ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the use of video diaries in my research. This technique, which I approached in a rather experimental way in the early stages of my doctoral fieldwork, proved to be highly influential in my investigation of the complexities of learning (mathematics) at the primary-secondary school interface. The reasons for its success were twofold. First, through its evocation of the ubiquitous visual diaries of reality television the children engaged enthusiastically with the process. Second, their self-presentation went beyond their wellestablished school behaviours and they spoke with disarming candour about school, friendship and families. So I was confronted by, and was then able subsequently to explore, previously ‘unknown unknowns’. These unknown unknowns might be best understood as important findings (and leads) that could not have been inferred or guessed at from previous fieldwork. In hindsight such ‘unknowns’ appear less surprising, but at the time they opened up new areas of investigation. The diary approach engaged my sociological imagination in quite a different way from the other ethnographic methods that I was using in the case-study research. No doubt the visual nature of the recordings was central to
this, although what I used most in the analyses were the audio transcripts from the entries. My research, which made use of Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological tools (e.g. Bourdieu, 1977), was particularly focused upon understanding how children’s dispositions, acquired largely in their families, were translated into school and classroom practices, so steering their academic trajectories (Noyes, 2006).
