Creating an Ethnographic Research Portfolio
by Karen Wohlwend,
graduate student University of Iowa

on to the portfolio -->


Introduction

 In the past four years, I've created two portfolios, now I'm working on my third. My first portfolio, a fat binder showcasing my best practice as a teacher, bulged with examples of school leadership, district contribution, grant and curriculum writing, and published work. I developed the portfolio as an aid to the interview process, in order to find a teaching job in a new community. I took an outside stance, selecting materials that I hoped would impress an unknown prospective employer, my choices driven by marketing rather than self-study.

I designed my second portfolio to meet the criteria of the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS). Seger (Graves & Sunstein, 1992) describes this stance as “standing on the side” of the portfolio process, working through the portfolio to satisfy standards set by an outside entity. Each section addressed specific questions requiring evidence to prove I had fulfilled the standards of excellence, determined by others and judged by an unknown audience. The teaching experimentation and reflection provided wonderful opportunities for growth, but writing it up to convey excellence within a constrictive format was nerve-wracking. My reflections were bound by highly prescriptive formatting requirements, margin sizes, length restrictions, heading and topic restrictions. The standards forced me outside the process in terms of formatting although the process demanded high levels of interpretation and creativity as I stretched myself to interpret my own version of best practice, hoping it matched that of far-off inscrutable evaluators.

My current portfolio plops me back down squarely in the center of the learning process, focusing on personal growth and change as a beginning researcher exploring ethnographic methods. Like my National Board portfolio, I am solely responsible for the content. However, unlike the restrictive formatting requirements of the NBPTS, I am able to choose the media as well as the methods to try out. This learner-controlled stance places me in the center of the process. In this sense, my portfolio resembles the portfolio examples of teachers and students in Portfolio Portraits. I selected pieces to show my progress through pivotal events; to chronicle and demonstrate my development first to myself and then to my audience. According to teacher Sharon Lundahl, “three components make up the [portfolio] process-self-study, self-definition, and self-disclosure…” (Graves & Sunstein, 1992, p. 82, brackets in original).

What are the significant components for an ethnographic portfolio? Self-knowledge improves the ability to identify positions and the source of assumptions. A general overview of personal history will not suffice. Each project will require a separate mini-portfolio specific to the culture under study because our positions are always relative to other people; in this case the informants. Because these positions are also dynamic, changes in stance that occur during the project also need to be studied, defined and disclosed.

References
Graves, D. H., & Sunstein, B. S. (Eds.). (1992). Portfolio portraits. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Sunstein, B. S., & Lovell, J. H. (Eds.). (2000). The portfolio standard: How students can show us what they know and are able to do. (pp. 105-115). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

 

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