reality analysis

 

No, I'm not attending therapy. I've just read this article:

Hester, S., & Francis, D. (1997). Reality analysis in a classroom storytelling.

I like the article a lot – it does two neat things. It establishes the distinctiveness of EM’s take on reality (“reality-as-a-members’-phenomenon” (p. 95)) and it provides an account of reality analysis by a teacher and her class of six-year olds during a storytelling lesson.

Here are my my favourite quotes:

On the focus for ethnomethodology ...
“ethnomethodology is interested in members’ ‘reality analysis’. This interest is fundamentally a descriptive one; it seeks to describe the mundane practices in and through which persons are oriented to issues of what’s real, true, genuine and so forth.” (p. 97).

The researchers make the point that ordinary people do what sociologists do i.e. wonder about how and why people see and do things as they do (p. 97).

On EM within sociology ...
“The approach of ethnomethodology seeks to respect the status such matters have for members and encourages sociology not to make ontological mountains out of everyday molehills.” (p. 109)

On "believability and reportability" (lovely)...
“we shall explicate how the teacher’s question exhibits reality analysis. In doing this, we shall consider firstly the method whereby recognizability of these events as extraordinary is accomplished, and secondly how the issues of believability and reportability are occasioned by features of the storytelling, including the ‘extraordinariness’ of the events described.” (pp. 100 – 101).

I’ve never used MCA but I've been thinking more about it lately thanks to talking with people at the brisbane TAG group who use it ...

“The child’s suggestion thus embodies a category analysis and a reality analysis in which the problem is treated as real and capable of being solved through an ordinary course of action. The teacher’s agreement and positive evaluation of this suggestion confirms not only the child’s reality analysis but his category analysis as well.” (p. 104)

I sent Gillian a copy of the article. I'm looking forward to hearing what she made of it.