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Method
Dutch society is becoming increasingly multicultural. In 2005, about fifteen per cent of Dutch youngsters between 11 and 13 were of non-Western origin (Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek 2004). I conducted a multi-sited ethnographic study at two Amsterdam primary schools with 55 pupils from diverse ethnic backgrounds. The two schools had distinct populations, where one school qualified as ‘black’ and the other as ‘white’.[5] The multi-site approach allowed me to approach native and non-native Dutch pupils not as distant others, but as equal parts of contemporary Dutch culture (Marcus 1995; Wacquant 2004). Furthermore, adding one or more sites to an ethnography provides extra empirical grounding for a study (Nadai and Maeder 2005).
Participant observation at the Gunningschool[6] started in November 2005 and lasted eight months. The observation at the Kantlijn started in February 2006 and lasted six months. At each school, I spent two days a week in class. I attended the Gunningschool on Mondays and Tuesdays, but switched days when I started attending the Kantlijn to sample days and events. I positioned myself as a helpful and friendly ‘grown up girl’: not exactly one of them, but not a teacher either (cf. Mandell 1988). I arrived with the students and left when they did, participated in all activities and entered conversations. I openly took notes, which I elaborated after school hours. In June and July 2006, I conducted in-depth interviews with all 55 pupils. Asking informal questions was part of the participant observation, but the more formalised interviews allowed for a different perspective. The interviews were fully transcribed and, together with the field notes, subjected to qualitative data analysis based on the coding guidelines of the grounded theory approach (see Duits 2008 for an elaborate discussion of method). Together, the analyses provide a thick description of everyday youth culture in 8th form, meaning they give a detailed account of a specific social setting that can be transferred to other findings (Geertz 1973; see also Bryman 2004).