Education - The Great Battleground

A satellite passes over a suspected rebel camp in the jungle and photographs the vicinity. Nothing shows up on the imagery. They moved again.

The rebels have been sabotaging facilities, setting car bombs, ambushing police forces, kidnapping tourists and locals, trafficking drugs, and reeking havoc in the region for months, but we cannot isolate their network and identify their center of gravity. Satellite imagery, communication intercepts, and other wide area searches have not provided high enough resolution to direct a strategy. In order to properly target forces and effectively solve this problem, detailed and specific intelligence is necessary.

What is needed are teams of Special Operation forces who can infiltrate the area, remain in the vicinity for extended periods, conduct thorough surveillance, and report back their findings. They can assess the landscape, the culture, the rebel strength, and their relationship with the locals. They can provide the proper indications and warnings required to efficiently and effectively usher in larger forces and solve this problem.

Education needs Special Operation teams too. Instead of rebel forces, we have advancing information technologies, flanking for-profit education programs, and entrenched admission standards. Students and faculty can be held hostage by well-meaning, but poorly crafted policies. Minority access measures are not hitting their targets, and their effectiveness must improve. Costs are suspiciously soaring throughout higher education. There is a whole host of threats and imposing problems that educational leaders need detailed and specific information on to efficiently target their policies and solve them. Quantitative studies provide compelling and powerful information, but their broad surveys and samplings often need further clarification. This point is where qualitative researchers enter.

Educational ethnographers can help scope policies and direct their application to the appropriate parties so that they have their intended affect. They can infiltrate inside organizations, remain inconspicuous, and gather answers to why particular problems exist. For example, why is minority enrollment so low? Why do athletes perform poorly in academics? Why are the impacts of wireless networks? Why should we offer distance education? Why are university presidents so pressured? Educational ethnographers act like the Special Operation forces of research. They provide the detailed and specific information surrounding these questions.

In the military the mission is termed Special Reconnaissance, and the most difficult task is infiltrating the problem area and remaining concealed while you are still in a position close enough to make relevant observations.