Semester 2 - Ethnographic Research Booklet

Year 1, Semester 2: Ethnographic Research Report Michael Thomas Link to Blog: http://mthomas.gdnm.org/

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Contents Page 3: Participant Profile Page 4: Research Methodology Page 5-7: Background and Early Life Page 8-9: Background and Early Life Analysis Page 10: Family and Job Page 11-12: Family and Job Analysis Page 13: Hobbies and Interests Page 14-15: Hobbies and Interests Analysis Page 16-23: Photographic Research

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Ethnographic Research Report The aim of this project was to gather information about a person of my choice using visual ethnographic research methods. I chose my mother, Anne Thomas.

Upon collecting the research, I intend to develop and produce a 3D interactive environment based on my findings, providing extra insight into the world of my research subject.

Participant Profile:

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Research Methodology My research methodology will consist of using a variety of methods to record information from my chosen participant. I intend to use a combination of written questionnaires, an assortment of photographic documentation, video and audio documentation. I think providing such a variety will enable me to understand the reactions and responses of my participant through different mediums, thus I’ll be able to pick up on particular characteristics of my participant through which each medium offers.

My process of collecting this research will involve using each method targeting a different aspect of my participant’s life. I will use a written questionnaire consisting of 20 questions to assess the early life and background of my candidate as a foundation to build on. From this, I intend to use the other research methods to investigate further into particular areas that my participant reveals are important or relevant to her life. This will give me the scope needed to collect a detailed research report.

On top of this, I intend to back up my research by consulting secondary references, which will hopefully give me a different angle to my research.

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Interview 01 – Background and Early Life BACKGROUND AND EARLY LIFE •

Describe yourself in 5 words?

Emotional, empathetic, perceptive, impulsive, thoughtful

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Where did you grow up?

I was born in Southall, South West London, and then moved to Cardiff in Wales until I was five. I lived in Reigate, Surrey until I was twenty-one when I bought my first flat. I moved to Horley at 25 when I married and have remained there ever since.

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What was there to look forward to during your childhood?

The security and love of my family. Carefree days playing with friends outside without restrictions on time or concerns about safety.

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What didn’t you miss about your childhood?

School. Not being encouraged to form my own opinions and speak out.

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What hobbies did you have when you grew up?

Collecting stones and postcards.

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What type of child were you?

Shy and unassuming. I was very much shaped by my parent’s views.

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What were your parents like?

Loving, protective, kind and generous.

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What did they teach you?

Good manners, respect, to be kind, to think before I act.

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What inspired you to teach pupils with learning difficulties?

A love of children and the desire to help those who find learning difficult.

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What aspects of your profession are the most positive?

When I see a child’s confidence grow and the times when they realise that they can actually achieve things.

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What are the negative aspects of your profession?

When parents expect quick fixes for their children’s difficulties when the reality is it takes time to see progress.

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At 52, what life experiences have shaped you as an individual?

Being brought up in a secure loving home has provided me with the stability to deal with life’s experiences. Having a child who was seriously ill and survived has taught me to treasure every moment and be grateful.

Going through a divorce has shown me that I am strong on my own and can survive as an individual.

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What are some of your strongest morals?

I am law abiding. You will not achieve anything if you don’t work hard for it. Respect is earned.

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What habits or routines do you possess?

I am always early and on time for any appointment/work. I have strict times for when I study and everything has to fit around that as it is a priority at the moment.

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If you could re-live any period in history, what period would it be and why?

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I would like to have been alive during World War II, a time when my parents were growing up. I would like to feel the emotions they and their families experienced and get to meet relatives who I never got to meet.

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Do you follow a religion?

I am not sure what I believe in – I am not an atheist and I find it hard to say that I am not a Christian. My understanding of Christianity is someone who treats people, as they themselves would wish to be treated and I try to do that.

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Despite your profession, what interests you?

Studying to further my career, property, listening to politics, watching television.

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If you could visit anywhere in the world, where would you go and for what reasons?

I would go to Singapore to see where my mum lived as a child, the Maldives in order to escape from the stresses of life and Australia, to meet relatives I have never met before.

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What thing would you most like to change about the world today?

I would like to see world peace. I would like to see a simpler world, one without pressures.

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If you were stranded on a desert island, what five items would you choose to bring, if you could?

Oil of Olay, a knife, shampoo, hairbrush, sun cream

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Background and Early Life Analysis Upon completing my first interview with my mum, there were a number of characteristics and factors associated with her that I felt were relevant enough to be analysed as main pointers to be addressed in detail. I narrowed the answers that my mum provided into the following areas: - Family - Hobbies - Work - Beliefs/Inspiration Each of these areas, she possessed an importance for. It is apparent that my mum relies on her family ties a lot for support and guidance. In particular, she mentions her parents thoroughly. Moreover, she mentions that the support of a solid family when growing up was something she appreciated and always knew she could look forward to. I think this point re-enforces 2 of the words that my mum described herself with - emotional and thoughtful. It also re-enforces my knowledge of knowing my mum as a more shy individual, and someone who appreciates people closer to her. Her family and parents is an issue I will further investigate in an interview at another time.

