From Gaining Entrée to Publication: Ethnographic Inquiry and Maintaining Rapport With Research Sites

• In Event: Hilton Roundtable Session 6
  In Roundtable Session: Collaboration Between Researchers and Organizational Stakeholders in an Age of Accountability

Abstract

In longitudinal research - and ethnographic inquiry especially - educational researchers must cultivate and maintain a multitude of relationships with administrators, practitioners, and other stakeholders in order to maintain access. Therefore, rapport is a fundamentally important aspect of research. Nevertheless, rapport is not simply achieved, it is a process, and researchers actively work to maintain rapport throughout data collection (e.g., Emerson, 2001; Hesse-Biber & Leavy, 2010).
This methodological paper draws on the author’s experiences with maintaining relationships and negotiating competing interests while conducting a three-year, ethnographic study of an after-school program for high school-aged youth. Using an ethnographic approach, he examined how the afterschool program fostered college readiness. As the project unfolded, however, the author found himself in predicaments throughout the research process. For example, the leadership of the after-school program was hoping that the paper could be used as positive press for the organization. Although the author was clear about his intentions and cautioned the site leaders before beginning data collection that his goal was not to write a “white paper” singing the organization’s praises, program leaders were not enthused about the findings. Further, by the time the paper was in press in a journal, much of the program’s leadership had changed, thus placing an entirely new group of individuals under public scrutiny as their initiatives were subject to increased oversight in light of the actions of the previous leadership.

This paper outlines the author’s research process, from initial entrée to manuscript publication, centering on his communication with after school program’s leadership and his university’s Institutional Review Board. The author examines tensions between IRB, protecting participants identities, and the after-school program’s organizational goals. Reflecting upon his ethnographic writings, the author engages with topics such as communicating unfavorable findings, updating new site leadership about the research goals, and maintaining ethics and integrity as an ethnographer during each stage of research.

Author

• Antar Akari Tichavakunda, University of Cincinnati