Diffractive Ethnography in Practice: Understanding the Intra-Actions of Educational Complexity

Abstract

Education’s inherent complexity, characterised by dynamic entanglements among students, teachers, policies, and environments, necessitates methodologies with greater potential to reveal significant intra-actions. Understanding complexity is essential for developing effective educational responses sensitive to diverse learning needs and contexts. This paper examines how diffractive ethnography, developed from the work of Donna Haraway (1991) and Karen Barad (2007), reframes education as a dynamically entangled process, in which each element influences and is influenced by others. Diffractive ethnography represents a philosophical and methodological shift grounded in new materialism that moves away from human-centric research frameworks. This paper provides a practical and explanatory account of applying diffractive ethnography in educational research. Collaborative testing case studies are used to exemplify the development of a trustworthy methodological approach, crucially demonstrated through the iterative construction and use of diffractive diagrams as both an analytical tool and visual enactments of complex entanglements. This innovative approach provides a powerful way to understand and enhance educational practice, moving beyond cause-and-effect thinking to embrace the messy reality of learning environments. Ultimately, this paper not only theorises a new methodology; it also provides a vital roadmap for researchers to explore educational interactions, paving the way for truly transformative pedagogical and policy interventions.

Introduction

Educational research is routinely confronted with the complexity of learning environments. However, dominant research models in many fields continue to privilege linear, reductionist approaches that assume separable variables and predictable cause–and–effect relationships. Such models, often politically promoted as “gold-standard” forms of evidence, struggle to account for how learning emerges through dynamic, material-discursive entanglements among students, teachers, assessment policies, and classroom environments. Linear approaches that assume separable components and causal relationships are therefore insufficient to capture the complexity of education (​​Davis & ​Sumara, 2009; ​Fenwick et al., 2011), a limitation long critiqued in complexity theory and post-humanist scholarship (Barad, 2007; Biesta, 2010). In response to this methodological limitation, this paper argues that diffractive ethnography is not simply an alternative method, but a necessary philosophical and methodological reorientation for studying educational complexity.

Within this intricate landscape, collaborative testing has emerged as a logical extension of collaborative learning pedagogy and a significant assessment alternative to individual, high-stakes assessment tasks. The collaborative testing strategy, typically involving groups of three or four students jointly completing tests in formats like two-stage exams or collaborative sections preceding individual tests (Eastridge & Benson, 2020; Siegel et al., 2015), has shown promise in fostering deeper conceptual understanding and enhancing 21st-century skills, particularly within science-based undergraduate education (Eastwood et al., 2020; Efu, 2019; Gilley & Clarkston, 2014; Leight et al., 2012; Meaders & Vega, 2022; Theobald et al., 2020). We define 21st-century skills as the ‘4Cs,’ critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity, which are essential for navigating complex, technology-driven environments (Bremert, 2025; Mahoney & Harris-Reeves, 2019). However, understanding the full spectrum of its impact and the nuanced dynamics at play necessitates research methodologies that move beyond conventional frameworks.

This paper demonstrates how diffractive ethnography can be practically enacted through its application to collaborative testing, particularly by iteratively developing and applying diffractive diagrams as both a tool for tracing complex intra-actions and a means of rendering these entanglements visible for analysis (Bremert, 2025). Applying a diffractive approach to collaborative testing, therefore, holds the potential to reveal deeper insights into classroom dynamics, material conditions, assessment strategies, and student engagement that can affect learning outcomes. For instance, in one collaborative test, students’ focus was noticeably disrupted when the classroom temperature rose, leading to reduced concentration and shorter peer discussions. Rather than viewing this as an external disturbance, a diffractive analysis revealed how the material conditions of the room, heat, air circulation, and students’ embodied responses were intra-acting with their cognitive engagement. This underscores how learning is not merely a cognitive process in response to the teacher's pedagogy, but rather an emergent phenomenon shaped by the relational intra-actions of all elements within the entanglement (Barad, 2007). Diffractive ethnography is an onto-epistemological approach that studies how educational phenomena emerge through material-discursive intra-actions, rather than treating learning as the outcome of isolated variables or human intention alone.

Theoretical Orientation: Agential Realism and Diffractive Method

This study is grounded in post-humanist and new materialist scholarship, particularly Karen Barad’s (2007) theory of agential realism, alongside the diffractive work of Haraway (1991) and its educational applications by Lenz Taguchi, 2010a. Agential realism rejects the separation of ontology and epistemology, proposing instead that being and knowing are inseparable and emerge together through relational processes.

