CONTENIDO DE LA PROPUESTA

In Birmingham, access to the school was gained through the personal contact of one of my supervisors. After her introduction of me to the school, I met with the Head of the school and negotiated access to the students and teachers through him. All the formalities, such as CRB-check8 and confirmation of an agreed start date, were organized, and a few months later I began the fieldwork. My first day at the school was a teacher training day, where I was introduced to the teachers by the Head of the school. Two days later at an assembly for year 11, I was introduced to the students by the Head of the Year9, and in the following weeks I introduced my project to several of the classes at the school. In addition, I went to all the Year 11 form groups to tell the students about myself and my project and to allow them to ask questions.

The first few weeks of my fieldwork at the school, I spent most of my time getting to know the school, the students and the classes they attended. This was a rather confusing period since all the students were divided, not only according to the different topics they had chosen, but also, in most subjects, into sets10. I did not know the schedule of the students and was not yet familiar with their faces. Therefore I found it challenging to figure out where to go and which classes to attend. In the beginning, I went to a form group in the morning and asked some of the students in the group if I could follow them to their next class, or I arranged with a teacher in advance to participate in his or her class. This was, as will be seen, a very different and significantly more complicated approach than the one I followed in Spain.

8 _{Criminal Records Bureau Check – required for working within schools in the UK.} 9

The teacher who has the main organisational responsibility for a given year group. 10

Children in the school were divided into five different ‘sets’ according to their ability. For more on how students are grouped in English schools, see p. 74.

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In addition to figuring out the schedule of the students and their whereabouts, my main concern in the first few weeks was to find a group that I could work with. I participated in as many different classes as possible and tried to get an impression of their composition, which was quite different. Some consisted only of boys, and some were made up exclusively of students of white or Asian backgrounds. Since I wanted to work with a mixed group of students none of these classes were suitable.

After two weeks in the school I decided to work with the drama group. Drama was an elective GCSE11 subject at the school and the drama group was mixed, with an almost equal amount of students of white, black and Asian background, and with more or less the same amount of boys and girls. In addition, the drama group consisted of mixed abilities and because I had participated in a lot of the other classes, I could see that it included students from various different sets. After the Head of the school and the Drama teacher both agreed that the group was suitable for my project, I presented the project to the drama students. I explained the information leaflet and the consent form (appendix 2) in an easily understandable language, and made very clear that participation was voluntary. After the class, I furthermore talked individually to the two students in the class, who were EAL students12, explained the aims and terms of the research again, and made sure that they understood what my project was about.

After my presentation, one girl signed the consent form straight away and gave it back to me. The rest of the class wanted to think about it, but when I came back to them the following week, only a few students returned the consent form. The rest were not interested in participating, which surprised me, but also made me reconsider my recruitment procedure. I therefore decided to leave the idea of having a specified class or group to work

11 _{General Certificate of Secondary Education, see description p. 75} 12 _{EAL – English as Additional Language.}

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with and began to ask students at a more individual basis, when I had an informal conversation with them and their friends during break times.

By the end of the first fieldwork phase in Birmingham, I had managed to interview nine students. This was much less than I had anticipated, and I was aware that it would not constitute a sound body of material for comparison. It was therefore not without anxiety that I went into my second fieldwork in Madrid.

2.2.2. Madrid

In Madrid I did not have direct access to a school via personal contact. I therefore adopted a mixture of strategies and pathways to find a school, which could suit the previously mentioned criteria. Through a contact in Barcelona I had obtained the name of a senior teacher in Madrid, who was willing to help me with my project and allow me to do fieldwork in his school. However, I soon realized that his school was unsuitable for the project, because it was a semi-private Catholic school and had far fewer migrant students than many state-run schools in the area. The teacher agreed instead to enquire with his colleagues in other schools. In the meantime, I made personal contact with a number of schools, but after having seen a detailed project description and references, they declined to participate. After a few rather anxious and frustrating weeks, the teacher that I had initially been in contact with gave me the contact of a school, where one of his friends worked. The director of the school had agreed to have a meeting with me and after presenting my project to her, she allowed me to do my fieldwork at the school, on the condition that the teachers would consent. They did, and I began my work at the school a few weeks later.

Contrary to the young people in England, the students in the school in Spain were not divided into sets. They had most of their classes together, and a few subjects with their

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parallel class. All in all the 4th cycle had 40 students and was divided into two classes. This was a much more manageable setting than in Birmingham and I quickly understood the lay- out and the whereabouts of the students. Together with the director, I chose a class that would form the basis of my fieldwork. This class had the highest number of students with migrant backgrounds.

When I arrived at the school, the teachers of the year group that I was working with were already informed of my project, and they had had the chance to decline my participation in their classes. On this basis, I was given a schedule and knew in advance which classes to enter. My first class was English, and the teacher had set aside the whole hour for me to present myself and my project to the students. This was done both in English (to fit the subject of the class) and in Spanish (because the English level of the students was limited) and ended up being a good introduction, where the students had a lot of opportunity to ask about my background and the project. Later that day, when I participated in a music class, I was again given plenty of time to present myself and by the end of the day all the students in the year group knew about my project and why I was at their school.

In order for the students to participate in the interviews, the director required the consent of their parents. A letter was put together by the school (appendix 3), and after I had been there a few days, it was given to the students by the director. It was made clear that the project was voluntary, but when she asked the group if they wanted to be part of the project, almost all of them shouted ¡si! Compared to the information leaflet, which I gave out in Birmingham, the letter, which the students were given in Madrid, did not contain the same amount of information. Acknowledging that the students’ consent was just as important as their parents, I did, however, do a significant amount of verbal follow up with the students, explaining what I was doing, and asking their permission.

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After a few months at the school, I decided to extend my fieldwork to include the students in the bridging class (a class for recently arrived migrants – see p.109). I was allowed to participate in some of their classes by the teachers, and interviewed almost all the students in this group. The introduction and consent procedure followed the same pattern as with the other group, and the teachers and I were careful to explain the project in an easily understandable way and allow plenty of time for the students to ask questions. Acknowledging that many of the parents knew less Spanish than their children, the letter of consent was explained carefully, so that the students could explain it to their parents. For two students, whose mother tongue was English, I translated the consent form into English, and for two Chinese students, who had particular difficulties with Spanish, I had the form translated into Chinese. After both my introduction and the handing out of the consent letter, I followed up with the individual students, making sure that they had understood what had been said.

In general the students in Spain were more enthusiastic about participating in the project and it was easier for me to recruit them for interviews. Some of this was perhaps due to the fact that they, by participating in an interview, were taken out of their regular class. Nevertheless, by the end of the Spanish fieldwork, I had interviewed 28 students, and knew that in order to compare this with the English context it would be necessary to go back to the school in Birmingham.