In this paper we are explicitly in conversation with Doug Foley's recently published paper in "AEQ." Given our shared commitment to the linkages between intersectionality and broader social and economic arrangements, two noted ethnographers argue that the paradigmatic shift highlighted by Foley demands detailed attention to what…

In this closing essay, Lois Weis offers a broad overview of the contributions of this Special Issue on class production in elite secondary schools in the twenty-first-century global context. Drawing upon her own research within US privileged secondary schools, Weis explores the contemporary social, economic and political landscape as connected to…

In this article, we present findings from a three-year comparative longitudinal and ethnographic study of how schools in two cities, Buffalo and Denver, have taken up STEM education reform, including the idea of "inclusive STEM-focused schools," to address weaknesses in urban high schools with majority low-income and minority students.…

Though researcher dilemmas are not new to the pages of "Qualitative Inquiry," we argue that the current contemporary context has both altered and intensified issues associated with conducting qualitative research within sites most affected by more recent social, political, and economic shift. Navigating such sites as researchers poses…

In this article, Lois Weis and Michelle Fine introduce critical bifocality as a way to render visible the relations between groups to structures of power, to social policies, to history, and to large sociopolitical formations. In this collaboration, the authors draw upon ethnographic examples highlighting the macro-level structural dynamics…

Drawing upon two ethnographic studies of affluent and elite co-educational secondary schools in the United States, Weis and Cipollone spotlight the explicit "class work" of a now highly insecure middle/upper middle class, as they attempt to maintain advantage via entrance to particularly located post-secondary destinations. Affirming the…

Background/Context: As the economy grows ever more tight, the school (K-16) is increasingly important in relation to life choices and outcomes, and researchers who focus on youth culture, often in and out of school contexts, can no longer afford to ignore such traditional educational institutions. If school credentials do not "guarantee" social…

Discusses the social psychology of spatiality, offering information from interviews with diverse poor and working class young adults and focusing on "free spaces"--those spaces in which hope is nourished despite impoverished material circumstances. Provides examples of ethnographic research in an arts community and a spiritual community…

Argues that all types of violence are deeply embedded inside poor and working-class white communities, specifically domestic violence. Indicates that many poor and working-class females are socialized into a code of silence that perpetuates the abuse cycle. States that educators and schools must break the silence and confront domestic violence.…

This paper examines the "remaking" of white working class masculinities in the latter quarter of the twentieth century. It draws on ethnographic data gathered at two points in time in order to interrogate the relation of macro-economic and social relations on individual and group identities; to excavate the social psychological relations…

Data from an ethnographic study of an urban community college are used to describe elements of faculty culture, explore the reasons for the culture's form and characteristics, discuss the ways in which the culture may be linked to institutional outcomes, and offer a framework for viewing faculty-student conflict. (MSE)

This book is designed to help undergraduate and graduate students begin a discussion about the technicalities, politics, and ethics surrounding qualitative research, focusing on research in the interest of social justice. It offers a view of how two researchers have conceptualized their own research process and renders problematic many of the…

The deeply fractured nature of U.S. society is examined, focusing on poor and working class people in cities. Based on data from 154 poor and working class young adults aged 23 to 35, the study reveals the ways in which this urban generation has suffered from social change. The following chapters are included: (1) "Voices of Hope and Despair:…

Studied the effect of programs within desegregated schools that serve an identified population of students for cultural affirmation and advancement. Ethnographic data from a girls' group at an urban magnet school and a Vietnamese students' homeroom, focusing on 20 high school students, in an urban comprehensive school demonstrate both the power of…