Central to this framework is the concept of intra-action, which differs from interaction by rejecting the assumption that entities pre-exist their relations. Instead, phenomena, including learners, pedagogical practices, and learning environments, emerge through their ongoing relational entanglements (Barad, 2007). Within this study, entanglement refers to the co-constitution of human and non-human elements, such that students, teachers, assessment policies, and material conditions cannot be analytically separated without performing an agential cut.

Agential realism positions the apparatus not as a neutral research tool but as a material-discursive configuration that actively produces what can be known (Gullion, 2018). In this study, pedagogy, assessment design, classroom material conditions, and the researcher’s analytic practices together constitute the research apparatus. This theoretical orientation directly informs the study’s methodological design and analytic strategies, making explicit how theory, pedagogy, and method mutually shape one another.

Diffractive Ethnography: Rethinking Intra-Actions in Research

Diffractive ethnography (DE) represents a theoretical shift and a methodological innovation in educational research. A fundamental tenet of diffractive ethnography is the deep consideration of onto-epistemology; the inseparability of being (ontology) and knowing (epistemology) (Barad, 2007, p. 185). Such a perspective challenges the assumption that knowledge can be separated from the conditions in which it is produced. By focusing on intra-actions, where meaning and matter emerge together, diffractive ethnography provides a framework for studying learning environments as entangled spaces shaped by relational dynamics (Barad, 2007; Blom, 2022; Gullion, 2018). Rather than isolating variables or attributing learning outcomes to singular factors, DE traces how emotions, policies, pedagogical structures, and material conditions co-constitute educational experiences (Barla, 2023; Talbot, 2023).

Diffractive ethnography works against the assumption that knowledge exists independently of the researcher, who is positioned as a neutral observer (Barad, 2007; Mazzei, 2014). Haraway (1997) critiques such dualistic separation, arguing that it reinforces the illusion of detached objectivity (Barad, 2007; Barla, 2023). Thus, grounded in Barad’s (2007, p. 26) agential realism, DE disrupts ethnographic methods that position the researcher as an external observer capable of bracketing themselves from the observations they make and the meanings they imbue in those observations. Instead, it asserts that researchers are actively entangled with the educational environments they study, shaping what can be known through the research process (Barad, 2007; Murris, 2022). This approach builds on Barad’s concept of ‘intra-active materiality’ (Barad, 2007, p. 170), which reframes education as a dynamic process where human and non-human elements are mutually implicated in meaning-making (Gullion, 2018).

Moreover, Spyrou (2019) extends this critique, noting how research practices marginalise the ‘other’ (pp. 38–39), including non-material entities and ‘other than human man’ (Murris, 2017, p. 46), which actively contribute to knowledge production. Similarly, Braidotti (2019) and Lenz Taguchi (2010b) emphasise that knowledge and reality are not static but dynamically produced through ongoing entanglements. Barad (2007, p. 379) captures this by stating, “Knowing is a direct material engagement and process of intra-acting with any part of the world in its dynamic material configurations and ongoing articulations.” This inseparability of meaning and materiality deepens our understanding of how knowledge is constructed and what can be known. Before we provide further details on how the diffractive methodology enabled the simultaneous consideration of meaning and materiality, we provide, in the next section, some necessary information about the doctoral study undertaken by Bremert (2025).

Study Context and Rationale

Collaborative testing, as employed in this study, is a pedagogical assessment strategy in which groups of three to four students work together to answer test questions, submitting a single group answer for evaluation (Bremert, 2025). While most tests involved a single-stage collaborative test, one class undertook a two-stage approach, completing the individual test first before proceeding to the collaborative test (Siegel et al., 2015). This study, however, moved beyond treating collaborative testing as a generic group assessment.

Guided by a diffractive methodological approach grounded in Karen Barad’s ‘agential realism’ (Barad, 2007, p. 26), collaborative testing was understood as an entangled practice shaped by human dynamics, teacher facilitation, assessment policies, and material conditions (Bremert, 2025). This theoretical strategy enables understanding the “layered realities and revealing how students and teachers intra-act with each other and their environment in real-time and real-world educational settings” (Bremert, 2025, p. 76). Rather than treating data as reflections of pre-existing phenomena, this approach conceptualises knowledge as produced through these intra-actions, the entangled engagements between people, practices, and material-discursive forces (Barad, 2007; Hayes et al., 2020; Taylor, 2013). Collaborative testing, therefore, was not merely studied as a technique but understood as a phenomenon that materialises differently depending on these entanglements.

Conducted over one term, from January 2023 to April 2023, Bremert (2025) aimed to comprehensively investigate the impact of collaborative testing on student conceptual understanding and the development of 21st-century skills such as collaboration, communication, and argumentation. This research specifically focused on implementing collaborative testing within a performance-driven environment, characteristic of high school settings, leading to end-of-schooling examinations. While extensive research from university contexts has consistently demonstrated that collaborative testing can enhance learning, critical thinking, and communication skills (Eastwood et al., 2020; Lombardi et al., 2021; Meaders & Vega, 2022), its compatibility and effects within high-stakes secondary schooling environments remain underexplored. This gap in the literature presented a significant impetus for this study.

