ABSTRACT
This paper discusses possibilities of synthesising ethnographic data. This discussion implies a critical appraisal of the methodology of ‘Meta-Ethnography’. Taking Noblit’s and Hare’s concept of Meta-Ethnography as a starting point to develop their own practice of synthesising data, the paper suggests to reconsider the possibility to bring in primary data into the synthesis, to involve primary researchers and to develop a grounded theoretical synthesis. Building on their own practice of a shared grounded synthesis, the authors discuss how a synthesis of ethnographic data conducted by two primary researchers has the potential to open new conceptual and theoretical perspectives on individualised learning in age-mixed classes. The results of the ‘Shared Grounded Synthesising’ indicate a strong tendency of individualised learning and teaching to rely on and produce the normativity of the helping child.
