Authors:
Alfredo Berbegal, Researcher, Department of Methods of Research and Diagnostic in Education (MIDE), University of Zaragoza, Spain
Fernando Sabirón, Research Director, Department of Methods of Research and Diagnostic in Education (MIDE), University of Zaragoza, Spain
Patrick Boumard, Research Director, Department of Philosophy, Breton and Celtic Research Center (CRBC-CNRS), University of Western Brittany, France

Setting up the Project
The purpose of the research was to develop the understanding of a particular educational action: the companionship for minors with correctional and educational intervention in Juvenile Court. This ethnographic research, which was carried out from 2004 to 2008 in Spain, shows us that companionship is one of the most important components of the socio-educational intervention. In this first part, I present you three important issues: 1.1) What epistemological choices? In short, the science of "persons", some phenomenological variants and the new challenges of Complexity will articulate a particular humanist research perspective; 1.2) Why Deviance and Education? A brief introduction to the main conceptual field of the research; and 1.3) What Fieldwork? Access, played roles, stay and leaving, different stages of the fieldwork formulated as "situation-in-life". [More...]

The data
The fieldwork took place in a correctional institution, from August 2004 to June 2005. Paradoxically, in my research Data were not produced through an overt interactive process occurring between researcher and participants. I was a covert observer!! However, my research was extremely sensitive to daily life construction through participants' interactions. In this way, research did not collect "Data", but produced "Information", and the fieldwork was based on two apparently simple strategies: 2.1) Participant Observation; and 2.2) Research Diary. Both of them were conducted by a particular epistemological "attitude" which drove me to a conversion process, becoming the phenomenon of study. [More...]

Working with data
My ethnographer's diary resulted in 892 pages of text that were organized and analyzed. How have I worked with it? When we are working with Data, our decisions are constantly changing. It is a not linear process. In a certain degree, I must even admit that this is an "anarchic" process: 3.1) Data Division. My first partitions and linkings were necessarily and constantly modified. Data management had to be in harmony with the whole research. 3.2) Discontinuity articulation. I was not able to format different significant Data divisions by a solid and strong theoretical path. I believe that the deep difficulty here lies in how to translate a continuous and vital construction into a discontinuous and analytical process. [More...]

Analysis processes
The qualitative analysis detected three main dimensions: Companionship I, institutional and instituted action; Companionship II, action as "pharmakon"; and Companionship III, social and profane action. I had multiple analysis units (roles, interactions, relationships, groups), dimensions (institution, organizational dynamics, professional situations, interpersonal experiences), and categories. In this process, I would like to point out two questions: 4.1) My Analysis References, which were leading my thought processes and shaping several significant "attractors"; and 4.2) My Big Weakness, an "autistic" analysis which did not rely on participants of the socio-educational situation [More...]

Reporting the research
This last phase entailed reflecting on the analysis of my fieldwork experiences. I must confess that reporting them was a difficult task: 5.1) Ethical Issues. I carried out a covert research, so how did I manage its ethical aspects? 5.2.) Multiple Writer. The writing wanted to be faithful to my fieldwork attitude and the real construction of the "situation-in-life". Consequently, its structure was presented as a choral for three narrative voices. 5.3) The gap. How was the gap (cosmovision - research - professional praxis) articulated? In this way, the research finally proposed five macro-competences (Interaction, Accompanied Game, Multiple Deviances, Trust Relationship and Communicational Action) in order to sustain and to optimize the socio-educational companionship. [More...]

List of References