The study involved 57 students across three senior science classes (Physics, Agricultural Science, and Investigating Science) at two high schools: one in urban Sydney, New South Wales, and the other in rural Queensland. Bremert (2025) employed purposeful sampling to capture the most insightful perspectives and provide rich, detailed intra-actions (Guetterman, 2015; Staller, 2021). The three classes selected for final focus, Halo, Beta, and Zeta, were chosen for their distinct intra-actions and varied cultural compositions and educational structures, allowing for comparative insights into how different educational contexts shape collaborative testing (Bremert, 2025). Table 1 provides further details on the characteristics of these participating classrooms.

Table 1.

Characteristics of Participating Classrooms

Classroom name	School location	Subject	Key characteristics of intra-actions
Halo	Urban	Investigating Science	Featured a high-stakes collaborative summative test for Year 11 and 12 students, allowing analysis of how grading entangles with collaborative testing, shaping group dynamics and student behaviour differently in graded and ungraded contexts.
Beta	Urban	Physics	Characterised by a significant gender imbalance, it provided insight into how gendered intra-actions shaped student perceptions and collaborative testing environments.
Zeta	Rural	Agricultural Science	Offered insights into how external constraints, such as scheduling limitations and repeated testing, intra-acted with student experiences of collaborative testing.

Note. Table 1 reprinted with permission from Bremert, 2025.

This study adopts a qualitative, ethnographic research design, situating collaborative testing within the everyday practices of secondary science classrooms. Diffractive ethnography extends ethnographic traditions by foregrounding the entanglement of human and non-human elements, allowing classroom practices to be examined as emergent, relational phenomena rather than stable instructional techniques (Gullion, 2018). To make these entanglements visible prior to analysis, Figure 1 provides a conceptual diagram illustrating how teacher facilitation, assessment policy, student embodiment, and classroom material conditions are co-constituted through intra-action.

Figure 1.

Conceptual diagram illustrating the entanglement of teacher facilitation, assessment policy, student embodiment, and classroom material conditions through intra-action (Bremert, 2025).

The study involved three cycles of collaborative testing, which were administered during regular classroom time and under standard test conditions. Notably, only Halo’s third test was summative and contributed to grades; all other tests were formative (Bremert, 2025). Test content, designed to align with each teacher’s respective teaching sequence and subject curriculum, consisted of short and long open-ended questions and calculation questions and was based on Bloom’s Taxonomy (Bremert, 2025, p. 87; Mahoney & Harris-Reeves, 2019).

Groups were limited to four students and were either teacher-assigned (based on gender, ability, and personality) or self-selected by students (Bremert, 2025). Teachers’ roles varied from passive observers to active facilitators, supporting discussion and mediating group conflict when necessary. Crucially, attention was also paid to the material environment, including seating arrangements, temperature, and background noise, given their observed influence on student intra-action and cognitive stamina (Bremert, 2025).

Data were collected using various qualitative methods to reflect the study’s commitment to a diffractive approach. These included audio recordings of conversations with teachers at the beginning and end of the study, as well as for each student group during each test. Bremert (2025) meticulously recorded observations of material conditions and her perceptions, while mind maps were used to examine individual students’ perceptions of collaborative testing (Bremert, 2025). Data collection was iterative, with each round informing subsequent rounds of implementation and analysis. Particular care was taken to document intra-actions among students, teachers, and non-human elements, in direct alignment with the study’s theoretical commitments.

Across the participating classes, students and teachers consistently reported that collaborative testing contributed to a deeper conceptual understanding, improved communication and collaboration skills, and increased student engagement (Bremert, 2025). Many students reported feeling more confident and less anxious when working with peers, particularly when the stakes were low. However, the findings also revealed challenges, such as uneven participation, group conflict, and disengagement, when the collaborative component lacked meaningful accountability (Bremert, 2025).

The material environment emerged as a significant factor. Factors like heat, noise, and cramped spaces frequently limited students’ cognitive endurance and group cohesion (Bremert, 2025). These findings underscore the importance of attending to the broader conditions that shape educational experiences, an insight made possible by diffractive analysis. These broad findings, further elaborated through specific data exemplars, highlight both the pedagogical potential and contextual constraints of collaborative testing in high schools.

