain that there are given the number of times during the preparation of this article that one domain became two and two domains were reorganized into one. Therefore, no claim is made as to the completeness of the exploration of epistemologies in this article. We are, of course, also aware that both social work practice and ethnography are ‘broad churches’, as each contains a broad spectrum of opinions, ideas and beliefs. Hence, some readers will disagree with how social workers and/or ethnographers have been characterized in this article. For example, it has been argued that social workers move back and forth from inductive to deductive reasoning as a pragmatic approach. With the introduction of decision-making tools and practice frameworks, such as Structured Decision Making and Signs of Safety, which dictate how social work should be conducted, research is required to assess the extent to which these mostly deductive approaches restrict or undermine the ability of social workers to use inductive reasoning. Such disagreement, though, fuels further debate and debate improves our understanding. We are not the first social work educators to observe that some social work students are reluctant to study social research (Secret et al., 2003) and that the mathematics of quantitative research can invoke considerable anxiety (Royse and Rompf, 1992). In addition to the strategies suggested by Secret et al. (2003) and Royse and Rompf (1992) to engage the most reluctant and anxious students in learning about research, teaching students about ethnography may be an effective strategy. This strategy may be especially effective if students are not only taught that social work skills can be used to conduct ethnographic research but also, as has been demonstrated in this article, that the epistemologies of social work and ethnography converge rather more than they diverge. If social work is to bridge the gaps between research and practice that have worried the profession almost since its beginnings, then social work students clearly must learn to understand and critically appraise multiple forms of research. Of course, ethnography (like any methodology) is not an effective way to answer every research or practice question. For example, randomized controlled trials and other well-designed experimental and quasi-experimental studies of interventions have much to tell practitioners about how likely an intervention is to be effective. But, to the extent that practitioners seek to enact the evidence-based practice process by integrating research with service user and organizational evidence (Haynes et al., 2002; Gilgun, 2005), they may be greatly aided by ethnographic studies that help them understand how empirically supported interventions actually perform under real-world conditions. How, for example, have social workers in various sites of practice tailored empirically supported treatments to make them feasible under their organizational conditions? How, in the uncontrolled conditions of actual practice, do real service users react to these interventions? What, if any, unintended consequences arise from their use? What important forms of knowledge are supplanted by the implementation of new intervention models? And further, ethnographic studies of social work may also help practitioners better attend to the macro-level forces that shape the possibilities for interventions as well as their political consequences. Students who can read and conduct ethnography are better prepared to attend to the political influences and ramifications of direct practice. In this way, then, the epistemological affinity we have described here embodies social work’s commitments in understanding persons in their social context and seeking social justice beyond the level of interpersonal practice. Teaching ethnography to social work students as a discipline for which they already have developing skills and knowledge and can easily engage with, both epistemologically and practically, and in a way that brings together rather than artificially separates research and social work practice may provide research-reluctant students with a smoother and more straightforward introduction to research. Exposing students to ethnographic research may also sharpen their attention to the ways in which clients’ personal experiences shape and are shaped by the social contexts of their lives, including that of the practice setting itself, and the ways that social problems are sustained or resisted through individual-level action. Keen and critical attention to person-in-environment are essential for all forms of practice and enacts a fundamental premise of the profession. Funding Dr P.G. is supported by a Future Fellowship from the Australian Research Council (FT170100080). 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TI - Epistemological Siblings: Seven Reasons to Teach Ethnography in Social Work Education
JO - The British Journal of Social Work
DO - 10.1093/bjsw/bcz153
DA - 2019-09-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/epistemological-siblings-seven-reasons-to-teach-ethnography-in-social-v2CLNZ6E4d
SP - 1
VL - Advance Article
IS - 
DP - DeepDyve
ER -