ERIC Number: EJ1201707
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2019
Pages: 14
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1357-3322
EISSN: N/A
Network Ethnography Applied: Understanding the Evolving Health and Physical Education Knowledge Landscape
Sport, Education and Society, v24 n2 p168-181 2019
The progressively global, neoliberal, privatised, and digital education environment poses new methodological challenges for educational researchers, prompting a need to innovate. It has been suggested, however, that better commentary and reflection on methodological innovation in education is required. This paper considers the benefits and challenges associated with the use of network ethnography, one methodological approach that has emerged to address new social complexities. We explain the rationale for, and process of, this methodology through reference to an illustrative case: a network ethnography of the outsourcing of Health and Physical Education (HPE) curricular work to external providers. In doing this we map and critique three interrelated activities (i.e. Internet searches, interviews, and network diagram construction) that constituted our network ethnography. The discussion turns to how network ethnography allowed us to access new knowledge about the outsourcing of HPE curricular work to external providers by, for example, facilitating us in asking different questions, and foregrounding various stakeholders, networks and relationships that we may not have discovered had we relied on other approaches. This illustrative case demonstrates the capacity of network ethnography to generate rich data and offers a provocation for educational researchers to consider expanding their methodological repertoire.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Social Networks, Network Analysis, Ethnography, Health Education, Physical Education, Research Methodology, Outsourcing, Privatization, Neoliberalism, Educational Research, Stakeholders, Data Collection
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Australia
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A