Methodological Approach: Enacting Diffractive Ethnography in Practice

Collaborative Development of the Diffractive Research Apparatus

This paper details the methodological approach employed in Bremerts' (2025) doctoral study on collaborative testing, co-developed with Talbot. This qualitative case study explored the complexities of implementing collaborative assessment, treating each classroom as an entangled site of inquiry where teachers, students, the classroom environment, and material-discursive factors intra-acted. These entanglements were not background conditions, but active participants in shaping what learning became possible. In each classroom setting, teachers and students co-constructed knowledge in what Taylor (2019) emphasises that knowledge emerges through complex, entangled processes of co-creation, intra-acting within the “spacetimematter” of the classroom and the collaborative tests (Barad, 2007, p. 181). Drawing from Karen Barad’s (2007, p. 816) framework of agential realism, the study conceptualised the research apparatus beyond tools or instruments, recognising it as a dynamic system of intra-actions that shapes and is shaped by the studied phenomena. Research apparatuses are neither static nor neutral but are entangled with the phenomena, policies, historical contexts, and the specific conditions under study (Barad, 2003; Charteris et al., 2019; Holford, 2020).

Bremert's doctoral journey began with an interest in the benefits of collaborative testing in high schools, leading to an initial proposal focused on the quantitative analysis of questionnaire responses and on teacher-participants’ involvement in a process akin to practitioner inquiry. However, as research conversations between student and supervisor matured, Bremert experienced a growing unease: a pragmatic, human-centred approach felt increasingly insufficient to capture the nuanced and complex classroom dynamics she aimed to understand. This growing methodological tension culminated in a pivotal onto-epistemological shift when Talbot introduced Karen Barad’s (2007) agential realism. She had already realised that learning was not a linear process driven solely by individual interactions but reading and discussing Barad’s work brought learning into focus as an emergent phenomenon shaped by the constant intra-actions of all elements, human and non-human. Thus, factors such as classroom temperature, ambient noise, and the arrangement of desks were implicated as more than mere background elements, but as active participants deeply entangled with student engagement and knowledge construction. This realisation necessitated a methodology capable of tracing these complex entanglements and representing them in ways that defied reductionist models, directly informing the iterative development of the unique diffractive apparatus and diagrams presented in this paper.

Undertaking this theoretical reorientation did not occur in isolation. The development of this diffractive approach, including the unique research apparatus and diagrams, was a profoundly collaborative and iterative process forged through sustained discussion and constructive debate between the doctoral student (Bremert) and the research supervisor (Talbot). These ongoing discussions were crucial for moving beyond theoretical abstractions and translating the principles of diffraction into a practical methodology for research enacted at the frontline of student learning.

Our aim was to move beyond the purely conceptual, avoiding the trap of treating diffraction as merely an optical metaphor for “difference” and “reflection.” We deliberately engaged with agential cuts and constitutive intra-actions central to the physics of diffraction (Barad, 2007), seeking to design an apparatus that could actively participate in producing and making visible the entangled phenomena of the classroom. An example of an agential cut occurred when analysis foregrounded classroom temperature and noise while deliberately excluding broader socio-economic policy effects, enabling high-resolution analysis of classroom-level intra-actions. This iterative process was driven by the need for a rigorous, non-reductive way to trace how human and non-human elements dynamically co-constitute learning experiences (Figure 2).

Figure 2.

First iteration of the collaborative testing diffractive diagram.

The first attempts to visualise our diffractive analysis, such as the conceptual sketch in Figure 2, served as a foundational step in structuring our approach. This initial diagram represented our nascent understanding of how a collaborative test might lead to ‘different patterns’ of learning depending on the intra-action of teachers, students, the researcher, and all material factors present and implicated in the classroom. It was an essential exercise in thinking about the ‘structure’ for analysis, moving us toward a more systematic approach to mapping complex entanglements. However, this early conceptualisation still carried residual traces of a more conventional, albeit complex, systems-thinking approach, where elements were listed as interacting rather than actively co-constituting phenomena. Within this framework, we define residual traces as the material-discursive patterns left behind by intra-actions that remain available for later analysis (Barad, 2007). We contrast this with systems thinking, which often views components as interacting parts of a whole (Senge, 2006), whereas diffractive ethnography views them as mutually constitutive. We continued to struggle with how to represent the diffraction process without inadvertently creating just another visual metaphor for a research process.

