Parent-research as a process of inquiry: an ethnographic perspective
This article illustrates how an ethnographic perspective can provide a descriptive methodological approach to parent-research as a process of inquiry within the field of education. By juxtaposing data and illuminating reflexive accounts from a longitudinal parent-research study, I suggest that such a perspective provides critical insights into the roles of subjectivities, reflexivity, and positionality as mutually constitutive of each other as they relate to the process and product of parent-research. In addition, I suggest how the field of educational ethnography would benefit from viewing parents as co-researchers.
I was raised in a Protestant family from the middle of the sixties until the early eighties of the last century in a small village close to Amsterdam. Although my parents had different religious backgrounds, my mother’s relatively liberal Protestant views were dominated by my father’s orthodox Calvinist faith. His views became more liberal over the years, but being the eldest, the influence of the Calvinistic tradition was not only the strongest, but also lasted the longest.