This book provides practical advice on the learning and teaching perspectives of ethnography, including what undertaking research looks like and the experiences it will bring. It considers what it means to be and become an educational ethnographer and builds on an inextricable entanglement between the researchers’ field of study and their research trajectories. With a range of carefully chosen international contributions, this book uses a variety of practical case studies to provide further information about the pros and cons of this research perspective. Chapter authors share the knowledge and experience gained from the research and how it has affected their approach to social phenomena. This book is an ideal introduction for anyone considering research approach or becoming an educational ethnographer and will be of interest to researchers already working in this field.
This volume focuses on and exemplifies how ethnography--a research tool devoted to looking at human interaction as a cultural process rather than individual psychology--can shed light on educational processes framed by the complex, internationalized societies in which we live today. Part I offers theoretical chapters about ethnography and examples of innovative ethnography from particular perspectives. In Part II, the emphasis is on the application of ethnographic approaches to educational settings. Each contribution not only takes the reader on a thoughtful and enlightening journey, but raises issues that are important to both educators and ethnographers, including the relationship of researcher to subject, the meaning of "participant" in participant observation, and ways to give voice to disenfranchised players, and on the complex ways in which all parties experience identities such as "race" in the modern world. Innovations in Educational Ethnography: Theory, Methods, and Results is a product of both continuity and change. It presents current writings from mentors in the field of ethnography and education, as well of the work of their students, and of educators engaged in cultural studies of their work. In many ways it provides fresh, new vistas on the old questions that have always guided ethnographic research, and can be used as a survey both of what ethnography has been and what it is becoming. This book is the work of many hands, and provides excellent examples of trends in both basic and applied ethnography of education. These two kinds of work augment and reinforce each other, and also represent important current research directions--in-depth reflection on the process of ethnography itself, and an application of its insights to teaching and learning in schools, universities, and communities. No one philosophy guides the contributions to this volume, nor were they chosen as exemplary of a particular approach, yet foundational understandings and principles of ethnography shine through the work, in both predictable and unexpected ways.
Focusing specifically on Interactional Ethnography (IE) as a distinct, discourse-based form of ethnography, this book introduces readers to the logic and practice behind IE and exemplifies the logic of ethnographic inquiry through a range of example-based chapters. Edited by two of the foremost scholars in the field of IE, this book brings together a body of work that has until now been largely dispersed. Illustrating how IE intersects with ethnographic methods – including observation, interviews, and fieldwork – the book highlights considerations relating to data analysis, researcher positionality, and the ethics of engaging participants in research. Offering examples of IE in international contexts and across a range of social science and educational settings, the book provides foundational principles and key examples of IE to guide readers’ work. This book offers researchers, scholars, and teacher educators a definitive, novel contribution to current methodological literature on IE broadly, and will be of particular use to ethnographers starting out in their career. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of the volume in illustrating the use of IE in a range of educational sub-disciplines, the book’s relevance extends to the fields of medical education, teacher education, arts and literacy research, as well as providing situated examples of IE in settings with relevance to the social sciences, anthropology, and cultural studies.
A state-of-the-art reference on educational ethnography edited by leading journal editors This book brings an international group of writers together to offer an authoritative state-of-the-art review of, and critical reflection on, educational ethnography as it is being theorized and practiced today—from rural and remote settings to virtual and visual posts. It provides a definitive reference point and academic resource for those wishing to learn more about ethnographic research in education and the ways in which it might inform their research as well as their practice. Engaging in equal measure with the history of ethnography, its current state-of play as well as its prospects, The Wiley Handbook of Ethnography of Education covers a range of traditional and contemporary subjects—foundational aims and principles; what constitutes ‘good’ ethnographic practice; the role of theory; global and multi-sited ethnographic methods in education research; ethnography’s many forms (visual, virtual, auto-, and online); networked ethnography and internet resources; and virtual and place-based ethnographic fieldwork. Makes a return to fundamental principles of ethnographic inquiry, and describes and analyzes the many modalities of ethnography existing today Edited by highly-regarded authorities of the subject with contributions from well-known experts in ethnography Reviews both classic ideas in the ethnography of education, such as “grounded theory”, “triangulation”, and “thick description” along with new developments and challenges An ideal source for scholars in libraries as well as researchers out in the field The Wiley Handbook of Ethnography of Education is a definitive reference that is indispensable for anyone involved in educational ethnography and questions of methodology.