The challenges of truly capturing intra-actions became increasingly evident as we progressed to more detailed, intermediate iterations such as the Collaborative Testing Mind Map in Figure 3. This diagram represents a significant step toward systematically mapping the vast array of factors influencing collaborative testing, including political, pedagogical, and specific classroom conditions, as well as a comprehensive range of student perceptions. However, despite its richness in detail, Figure 3 still inadvertently separates elements into distinct categories, such as “Students,” “Teachers,” and “Classroom conditions,” and then lists the effects or perceptions. In its attempt to be exhaustive, this visual structure still carried the lingering influence of linear thinking, where phenomena were categorised as causes or effects rather than as mutually constitutive intra-actions. Our discussions frequently circled back to the dilemma of visually representing the inseparability of matter and meaning without inadvertently isolating variables, even within a post-humanist framework. For instance, while Figure 3 meticulously lists classroom conditions such as “noisy fans” and “hot and humid,” it was still a challenge to visually articulate how these material conditions actively shaped and were shaped by student engagement and pedagogical choices, rather than merely serving as a backdrop.

Figure 3.

Intermediate iteration: Collaborative test mind map

Research requires an apparatus, not as a passive tool but as an active and evolving configuration of material-discursive intra-actions that make phenomena intelligible (Barad, 2007). We recognised our apparatuses were not static; they would inherently shift in response to contextual forces such as policies, histories, and environmental conditions, structuring what comes to matter in the research (Barad, 2003, 2007; Charteris et al., 2019; Holford, 2020). Bozalek and Fullagar (2021) describe this as an intricate web of intra-actions that continually reconfigure reality. Murris (2022) emphasises that apparatuses are dynamic arrangements of human, material, and non-material subjectivities that shape what is included and excluded from the analysis. We chose to exclude from our apparatus factors that governed the classroom environment from a distance, such as education policy, funding, and socio-economic pressures. The focus for inclusion was on factors that could be ‘sensed’ in the classroom environment. Which, in turn, raised more questions about the human-centric nature of research.

Thus, the refinement leading to diagrams like Figure 4 involved a deliberate and often challenging process of reconfiguring our own thinking alongside the apparatus itself. It wasn’t simply about adding more elements, but about reimagining their relationships to articulate how phenomena emerge through their entanglement visually. This meant moving beyond linear re-presentations of ‘influence’ to explicitly incorporate the diffractive pattern as a central visual for the ongoing intra-actions. The integration of “Apparatus,” “Diffraction,” and “Perceptions” in Figure 4 represents the outcome of these iterative “agential cuts” (Barad, 2007, p. 128), selectively narrowing the scope of the intra-actions most crucial to understanding collaborative testing outcomes. In their constant evolution, the imperfect nature of these diagrams became a testament to the diffractive process itself, acknowledging that a perfect, static re-presentation of dynamic entanglements is antithetical to the theory. These diagrams, therefore, became both an analytical tool for tracing complex intra-actions and a method of re-presentation, rendering the dynamic entanglements visible and intelligible. Through these shifting configurations, multiple enactments of the same phenomenon can emerge, shaped by the specific intra-actions of the apparatus (Barad, 2007). As Barad (2007) explains, “Apparatuses are the material conditions of possibility and impossibility of mattering; they enact what matters and what is excluded from mattering” (p. 148).

Figure 4.

Final diffractive apparatus and diagram for collaborative test.

Diffractive Ethnography in Practice: Capturing Intra-Actions Through Qualitative Methods

To capture these intra-actions, various qualitative methods were employed to collect data, each selected to align with the principles of diffractive ethnography. Rather than viewing data collection as a neutral or extractive practice, these methods recognise that knowledge is actively produced through entanglements between participants, material factors they are directly engaged with, and the broader environment.

• Conversations: The deliberate use of “conversation” rather than “interview” or “focus group” emphasises the dynamic and intra-active nature integral to diffractive ethnography (DE) (Kuntz & Presnall, 2012; Taylor & Hughes, 2016). This choice is grounded in the historical use of conversations in qualitative research, which has been shown to produce co-constructed knowledge, a core principle of DE. Early ethnographers, such as Margaret Mead and scholars associated with the Chicago School, employed conversations as primary methods of data collection (Swain & King, 2022). Diffractive ethnography builds on this tradition, aligning with Barad’s (2007) perspective on discourse, not merely as communication but as an intra-active process shaped by contextual possibilities and constraints. For instance, conversations were not merely about students answering questions; they were equally about how the shared space, the presence of the test paper, and even the specific wording of a question co-produced new insights into the collaborative dynamics that would not have emerged from a structured, pre-defined interview (Bremert, 2025, p. 107 - 108). An example conversational prompt included: “Can you describe a moment during the test when the group’s thinking shifted?” This open framing enabled material conditions, peer dynamics, and assessment pressure to surface simultaneously.

