This article demonstrates how Bourdieu's field theory can be used to systematise ethnographic insights, establishing and validating connections between the micro-level of participants' experiences and macro-level contexts, whilst complementing and facilitating the reflexivity that has long been part of ethnographic traditions. Combining an…

This study presents an analysis of hidden elitism in music education through the free choice argument -- that individuals are fundamentally free to choose to study music -- as a meritocratic power structure. Qualitative Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) is applied to understand music education as a social system with a special structure in which its…

On the island of Santa Cruz in the Solomon Islands, the Engdewu language is facing imminent language shift because of the increasing use of the lingua franca Solomon Islands Pijin in the community. In this article, I argue that this language shift is occurring because of changes to the social structure in Baemawz, one of the villages where Engdewu…

The common understanding of Islam tends to consider religious conversion as a matter of individual and rational belief and consisting, first and foremost, of attesting to the oneness of God ("shahada"). In this paper I argue that divergences exist among schools of Islamic Law concerning the modes and types of conversion. Contrary to…

Gender equality is a widely recognized value. Still, on the practical level, it is not easy to achieve true gender equality. Gender has proved to be a complicated issue both for research and practice. Gender change projects trying to make changes in detected disadvantages have repeatedly run into a problem: it is difficult to put gender issues on…

Banks (2002) stated that to implement multicultural education successfully, we must think of the school as a social system. Therefore, if educational equity and excellence are to be provided to all students, a systemic Total School Environment [Banks (2001) "Cultural diversity and education: Foundations curriculum and teaching, 4th ed." Allyn and…