4: Learning About Democracy Through Ethnographic Study of Community Formation

In Chapter 3, we discussed how pupils, their parents and teachers took initiative to learn about their local communities by developing new relationships with community inhabitants and giving attention to local knowledge. Supported by ethnographic inquiry, these activities introduce three directions for learning about democratic living. First, as we discussed in Chapter 3, ethnographic inquiries introduce pupils and teachers to the tensions inherent in democracy related to participatory citizenship and relational ethics. This chapter connected ethnographic inquiry with democratic living through learning about what citizens are accountable for as inhabitants of local communities. Second, in Chapter 4, we build upon this connection by considering how ethnographic inquiry can support learning about a second aspect of democratic living—opportunities to associate with local community-based groups. Taking up ethnographic perspectives about life in local communities introduces pupils to the significant roles, which local social organizations play in addressing various concerns inherent in everyday life, such as religious faith, community leadership, providing for the welfare of family and heirs, promoting personal liberties, social integration and identity, security, promoting continuity of cultural/social traditions, and promoting economic prosperity among other needs and concerns. Through social circles and networks in local communities, people work out ways to resolve day-to-day tensions connected with democratic life. Third, in Chapter 4, we begin to consider a third aspect of democratic living— educational self-determination through uses of reading and writing, which are accessible to all students for understanding continuity and change in local communities; opening ways for pupils, teachers, and local community inhabitants to write different possibilities for themselves and their communities (Campbell, 2011; Kahn, 2003). This last direction receives further development in Chapter 5.