Hobbies were another interesting factor to be analysed. Anne mentions she used to collect post cards and stones as a child. This compliments the view of a shy, perhaps slightly introvert childhood. She could have mentioned more outgoing traits such as nightlife, but instead mentions more personal and calming hobbies like collecting stones and post cards and the occasional meet ups with friends. Post cards tells me also she must have travelled as a child - again a family orientated activity perhaps.

Alongside this, my mum mentions her love for television, property and furthering her career. Furthering her career makes sense as she works hard to accommodate herself and 3 sons to keep a roof over our heads through the absence of her ex husbands' support after a divorce. So here her interests cross over with her job.

This is another main area where I thought should be investigated further and I shall do through another interview of a different medium. I want to find out more what she enjoys aside from her work, as she didn't give too much away. She enjoys TV programs so I will try to investigate this area in a lot of detail.

Another area where I feel my mother displayed a strong impression upon was work.

Anne mentions how she feels one must work hard to achieve anything. This ties in

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with how she says that her parents taught her good values as a child and was brought up in a respectful environment with plenty of support. This encompasses a positive atmosphere and upbringing, surely contributing to her desire and passion to work hard in her occupation. Anne mentions how she has to make work a priority in her life as she works as a single parent to support 3 sons, only 1 of which who works full time.

As far as sources of inspiration goes, Anne mentions she is unsure of what she believes in in terms of a religion, yet she identifies have a son being ill as a child (myself), made her realise that family is important to her and this acts as a source of inspiration to support her family. All of this aided through the support of her parents and the values that her parents have provided her with throughout her life alongside their added guidance.

From here, I shall complete the following more in-depth tasks: - Do video interview on interests/hobbies.

- Do audio interview on family/job.

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Interview 02: Family and job (Audio) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFZX5bWpw8E

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Family and Job Analysis “My advice to anyone is to try hard at school and do well when you have the time to follow your dreams” This was the second interview that I took with Anne, my mother. I decided in another format of an audio interview. I thought this technique might enable my participant to reveal further information about her life, because she a) wasn’t being filmed and b) didn’t have me sitting in front of her like I aim to do for the video recording. The aim of this interview was to investigate further into Anne’s family and her job. I asked questions on her divorce as mentioned in a previous interview, having an ill child, and her aspirations for later life.

Anne gave a lengthy reply when I asked her about her life growing up with her parents. She mentioned how having parent’s who weren’t divorced meant she could have a stable upbringing, which I can imagine, would be financially and emotionally more beneficial. Anne regrets getting a divorce – as perhaps she realises how knowing how having stable parents can be so beneficial to children - as she has experienced the secure upbringing herself, yet for her children, she knows this won’t be the case and I’m sure she would have liked her children to have had a securer upbringing as well. Alongside commending her parents for being very supportive, an interesting point Anne raised was how she wishes she had pushed herself further, being the shy child she was, in particular academically. This provides reasoning as to why she is also now trying to further her career by doing a degree, as she clearly did not attain as much qualifications as she probably could have done as a child.

When I asked Anne about her divorce, she mentioned her children a lot and how they were a priority, which makes sense for the duty of a mother. After all, I can imagine how important it was for Anne to have her children to have as peaceful and warming upbringing as possible, much like she experienced with her parents.

In a previous interview, Anne mentioned how having a child who was seriously ill made her away of how vulnerable we all are and that and that ‘life’s challenges, and there have been a few, have given me greater mental strength’.

So we can conclude from this part of the interview that Anne is aware that even when having a secure upbringing, life presents us with challenges, and managing to overcome these challenges makes her stronger as a person. Here we can identify as my illness as a child, and her divorce as possibly two of those main obstacles that she has over come.

Further, in terms of Anne’s occupation, she is grateful that her employer’s (The Hawthorns School), have enabled her to enhance her qualifications by giving her some time off and as a result could be line for promotion which she is very happy about. Here, ironically she has, despite claiming how important work is, managed to take time off her work in risk of running slightly strained relations 11

with her employers to better her career. So Anne has had to compensate with work in order to study more, but as she states – so she can hopefully get promoted and it looks to be that way for the future. Although she’s had to take time off work, all of her choices seem to be for the welfare of her family and that can’t be mistaken. This appears to be Anne’s future aspirations – to achieve the position of a full time teacher, but she regrets not being able to pursue this aim earlier on in her career/life. Of course without the right qualifications, this was difficult for her.

