Local Educational Order: Ethnomethodological Studies of Knowledge in Action

335 Pages·2000·23.11 MB·English

by  Stephen K. Hester (ed.), David Francis (ed.)

LOCAL EDUCATIONAL ORDER
Pragmatics & Beyond
New Series
Editor:
Andreas H. Jucker
(Justus Liebig University, Giessen)
Associate Editors:
Jacob L. Mey
(Odense University)
Herman Parret
(Belgian National Science Foundation, Universities of Louvain and Antwerp)
Jef Verschueren
(Belgian National Science Foundation, University of Antwerp)
Editorial Address:
Justus Liebig University Giessen, English Department
Otto-Behaghel-Strasse 10, D-35394 Giessen, Germany
e-mail: [email protected]
Editorial Board:
Shoshana Blum-Kulka (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Chris Butler (University College of Ripon and York)
Jean Caron (Université de Poitiers); Robyn Carston (University College London)
Bruce Fraser (Boston University); John Heritage (University of California at Los Angeles)
David Holdcroft (University of Leeds); Sachiko Ide (Japan Women’s University)
Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni (University of Lyon 2)
Claudia de Lemos (University of Campinas, Brasil); Marina Sbisà (University of Trieste)
Emanuel Schegloff (University of California at Los Angeles)
Paul O. Takahara (Kobe City University of Foreign Studies)
Sandra Thompson (University of California at Santa Barbara)
Teun A. Van Dijk (University of Amsterdam); Richard Watts (University of Bern)
73
Stephen Hester and David Francis (eds.)
Local Educational Order
Ethnomethodological studies of knowledge in action
LOCAL
EDUCATIONAL ORDER
ETHNOMETHODOLOGICAL STUDIES
OF KNOWLEDGE IN ACTION
Edited by
STEPHEN HESTER
University of Wales, Bangor
DAVID FRANCIS
Manchester Metropolitan University
JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY
AMSTERDAM/PHILADELPHIA
TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
8 American National Standard for Information Sciences — Permanence of
Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Local educational order : ethnomethodological studies of knowledge in action / edited by
Stephen Hester, and David Francis.
p. cm. -- (Pragmatics & beyond, ISSN 0922-842X ; new ser. 73)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Action research in education--Methodology. 2. Ethnomethodology. 3. Interaction
analysis in education. 4. Classroom environment. I. Hester, Stephen. II. Francis, David,
1946– III. Series.
LB1028.24.L63 2000
306.43--dc21 99-462313
ISBN 90 272 5088 X (Eur.) / 1 55619 920 1 (US) (alk. paper) CIP
© 2000 – John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any
other means, without written permission from the publisher.
John Benjamins Publishing Co. • P.O.Box 75577 • 1070 AN Amsterdam • The Netherlands
John Benjamins North America • P.O.Box 27519 • Philadelphia PA 19118-0519 • USA
Table of Contents
CONTRIBUTORS vii
CHAPTER 1
Ethnomethodology and Local Educational Order 1
Stephen Hester and David Francis
CHAPTER 2
Classrooms as Installations: Direct Instruction in the Early Grades 21
Douglas Macbeth
CHAPTER 3
The Boundaries of Writing: Paying Attention to the Local Educational
Order 73
James Heap
CHAPTER 4
Unravelling the Fabric of Social Order in Block Area 91
Susan Danby and Carolyn D. Baker
CHAPTER 5
Public and Pedagogic Morality: The Local Orders of Instructional and
Regulatory Talk in Classrooms 141
Peter Freebody and Jill Freiberg
CHAPTER 6
Socio-Logic and the ‘Use of Colour’ 163
Lou Armour
CHAPTER 7
The Local Order of Deviance in School: Membership Categorisation,
Motives and Morality in Referral Talk 197
Stephen Hester
vi TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 8
Task, Talk and Closure: Situated Learning and the Use of an
‘Interactive’ Museum Artefact 223
Terry Hemmings, David Randall, Liz Marr and David Francis.
CHAPTER 9
The Availability of Mathematics as an Inspectable Domain of Practice
through the Use of Origami 245
Eric Livingston
CHAPTER 10
Instructional Matter: Readable Properties of an Introductory Text in
Matrix Algebra 271
Wes Sharrock and Nosomi Ikeya
APPENDIX 289
BIBLIOGRAPHY 291
Contributors
Lou Armour, Faculty of Education, University of the West of England,
Bristol, UK.
Carolyn D. Baker, Graduate School of Education, University of Queensland,
Brisbane, Australia.
Susan Danby, Centre for Applied Studies in Early Childhood, Queensland
University of Technology, Kelvin Grove, Queensland, Australia.
David Francis, Department of Sociology, Manchester Metropolitan Univer-
sity, Manchester, UK.
Peter Freebody, Faculty of Education, Griffith University, Brisbane, Austra-
lia.
Jill Freiberg, Faculty of Education, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia.
James Heap, College of Education, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio, USA.
Terry Hemmings, Department of Communication Studies, University of
Leeds, Leeds, UK.
Stephen Hester, School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Wales,
Bangor, UK.
Nozomi Ikeya, Communication Studies, Toyo University, Tokyo, Japan.
Eric Livingston, School of Social Sciences, University of New England,
Armidale, Australia.
viii CONTRIBUTORS
Douglas Macbeth, School of Educational Policy and Leadership, Ohio State
University, Columbus, Ohio, USA.
Liz Marr, Department of Sociology, Manchester Metropolitan University,
Manchester, UK.
Dave Randall, Department of Sociology, Manchester Metropolitan Univer-
sity, Manchester, UK.
Wes Sharrock, Department of Sociology, University of Manchester,
Manchester, UK.
Chapter 1
Ethnomethodology and
Local Educational Order
Stephen Hester and David Francis
The studies in this book take an ethnomethodological approach to the study of
educational phenomena. Our title, ‘local educational order’, is intended to
convey the central concern of ethnomethodology with the locally accom-
plished and situated character of social order. For ethnomethodology, social
life is produced ‘from within’ by members of society and it is the task of
ethnomethodology to identify the methods of such production. This means
that ethnomethodology respecifies all phenomena of everyday social life as
topics rather than resources of inquiry. With reference to educational phenom-
ena this means that ethnomethodology inquires into how the ‘natural facts’ of
educational life, such as daily activities in school classrooms, are produced as
such in the first place, rather than having these ‘in place’ and then theorising
them. It also means investigating the educational orders to which parties to
educational scenes, settings and activities are oriented in the course of those
selfsame scenes, settings and activities.
The field of education has been a focus for ethnomethodological investi-
gation for over thirty years. The development and diversity of ethnomethodol-
ogy generally over this period is reflected in the increasing variety of
ethnomethodological studies of education. Broadly speaking, this develop-
ment has consisted in a shift from studies with a phenomenological and social
constructionist orientation — which offer a somewhat interactionally decon-
textualised analysis of educational phenomena — to a concern with the
practically accomplished and locally situated character of educational activi-