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Combining Methods
What method is adequate to the task of uncovering both similarities and differ-
ences across different law schools and classrooms? Being an anthropologist, I
begin with a preference for actually observing what people are doing, rather than
relying solely on their reports of what they do. Anthropologists pioneered the use
of participant observation, a method that relies on researchers to immerse them-
selves as much as possible in the setting they wish to understand. The kind of study
that is produced by this intensive and systematic observation over an extended
period of time is called an ethnography, also developed primarily out of the disci-
pline of anthropology, which has used this approach to study and understand cul-
tures.
1
Anthropologists and linguists studying classroom settings have adopted the
ethnographic method, providing rich accounts of the dynamics in classrooms—
dynamics that form students’ experiences.
2
In addition to observing and interacting in the settings they study, anthropo-
logical linguists concerned with the details of language-in-use frequently tape in-
teractions and then transcribe them to provide a basis for more exacting linguistic
analysis. This method permits careful scrutiny of the ways that minute aspects of
32
Introduction
language operate to shape ongoing interactions and to enact social structures. In
addition, sociolinguists have for some time used quantitative methods to track
overall patterns in speech, counting and measuring salient features of discourse.
Finally, scholars from these and other disciplines have combined other methods
with the use of interviews to obtain better information about how the participants
themselves make sense of what is going on. I drew on all of these methods in de-
veloping an understanding of law school classroom dynamics. This study, then,
employed a combination of in-class observation, ethnography, transcript analy-
sis, quantitative coding, and interviews. We observed and taped an entire semester
of classes to get a fuller picture of classroom dynamics and to avoid capturing only
one part of a semester-long process. We worked in eight different schools in an
effort to catch differences that might exist across the status hierarchy of law schools.
To include this number of classrooms in a study employing these kinds of meth-
ods was unusual (and at times daunting!). The level of in-depth work required for
this kind of research has rarely permitted inclusion of a variety of schools in any
single study; instead, classroom ethnographies have generally presented detailed
data on the dynamics in one or two classrooms.
Building on a tradition of careful attention to the details of language from the
closely aligned fields of anthropological linguistics and sociolinguistics, classroom
ethnographies have provided compelling accounts of the powerful (and often not
readily apparent) effects of spoken exchanges in school. Researchers have focused
not only on the way language conveys ideas and content (often referred to as
“propositional” or “referential” information), but also on how it functions socially
and in expressing identity, asking questions such as: “How do patterns of language
use affect what counts as ‘knowledge,’ and what occurs as learning? How do these
patterns affect the equality, or inequality, of students’ educational opportunities?
What forms of communicative competence do these patterns presume and/or fos-
ter?”
3
This kind of careful work has helped to reveal how seemingly small linguis-
tic differences among speakers of different class, age, and ethnic identities can
contribute to failures in communication—failures that, in a classroom setting, can
have a powerful impact on students’ ability to learn and to absorb a sense of em-
powerment that might help them in future endeavors. Systematic comparisons
across kinds of schools and educational settings have been fairly small-scale, or have
involved bringing together results from different studies, given the labor-intensive
methodology involved.
4
This study created a comparison set by including class-
rooms from eight different law schools that vary by status. Where possible, I also
compare these data with results from other existing studies.
The method of transcript analysis employed here also builds on previous lin-
guistic studies in other kinds of social and, in particular, legal settings. Thus, for
example, O’Barr and Conley have analyzed the language of small claims courts,
demonstrating the ways litigants’ and judges’ “voices” frequently clash because of
differing orientations.
5
Their intriguing conclusion was that the very courts de-
signed to help the layperson have become favored sites for business people, whose
mastery of a more legal voice and orientation gave them a distinct advantage. Simi-
larly, Sarat and Felstiner, in their study of the language used in divorce lawyers’
offices, tracked the subtle process whereby lawyer and client negotiate and struggle
Study Design, Methodology, and Profile
33
over the “reality” of the marriage and divorce at issue.
6
I build on these method-
ologies, adding quantified attention to race and gender, so that we can better track
the kind of patterning Conley and O’Barr indicated might be emerging from their
study.
7
In this I draw on the work of Matoesian, Merry, and Frohmann, who use
discourse analysis to trace class- and gender-based differences in orientations to-
ward the law.
8
The resulting study, then, is a broader picture than could be obtained by study-
ing one or two classrooms and permits us to begin to map possible patterning of
law school discourse. The classes are not to be viewed as a random sample, of course,
but as a set of in-depth case studies that can be compared with one another and
with other existing studies of law school classrooms.
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