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Interview 03: Interests and Hobbies http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCMq_oNiP58&feature=youtu.be

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Interest and Hobbies Analysis This was the third interview I took with my mum, and decided on a different format in a video recording. I decided to let my phone record my mum whilst I was outside the room as I thought this would allow her to open up more, if she were alone. As a result, I found she gave me more thorough answers here, than in my first interview which didn’t provide too much detail through a written questionnaire.

As far as overall impressions went when looking back at the recording, I can see I am listening and looking at someone who is assured in their responses. I felt a sense of confidence and motivation as to main factors that arose from her responses and she did not tend to hesitate much at all when answering the questions.

Anne’s responses to my questions set around her interests and hobbies draw many links to the answers she previously gave which were encouraging. In terms of her interests, she reveals she has huge desire to improve her qualifications, (by doing a degree), backing this up by saying she is a single parent. Therefore we can make a clear parallel between her work life and her family by saying that the two are closely linked as one relies on the other, much like any family. As a single parent, obviously financially one would be less well off, so Anne has clearly placed the well being of her career as of paramount importance amongst anything else, which makes sense. We can also conclude from this that she has little time for recreational activities or many other secondary interests for relaxation and enjoyment purposes. This was an area that I wanted to explore more, so continued to ask 4 more questions associated with her hobbies and deeper interests.

I managed to draw her attention away from her career for the next few minutes through asking questions centred around her favourite TV programs, her interest in property and her hobbies as a child. Alongside common soap programs, Anne mentioned she finds health documentaries interesting as well as programs on sociology and psychology. This area partially ties in with her career of being a special needs tutor, as being a special needs tutor centres a lot around the mental capabilities of a child, and how to improve and resolve such issues.

So here we can draw a link between an interest in psychology and her career.

Anne also described her hobbies in more detail as a child – stone collecting and postcard collecting. She explains that she felt it meant that she enjoyed her own company a lot rather than the company of her friends. This links directly to the characteristics she wrote of herself in the ‘EARLY LIFE AND BACKGROUND’ questionnaire, being shy and assuming. So these collecting hobbies were perhaps her way of enjoying her free time without any restrictions on what she had to do. Anne also mentions that she is very possessive of her belongings –a trait that stems from her mother, as when her mother was a child, she had little money to live off. This point is important because Anne originally stated how 14

much of her values in life are shaped by her parent’s – and in this case the value Anne places on her possessions and belongings was clearly a value that was important to her parents, as it might have been when they were young (and continue to do so). She mentions that she still has kept the stones she used to collect so I could ask her where these are and create some sort of 2D concept art associated with this feature.

Another of her interests (property), links back to how she described herself as a visionary in the first interview: “EARLY LIFE AND BACKGROUND”. Anne explains how she wants to find a perfect cottage when her sons have all left home and happens to describe certain characteristics of this perfect ‘home’, being: -

Well planned/positioned A flow from front to back Small cottage type Large garden Close proximity to local shops.

I find these characteristics interesting of her ideal home for when she is older and they strangely relate almost directly to her character and personality being shy and closed off slightly, enjoying things without too much hustle and bustle whilst living in a peacefully setting. This is perhaps an area I could explore in terms of 2D and 3D concept art for my environment ideas.

To conclude, I partially succeeded in managing to reveal more of my mum’s interests and hobbies. She did begin to start involving her career a lot in her current interests, which appears to be the case. Anne is totally devoted to the well being and condition of her family, and being a single parent, she devotes all of her time to working, and furthering her profession in the hope that one day she will earn more money and get a promotion.

I did manage to extract several hobbies that my mum touched base on in the first interview “EARLY LIFE AND BACKGROUND”. Yet these were mostly things that Anne intends to do in the future or things she did in the past, leaving very few current hobbies for reasons already analysed. She is certainly a visionary, and clearly has a firm idea as to how she intends to live once her sons have their own places.

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Photographic Documentation Below, in picture format, are factors that are the essence of Anne’s life – in particular family and work. I’ve also taken photos of some ideas for some assets for my interactive environment.

A college of my mum’s workspace at home.

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A collage of my Mum’s upstairs workspace.

A photograph of Anne.

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Downstairs cupboards where Anne stores all of her teaching resources and equipment.

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Home space and Living area:

Anne’s workspace at her place of work, the Hawthorns School:

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Me (Michael), shortly before I had Bacterial Meningitis and Septicaemia:

A photograph of Anne’s family. From left to right, Steve (Anne’s ex husband), James and Andrew, (sons) and myself and Anne. This photo was taken in Spain, 1996 when my parents were still together.

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Anne’s sons as children:

Work desk:

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Lamp:

Decorations:

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Family table in the dining room:

A collection of stone’s and rock’s my mum collected as a child:

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