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4.8 Problematizing Evaluative Categorizations: Collaborative and Multisited Interpretations of Constructions of Normality in Estonia and Finland

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International Handbook of Interpretation in Educational Research

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Abstract

This chapter demonstrates collaborative and cross-cultural analysis combining ethnographic studies conducted in multiple educational settings. The authors give two examples of their work, illustrating how the interpretations are jointly built. In the first example, the analysis is focused on the construction of a ‘special student’ in a lower secondary school in post-communist Estonia. Interpretations, based mainly on data produced in Estonia, were generated with reflections drawn on data produced in Finnish lower secondary schools. In the second case, the analysis concentrates on representations of ‘normal’ childhood and youth in research reports and policy texts on education, and on the impact of these representations on the evaluation of normality made by educational professionals. Interpretations were based on two ethnographic data sets, one generated in the pre-primary education and the other in the lower secondary school. The main conclusions of the paper discuss the usefulness, as well as prerequisites, of the joint analysis. Contrasting and reflecting data from various fields helps to reveal the limitations of straight-forward analysis that would be expected to provide concrete answers to research questions that were defined beforehand. The authors suggest the importance of liberating themselves not only from the bounded site, but also from the idea that the ethnographer’s field could ever be coterminous with or the same thing as a geographically bounded location.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The project Citizenship, Difference and Marginality in Schools was supported by the Academy of Finland 1994–1998. Elina worked in this ethnographic project together with Tuula Gordon (director of the project), Pirkko Hynninen, Tuija Metso, Tarja Palmu, and Tarja Tolonen in Helsinki and Janet Holland in London.

  2. 2.

    This argument is based on a literature check, conducted 2003 (Lahelma and Gordon 2010).

  3. 3.

    The collaboration has taken place within the context of several successive research projects directed by Lahelma and supported by the Academy of Finland, the latest of which is Citizenship, Agency and Difference in Upper Secondary Education 2010–2013. The project of the Academy of Finland by Lappalainen (2010–2012) is interlinked with the above-mentioned project. The Research Community is part of the Nordic Centre of Excellence Justice through Education (2013–2017).

  4. 4.

    All names of the students and teachers in this chapter are pseudonyms.

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Acknowledgment

We express our special gratitude to two colleagues, Dr. Mare Leino, University of Tallinn, Estonia, whose data and reflections are used in this chapter, and Dr. Tarja Palmu, University of Helsinki, Finland, who has been elaborating these ideas in the context of another article (Lahelma et al. 2014).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Community of Cultural and Feminist Studies in Education, Institute of Behavioural Sciences, University of Helsinki, 54, 00014, Helsinki, Finland

    Sirpa Lappalainen & Elina Lahelma

  2. Research Community of Cultural and Feminist Studies in Education, Institute of Behavioural Sciences, Department of Social Research, University of Helsinki, 54, 00014, Helsinki, Finland

    Reetta Mietola

Authors
  1. Sirpa Lappalainen
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  2. Elina Lahelma
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  3. Reetta Mietola
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Correspondence to Sirpa Lappalainen .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Ghent University and K.U. Leuven, Ghent, Belgium

    Paul Smeyers

  2. Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom

    David Bridges

  3. Dept. of Educational Policy Organization and Leadership, University of Illinois, Champaign, Illinois, USA

    Nicholas C. Burbules

  4. Moray House School of Education, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

    Morwenna Griffiths

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Lappalainen, S., Lahelma, E., Mietola, R. (2015). 4.8 Problematizing Evaluative Categorizations: Collaborative and Multisited Interpretations of Constructions of Normality in Estonia and Finland. In: Smeyers, P., Bridges, D., Burbules, N., Griffiths, M. (eds) International Handbook of Interpretation in Educational Research. Springer International Handbooks of Education. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9282-0_40

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