Teachers' Work: Comparing Ethnographies From Latin America and the United States

• In Event: Comparing Ethnographies: Learning From Local Studies of Education Across the Americas

Abstract

It falls to ethnographers to confront oversimplified formulas for reform of teaching with descriptions of the complex everyday realities of teachers’ work. Teachers’ work, el trabajo docente, has long been a central research theme at the Departamento de Investigaciones Educativas (DIE) in Mexico, and interest in the topic has spread throughout Latin America. Ethnographers in the North have likewise studied teachers’ thinking and sometimes teachers as workers, and there has been an upswing of interest in learning to teach since the 2000s.

Methodologically, we focus on work published since 2000 and limit our Latin American cases to Brazil, Mexico and Argentina, specifically to the DIE in Mexico, the group based at the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina, and three groups in Brazil that have consistently conducted ethnographic work on teachers. To illustrate in more detail, we borrow loosely from Noblit and Hare’s meta-ethnographic approach (1988) to include two comparisons of pairs of studies, in each case one from Latin America and one from the North.

Six themes emerged from the works collected in both regions: 1. El trabajo docente: the actual work of classroom teaching; 2. Los saberes docentes: practical knowledge for teaching; 3. Teachers’ work within the institutional life of the school; 4. Teaching as labor process; 5. Learning to teach, including both in-service professional development and pre-service teacher education; 6. Teaching in the context of cultural differences.

We found both differences and similarities in ethnographic research conducted across the Americas. We attributed the similarities in research themes, theories and methods to what might be glossed as “globalization,” as certain worldwide processes create somewhat similar educational situations in diverse countries. “Globalization” also increases the flow of ideas and scholars across borders. Nonetheless, we found that the national context speaks louder than the global context in choices made by researchers. Most of the themes and issues privileged by Latin American ethnographers reflect the context of poverty and the precarious working conditions of teachers in their respective countries, as well as the difficulties in teaching poor students. In Latin America, poverty affects masses of the population across all ethnic groups. This explains differences from the United States in discourse about social justice and cultural differences. In short, policy and ideology affect the choices of themes, methodologies, and theories, as do imbalanced power relationships between hegemonic groups and those with less political and economic power.

Finally, we noted that ethnography does not produce in and of itself solutions to problems. Rather, “the most important transformation that ethnography produces is the transformation that takes place in those who practice it. Experiences in the field and the work of analysis necessarily change the consciousness of the researchers” (Rockwell 2009, 30). Similarly, we conclude that the most important effect of comparing ethnographies across borders is transformation in those who do the comparing. Writing this chapter has been a chance to raise our consciousness about our own and unfamiliar ways of studying teachers’ work.

Authors

• Belmira Oliveira Bueno, Universidad de Sao Paulo

• Kathryn M. Anderson-Levitt, University of California - Los Angeles