• Audio recordings: Capturing verbal cues and the unfolding of intra-actions in real-time using strategically placed recording devices recognised the agential capacity of elements other than human in shaping research outcomes. As Cobussen (2022) notes, such devices become active contributors to the knowledge-creation process, entangling both participants and their environment in a “stage of instability” (p. 15). For example, the strategically placed audio recorder became part of the intra-action captured, not just a passive tool. The sudden sound of a student tapping their pen or a chair scraping across the floor became data revealing how attention shifted or how a group’s collaborative rhythm was momentarily disrupted and then re-established, embodying the “stage of instability” Cobussen (2022, p. 15) describes Bremert, 2025, pp. 118 - 119). Audio recordings were prioritised over surveys to capture timing, interruption, hesitation, and embodied responses, elements central to diffractive analysis but typically erased in decontextualised survey data.

• Observation notes were employed rather than field notes, emphasising ongoing engagement and documenting intra-actions as they emerged. This approach reflects Rust and Altmans (2020) argument that observation is not a passive act, but one in which the observer and the observed are always entangled with multiple elements at any given moment. These notes were intentionally created to complement other data collection moments. For instance, observation notes captured not only verbal exchanges but also subtle intra-actions and gestures exchanged between students, the changing light in the room, or the specific way a teacher gestured, all of which influenced the unfolding collaborative process (Bremert, 2025, pp. 135–136). The very act of noting these details meant the observer was entangled in shaping what became ‘data,’ simultaneously documenting the intra-actions across human and material elements. The participants noticed that the researcher was making notes at various points, which may or may not have influenced subsequent intra-actions.

• Mind maps are used to capture participant perceptions, aligning with diffractive ethnography’s emphasis on emergent knowledge production, which illustrates how ideas develop through various material-discursive conditions. The branching and connected nature of the mind map mirrored the entangled thinking process, revealing students’ concepts and experiences that a survey might obscure in non-linear ways. This makes the active and emergent co-construction of knowledge visible through their intra-action with the task and materials (Bremert, 2025, p. 162).

• Questionnaires were deliberately excluded because they are ill-suited to capturing the nuanced entanglements between matter and non-material elements. Additionally, surveys often lack spontaneity, and participants may not fully engage with the questions, limiting their ability to reveal an individual’s perceptions within a diffractive framework (Barad, 2007; Fowler, 2009).

Each methodological choice reflects the core principle of diffractive ethnography: data is not passively collected but actively produced through entanglements between participants, materials, and the environment.

Diffractive Ethnography in Practice: Data Analysis

Diffractive ethnography challenges the notion that data is static or isolated, instead viewing it as inherently active and dynamic. According to diffractive principles, data emerges through complex intra-actions among various agents rather than existing as a fixed entity (Barad, 2007; Murris, 2021). This perspective treats data as fluid and emergent, only taking shape as it entangles with the research environment. Koro-Ljunberg et al. (2018) characterise such data as enigmatic and unstable, only gaining meaning through active engagement in research processes. Similarly, Taylor (2013) emphasises that data actively contribute to and participate in the studied phenomena in diffractive settings. This resonates with our concern for data stability. For instance, an initial reading of a conversation transcript might focus solely on students’ verbalised problem-solving strategies. However, new meanings about their collaborative process emerged as they continually re-engaged with the interview transcript alongside observation notes about ambient noise, temperature, or the posture of their bodies, which in turn were impacted by the size and arrangement of furniture and the sense of free space (Bremert, 2025, p. 146). What seemed like a simple cognitive process initially was revealed to be deeply entangled with the material environment and bodily intra-actions. The data was not a static record of what was said but a fluid account of emergent meaning through multiple sources, requiring the analysis to shift and evolve with these new insights. The collaborative testing study employed an iterative approach to data analysis, starting with a preliminary examination of audio recordings, conversation transcripts, and mind maps from both before and after the tests. Each phase is described in Table 2.

Table 2.

Phases of the Data Analysis

The initial phase was pivotal for establishing baseline insights while identifying key areas for further study.

The second analysis phase examined how the material environment intra-acted with students and teachers, including spatial arrangements, ambient conditions (e.g. temperature and noise), and policy structures affecting classroom practice. This phase emphasised how non-human agents shape educational experiences.

Data was analysed not as isolated themes but through a diffractive reading process to reveal intra-actions. This involved examining where and how intra-actions overlapped identifying patterns of entanglement rather than reducing findings to discrete categories.

The final phase synthesised the fmdings into the final diffractive diagram for each test (see Figure 3), visualising the entangled nature of collaborative testing and demonstrating how intra-actions shape educational experiences.

Note. Information on the phases is adapted from Bremert (2025).

The following diagrams (Figure 5, Figure 6, Figure 7) illustrate the practical application of the diffractive apparatus developed through the iterative processes outlined earlier (Figures 2–4). These diagrams are not static re-presentations but visual enactments of diffractive analysis tools that materialise how meaning is produced through intra-actions of students, teachers, material objects, spatial arrangements, and environmental conditions. Each diagram illustrates what came to matter in its specific spacetimematter configuration (Barad, 2007, p. 816), shaped by the evolving research apparatus and the agential cuts made during analysis. Rather than abstracting or generalising, the diagrams surface the situated and contingent nature of collaborative testing as it unfolds across three unique classrooms.

