International studies that compare school-systems in different countries often try to measure the pupils’ “knowledge-level”. The same thing also happens in national investigations, sometimes with focus on how marks in different subject develop during time. However, what does this tell us about the situation on the local level, in the single school and in the single classroom? Would, for example, participant observation be a better way to understand what happens in the school-system compared to traditional quantitative methods?
This paper takes its departure from a reflection on field experiences in a three-year school development project in a Swedish upper secondary school. Participant observation has; however, to face problems similar to what insiders meet. The insider has an interest to do research in a, more or less, familiar environment. There is an obvious risk to be “prisoner” in your own conceptions. At the same time, this gives a possibility to create a deep understanding of the studied phenomena, an understanding of the study object that may be hard to create for a person who is unfamiliar with the environment. Our reflection is also build up on some theoretical assumptions about how to use participations observations to understand pedagogical processes that take place in schools. From these points of view, we will discuss some aspects of the following question:
- What possibilities and limitations do participant observation has in order to describe, interpret and understand complex processes in school development?