The Need for Classroom Ethnographies
| Published date | 01 December 2024 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/23210230241289452 |
| Author | Judhajit Mukherjee |
| Date | 01 December 2024 |
The Need for Classroom
Ethnographies
Judhajit Mukherjee1
Paul Willis, noted for his seminal ethnography ‘Learning to Labour’ remarked, ‘in my view the ethno-
graphic imagination [consists of], two types of things “thrown at” messy data: approximate conceptions
encapsulating the scope and action of the creative cultural practices of agents and approximate concep-
tions of that which, in situ, social agents are “making sense of”’ (Willis, 2003, p. 2). The author who
alongside Paolo Freire, Ivan Illich and Michael Apple expanded the nascent horizon of education as a
discourse to be analysed ‘in situ’ makes a clear point: the ethnographic imagination is to a certain extent
an approximation of those actions and beliefs through which an agent/actor/student/teacher makes and
remakes his/her lived reality in everyday life. This much is true to anyone who is even mildly interested
in the ‘fieldwork’ aspect of an ethnographic journey. However, what differentiates this note from say a
Willis or a Bourdieu is the specific attention it seeks to draw towards the classroom. This note is divided
into three parts: firstly a summary of studies pertaining to the classroom—ethnographic or otherwise;
secondly, aspects of the classroom which require an ethnographic lens; and finally, a brief discussion on
my experience as a participant and observer within the classroom.
Earlier Interpretations of the Classroom: Student–Teacher Relations,
Authority and Experience
The practice of sociology and perhaps most other disciplines is actualized at the level of the classroom
(Chaudhuri, 2003; Erickson, 2010; Hammersley, 2021). The teacher is at once an authorial presence and
a researcher of the same authority (Ball, 1995; Giroux, 1988; Hammersley, 1993). The student is at once
the radical dissenter and the bearer of institutional hegemony (Giroux, 2001, 2018). The curriculum is a
medium which negotiates authority and reflexivity, dissent and hegemony, through the interaction of the
student and the teacher within the classroom (Apple, 2013, 2018).
As for an empirical validation of the classroom, almost all the authors who have both written and
discussed the issues inherent in the practice of sociology (discussed above) have been able to do so
during their time as tenured professors and teachers. The point being that not only is their work related
to real-time experiences within the classroom but also that they carry the symbolic value of belonging to
Notes on Methods
Studies in Indian Politics
12(2) 346–352, 2024
© 2024 Lokniti, Centre for the
Study of Developing Societies
Article reuse guidelines:
in.sagepub.com/journals-permissions-india
DOI: 10.1177/23210230241289452
journals.sagepub.com/home/inp
Note: This section is coordinated by Divya Vaid (divya.vaid.09@gmail.com).
1 Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India
Corresponding author:
Judhajit Mukherjee, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi 110067, India.
E-mail: judhajit93@gmail.com
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