On the subject of sex

an ethnographic approach to gender, sexuality, and sexual learning in England

pp. 685-703

in: Paul Smeyers, David Bridges, Nicholas C. Burbules, Morwenna Griffiths (eds), International handbook of interpretation in educational research, Berlin, Springer, 2015

Abstract

This chapter explores educational research and ethnographic method as a way of interpreting what happens in schools. Tracing the well-documented history of ethnography, it considers the rich heritage and key features of ethnographic method as interpretative tools for understanding non-Western cultures. The chapter outlines critiques that prompt a shift in focus, placing Western societies under scrutiny as strangely diverse cultures to be observed and explained. The chapter draws on an ethnographic study of two schools in the Midlands area of England to illustrate the explanatory power of ethnography for understanding school processes. Illustrative examples demonstrate how student-teacher perspectives on gender relations, sexuality and sexuality education are made visible through the ethnographic method. Analysis points to the significance of sex and gender in interactions between curriculum-based learning and the informal student sexual cultures constituted by young people themselves. Finally, the chapter considers how ethnographic interpretation remains a product of the research context and the personal/biographical investments which set the scene for encounters in the field. The ethnographic gaze can rarely be anticipated or fixed. In this respect, learning gender and sexuality remains a haphazard affair, produced through informal networks in which the school provides a meeting place for contextually specific encounters and acts of interpretation.