The primary objective of Studies in Educational Ethnography is to present original research monographs based on ethnographic perspectives, and methodologies.
Drawing on a diverse range of studies conducted in England, Scotland, South America, India, and the Basque Country, this volume argues that administrative and conceptual change is needed to ensure that ethnographers commit fully to conscientiously managing ethics in-situ.
Ethnography has established itself as a key strategy of qualitative research in education, because it is so versatile, flexible, and ambiguous. Its growing importance coincides with an increasing diversity of »discovered« educational realities. In the process, many basic assumptions have turned into genuine tasks of research. Where are the places and times of learning, education, and social work to be found? Who are the actors and addressees? How are education and learning performed and enacted? The contributions to this volume discuss the multiple challenges that ethnographic research has to confront when exploring the multimodality, plurality, and translocality of educational realities.
Ethnography is a distinctive approach for educational research. The authors argue that the last decade has seen ethnography come of age, not only as a way of doing research, but also as a way of theorizing and making sense of the world. Their approach is concerned with ethnography as process and ethnography as product. This critical celebration of ethnography explores what it can achieve in educational research. The book features: Thorough discussion of definitions of ethnography and its potential for use within educational research Critical introductions to the principal approaches to ethnography Discussions of data analysis and representation and of the challenges facing ethnography Use of educational examples from real research projects throughout. The book offers a distinctive contribution to the literature of ethnography, taking readers beyond a simplistic "how to" approach towards an understanding of the wider contribution ethnography can make to our understanding of educational processes. Ethnography for Education is of value to final-year undergraduates and postgraduates in education and social science disciplines as well as education professionals engaged in practice-based research. Christopher Pole is Senior Lecturer at the Department of Sociology, University of Leicester. His research interests are in the areas of the sociology of education, sociology of childhood and the development of qualitative research methods. Recent publications include Practical Social Investigation: Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Social Research and Hidden Hands: International Perspectives on Children's Work and Labour. Marlene Morrison is Reader in Education Leadership and Director of the Doctorate of Education programme at the University of Lincoln. Her academic background is in the sociology of education and includes research on race equality, health education, perspectives on educational policy and practice, and the ethnography of educational settings. She has researched widely in the education that has included school, further and higher education sectors, and other public services.
Following a brief introduction to the nature and history of ethnography, Walford considers questions of site selection, access, and ethics in research. Each chapter is illustrated with practical examples for the authors' own works.
Ethnographic research in higher education is gaining momentum. In the last 10 years, we saw a great increase in publications, and more and more researchers endorse ethnography because of its distinctive qualities and its productivity for research in higher education: Ethnography is commended for its unique approach to social practices through continuous and immediate experience in field work, and its unfragmented methodical attention to situations, interactions, and experiences. This unique approach is explored in the present book, which brings together researchers from Europe, America, and Australia, and includes current ethnographic studies on higher education, reflections on teaching ethnography, and innovative approaches in ethnographic methods.
"This is a beautifully written book that takes the reader to the heart of ethnography as experience. Readers can walk in the shoes of ethnographers who have travelled before them, and learn as they learned. Sara Delamont is an undisputed expert in both ethnography and education, and here illustrates she is also a tour de force in writing style. All the important ingredients for a recipe to make a good quality ethnography are here, and they are served up with relish!" - Karen O’Reilly, Loughborough University "This is a powerful, richly nuanced, evocative work; a stunning and brilliantly innovative intervention. It provides ground zero - the starting place for the next generation of social scholars of education. A major accomplishment." - Norman K. Denzin, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign The ethnography of education has been conducted by sociologists and anthropologists, largely in self-contained and self-referential ways. This book celebrates the continuities and the strengths of ethnographic research on education in formal and non-formal settings, deliberately transgressing the sociology/anthropology divide. Education is broadly defined to cover many settings other than schools, in many countries, for many age-groups. The book is structured thematically, including chapters on movement and mobilities, memorials and memories, time and timescapes, bodies, and performativities, multi-sensory research, and narratives. Strategies for designing innovative ethnographic projects, and for fighting familiarity are provided.
This book addresses the relationship between the production of social problems in educational policy, the research practices required to inform policy, and the daily production of normalcies and differences in school contexts. It reports on the opportunities and consequences for policy, research, and practice when normalcy is stigmatized at the same level as difference. The book employs a critical analysis combining queer, feminist, and post-representational theories to understand the implications of dominant ways of understanding the division between normal and different subjectivities and how they reiterate structures of inequality in schools.