Figure 5.

Halo collaborative test 3. Final diffractive mapping showing layered peer-teacher-material intra-actions.

Figure 6.

Beta collaborative test 2. Diffractive diagram showing fragmented interactions and group separation.

Figure 7.

Zeta collaborative test 1. Diffractive map highlighting classroom layout and environmental conditions.

Figure 5 (Halo Collaborative Test 3) illustrates the complex, layered intra-actions that shaped students’ experiences, with a high level of peer engagement evident throughout the diagram. This complexity is visible in the co-existence of both positive and negative perceptions arising from the same set of intra-actions. For example, what might be considered positive perceptions, such as ‘peer learning’, ‘multiple perspectives’ and ‘strengthens understanding’, co-exist with negative perceptions such as ‘too many opinions, confusing’ and ‘intimidating to share ideas’. These contrasting views are visually clustered, emphasising how the same intra-actions produced divergent responses. The diagram also reveals how elements of the broader classroom apparatus influenced students’ experiences. For example, terms like ‘summative test,’ ‘not HSC, practice tests,’ and ‘concerns of ATAR’ point to an assessment context, while perceptions such as ‘sort into year groups’ and ‘intimidating to share ideas’ point to how the mixed cohort of year 11 and 12 students shaped perceptions. Taken together, these elements, grouped and positioned in the diagram, demonstrate how material-discursive conditions contributed to both support and tension. The diagram thus offers nuanced insight into the collaborative skills required to navigate and succeed within the innovative pedagogical approach of collaborative testing.

Contrastingly, Figure 6 (Beta Collaborative Test 2) illustrates fragmented and uneven group dynamics, highlighting how social positioning and group composition limited the potential of collaborative testing. In this case, diffraction brought to the surface how Beta’s spontaneous decision-making and disengagement shaped the collaborative testing experience. The rushed scheduling, lack of insight into student dynamics, and abrupt interruption of reflection revealed how teacher actions constrained inclusive participation and deeper thinking. Notably, the perception that “teacher told us to stop and move on” (Bremert, 2025, pp. 132-134) highlights how Beta’s scepticism towards the method subtly devalued it, influencing students’ perceptions of collaborative testing.

Figure 7 (Zeta Collaborative Test 1) highlights material conditions and illustrates how air conditioning and desk arrangements influenced perceptions of collaborative testing. The diffractive diagrams across all three classes demonstrated how environmental factors shaped students’ engagement. While Zeta and Halo’s air-conditioned classrooms supported focus and stamina, Beta’s students experienced fatigue and disengagement due to the heat. In Halo’s class, close seating arrangements amplified noise during discussions, which affected concentration. Across all diagrams, time pressure consistently emerged as a limiting factor, hindering students’ full engagement in collaboration. Together, these diffractive maps expose how spatial and temporal conditions are not background variables but active participants in the learning process.

Together, these diagrams powerfully exemplify how diffractive ethnography operates in practice. They illustrate analysis as an ongoing, emergent process of attending to the material-discursive conditions that constitute educational phenomena, rather than a search for stable truths. This approach resists abstraction and generalisation, instead surfacing the situated, relational, and contingent nature of collaborative testing as it unfolds across three distinct classrooms, each shaped by unique material-discursive conditions (Barad, 2007; Taylor, 2013). Data, far from being fixed or isolated, emerges dynamically through researcher-participant-material entanglements, offering deeper insights into how collaborative testing is co-constituted by its environment (Murris, 2022). Diffractive ethnography emphasises the responsiveness to data in research, necessitating analytical strategies that evolve in tandem with the data and demonstrate a commitment to capturing the complexity of educational settings.

This approach reveals the complex entanglements that shape pedagogy and assessment by making deliberate agential cuts and focusing on classroom dynamics, teacher-student intra-actions, and core educational content. Even though this study did not set out to deliberately explore factors outside the classroom intra-actions, instances arose across the three classes where teachers expressed frustration about the external policy landscape. Teachers mentioned that covering the unit’s requirements cut short collaborative activities to ensure the ‘content delivery’ for upcoming examinations was completed (Bremert, 2025, pp. 126, 153, 166). These policies intra-act with available resources, classroom configurations, and institutional expectations, influencing a school’s teaching and learning culture and shaping what pedagogical approaches are deemed viable or effective. Thus, diffractive ethnography made visible how educational practices are co-constituted through such entanglements. This is crucial as pedagogical innovations are often criticised as inherently faulty, without due consideration for the intra-acting factors that enable or limit their success. By recognising that education is not a static system but a series of ongoing intra-actions, diffractive ethnography offers a robust framework for rethinking how learning environments may function. Themes such as ‘material-discursive intra-actions’ emerged through a diffractive process in which student audio recordings were read through observation notes rather than coded in isolation. To ensure methodological trustworthiness, Bremert and Talbot independently reviewed the diffractive diagrams to reach a consensus on the identified ‘patterns of entanglement.

