Ethnographic research shares, among others things, such common features
as being holistic, reflective of native perspectives, naturalistic in data collection,
multimodal and eclectic (Goetz, J.P. and LeCompte, M . D . 1 984; Miles and
Huberman, 1 994) . Among these characteristics, some are more important in
distinguishing ethnographic research from other research approaches and now the
writer turns to discuss these characteristics and their significance to the present
HOLISTIC APPROACH
Ethnographic research adopts an hol istic approach (Sanday, 1 983 ; Goetz and LeCompte 1 984; Fetterman, 1989; and Miles and Huberman, 1 994) in which ethnographers are committed to the study of culture as an integrated whole (Sanday , 1 983 ; M iles and Huberman, 1994) . Adopting this holistic approach, the present researcher did not see the school under study, Alice Girls' High School, as merely a body of variables but he sought to understand the culture of the entity under study . In order to gain a deep and thorough understanding of the school culture which is essential for the present study, the researcher's role was to gain a holistic overview of the cultural context under study which is a systemic, encompassing and integrated whole comprising such features as its logic , its arrangement, its explicit and implicit rules (Miles and Huberman, 1 994) .
The holistic approach reflects the basic assumption that culture varies from one community to another; that the behavioural norms, shared values and beliefs are different from organization to organization and from group to group. We cannot make sense of the data collected unless we understand the cultural context in which the data exist. Not until the norms, values and beliefs in the cultural context are understood can we make good interpretations or arrive at appropriate conclusions. Therefore, before arriving at conclusions on the effects of school culture on teachers' job satisfaction and organizational commitment which was the main purpose of the present study, interpretations of the data have to be made with a holistic overview of the cultural context of the school under study . Thus, the hol istic approach was adopted for the present study of school culture undertaken at A lice Girls' H igh School .
NATURALISTIC DATA-COLLECTION
In ethnographic research, data are collected in a natural istic way . Owens
( 1 982) stated that naturalistic studies seek to :
illuminate social realities, human perceptions and organizational realities untainted by the intrusion of formal measurement procedures or re-ordering of the situation to fit the pre-conceived notions o f the investigator.
Hence, ethnographic research follows an anthropological rigour that data
are allowed to unfold themselves naturally rather than being collected according to a specific framework prescribed by the researcher, or after some deliberate manipulation of the subject by the researcher.
One of the important implications of this principle is that the researcher has
to become an insider of the group under study , as far as possible, so that the disturbance of the group by the researcher is kept to the minimum.
Therefore , in this ethnographic study of school culture undertaken at Alice
Girls' High School, the researcher sought to collect the data in the most natural
ways. Instead of making the participants to respond to the researcher along the track pre-determined through questionnaires as in quantitative studies, participant
observation was employed in the present study as the main data gathering technique supplemented by informants interviews and document analysis . By so doing , the researcher sought to respond to the data which unfold themselves in their most natural ways and the disturbance of the group by the researcher can be
ECLECTIC AND MULTIMODAL STRATEGIES
Ethnographic research is eclectic in that ethnographers do not confine themselves to a specific research method or technique; nor is there any particular method or technique that an ethnographer would reject (Goetz and LeCompte 1 984; Patton, 1 990; and Miles and Huberman, 1 994) . Different methods and research techniques are adopted in ethnographic research because of the varying needs and circumstances in different cultural contexts. Ethnographers may adopt new techniques and attend to new parameters during the course of the research processes.
Therefore, the present ethnographic study of school culture undertaken at Alice Girls' High School was multi-modal in its methodology -- use of a variety of methods and techniques, participant observations, informant interviews, informal conversations and document analysis -- to suit the varying needs and circumstances in different cultural contexts . The use of multiple methods in ethnographic research is also a matter of both validity and reliability . This is because, in most cases, the understanding of the social reality is not always satisfactory with any particular research technique and only a combination of a variety of methods and techniques yields valid data.
Furthermore, ethnographic research relies heavily on human interpretation.
Multiple methods and research techniques provide cross-examination mechanisms or triangulation of data and research findings . The use of these research techniques in the present study , will be discussed in more detail in the next chapter.
INTERPRETIVE PARADIGM -- THE NATIVE PERSPECTIVES
Ethnographic research, by its very nature, studies the native views and
seeks to interpret reality from the native perspectives. In Miles and Huberman's
( 1994) words:
The researcher attempts to capture data on the perceptions of local actors " from the inside" , through a process of deep attentiveness, of empathetic understanding (Verstehen) , and of suspending or
"bracketing " preconceptions about the topics under discussion. (Miles and Huberman, 1 994 : 6)
In the present study, the researcher sought to understand the framework in which the natives -- the participants of the school culture -- thought and felt, and
tried to describe and interpret the culture with that framework.
According to Morgan's (1980) classification of paradigms of scientific enquiries , the present ethnographic study undertaken at Alice Girls' High School rests on the interpretive paradigm in which the social world is predominantly seen as being the result of subjective constructions of social realities, and as being best understood through an interpretive analysis of the perceptions of those involved in defining a particular social phenomenon.
The particular social phenomenon under study in the present research is the teachers' perception of the school culture and the ways they see and react to the cultural elements at school which affect their job attitudes . It is because human activities or social phenomena are meaningful only in the specific contexts within
which they occur, and unlike natural phenomena, they are not easily rendered as
universal laws . Such activities or phenomena are constrained within the social context, or at least within the framework of meaning that the cultural actors
ascribe to these cultural phenomena. The present study, as interpretive research, attempts to tap into this framework of meaning that cultural participants, mainly the teachers at the school under study, create and use in enacting these particular phenomena.
Hence, theoretical ideas could be generated, from the perspectives of the participants, to relate school culture with teachers' job satisfaction and . organizational commitment which is the main purpose of the present study . Thus, adopting the interpretive paradigm from the perspectives of the participants to generate theoretical ideas was an essential process towards the building of theory grounded in the data which unfolded themselves naturally during the fieldwork stages of the study.
For this reason, the writer now turns to discuss the grounded theory approach and the theory-building process in the following section.