Video as Partner: What Video Analysis Makes Visible in Ethnographic Classroom Research

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Sunday 1:45 pm - Gold 4
  In Roundtable Session: Analytical Approaches, Tools, and Creations for Qualitative Inquiry

Abstract

This methodological paper argues that video can function as a partner in ethnographic analysis by making visible the subtle, embodied practices through which meaning and participation are negotiated. Grounded in Interactional Ethnography, this study draws on a doctoral qualitative research classroom to examine a focal video segment in which students engaged silently in a drawing activity. Through recursive, frame-by-frame video review, multimodal transcription, event mapping, and principled returns to interactional moments, we analyze a classroom video segment to trace how positioning, participation, and epistemological stance unfold through gaze, gesture, and proximity. We show how video enables access to dimensions of classroom life often inaccessible through interviews or fieldnotes, supporting rigorous, transparent ethnographic research.

Authors

• Megan K. Mitchell, University of Central Florida

• Audra Skukauskaite, University of Central Florida