Conclusion: Diffractive Ethnography as Practice

Diffractive ethnography (DE) is not just a methodology but a fundamental shift in how research is conceptualised and enacted, one that challenges linearity, embraces complexity, and reveals entanglements that matter in educational practice. DE embraces an onto-epistemological stance (Barad, 2007), recognising knowledge as emergent, entangled, and dynamically shaped through intra-actions between all elements (Barad, 2007; Lenz Taguchi, 2010c; Murris, 2017; Taylor, 2018). This perspective aligns with Lenz Taguchi, 2010c holistic view of learning environments, where the learner and the world are co-dependent rather than separate. Acknowledging this intra-dependence broadens what is considered valuable knowledge. Murris (2017, p. 46) describes this as the “fold of knowers,” where all entities, students, teachers, classroom environments, and material conditions, such as temperature, actively shape learning experiences (Blom, 2022; Hayes et al., 2020; Talbot, 2023.

Rather than striving for an unbiased position, DE acknowledges that knowledge is co-constituted through specific material-discursive conditions that shape what can be known (Barad, 2007; Taylor, 2018). Linear causality assumes that phenomena unfold sequentially and predictably, with cause preceding effect and outcomes resulting from direct relationships (Jackson & Mazzei, 2012). Diffractive Ethnography, by contrast, rejects this reductionist model as a practice, arguing that meaning emerges through multi-dimensional intra-actions (Barad, 2007; Murris, 2022). In this view, subjects and objects do not pre-exist but take form through their encounters and evolve dynamically and unpredictably (Barad, 2007; Gullion, 2018).

Diffractive ethnography embraces rationality, uncertainty, and fluidity, framing knowledge not as a static entity but instead as an ongoing, emergent process (Hollin et al., 2017; Lenz Taguchi, 2010c; Murris, 2022; Taylor, 2018). Intra-actions between “human and non-human, ideas and matter affect each other” (Davies, 2014, p. 735) continuously (re)shape what can be known. As Gullion (2018) stresses, in DE, the researcher is not a detached observer but an active participant in the research apparatus that shapes the study. Diffractive ethnography shifts the focus from individual subjects to the entangled forces co-producing knowledge (Gullion, 2018). Agential realism, as developed by Barad (2003, 2007), further expands this perspective, arguing that phenomena do not pre-exist but emerge through intra-actions within specific material-discursive conditions. Rather than unfolding independently, they are brought into being through the entanglement of matter, meaning, and practice (Barla, 2023).

By shifting from a linear cause-and-effect model to an appreciation of the impacts of entanglement, diffractive ethnography challenges the political assumptions that simple solutions can be found for complex problems that are incompletely understood. Within diffractive ethnography, apparatuses enact agential cuts, materialising particular phenomena in spacetime. Instead of merely dividing, these cuts actively produce what is made intelligible in research (Barad, 2007). As a result, knowledge is not passively observed but actively generated through the entanglement of the researcher, environment, and phenomena. This perspective requires researchers to remain attuned to the relational and shifting nature of their findings, acknowledging the ethical dimensions of their methodological choices (Barad, 2007; Bozalek & Fullagar, 2021). Murris (2022) argues that the research apparatus, its methods, frameworks, and tools do not merely record knowledge but actively participate in its formation, shaping what becomes visible and what remains obscured. By adopting a post-human, non-linear, and entangled approach, diffractive ethnography actively attempts to move beyond human-centred perspectives and disciplinary boundaries, opening new ways of thinking about learning, teaching, and research. It portrays knowledge as relational, emergent, and deeply embedded within the material-discursive world, offering a transformative approach to educational inquiry. Diffractive analysis, therefore, is essential for truly unravelling and addressing the entangled nature of education (Taylor, 2019).

Practical Implications for Diffractive Inquiry

Researchers seeking to adapt this approach may: (1) Identify a pedagogical practice in a complex environment; (2) Design a research apparatus including material and discursive elements; (3) Use iterative diagramming as an analytic practice; and (4) Make explicit agential cuts. This study deliberately focused on classroom-level intra-actions, excluding long-term policy trajectories. Future research could extend diffractive inquiry across temporal and institutional scales to examine how broader forces intra-act with classroom practice.