Ethnographic note-taking in the field is often imbued with emotions, shaped by power relations and influenced by participants' voice and agency. Though enough has been written about ethnography, discussions on the specific challenges of taking notes, particularly in research with children are limited. Drawing on three ethnographic field studies…

This case study examines the challenges of researching one of the most sensitive topics in education contexts: racism. Based on a research project that critically examined the culture in a U.K. university, data were collected using participant observation and in-depth interviews with participants from an underrepresented group. The data were then…

Purpose: This paper aims to explore how critical digital and data literacies are facilitated by testing different methods in the classroom, with the ambition to find a pedagogical framework for prompting sustained critical literacies. Design/methodology/approach: This contribution draws on a 10-year set of critical pedagogy experiments conducted…

A significant paradox of school autonomy is that it tends to constrain the autonomy of teachers, instead subjecting them to the increased controlling of their work, heightened monitoring, and greater accountability. This paper draws on interview data to show how teachers in accountability-driven and business-like schools face three different but…

This article presents a critical reflection on the experiences of three university instructors (two teaching stream and one tenure stream) within a 6-month peer-to-peer mentoring for teaching community of practice (P2P CoP). As part of the P2P CoP, the authors (who were previously unknown to one another) formed a "teaching triad" at a…

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationships between a school's design and architecture and its educational practices, in light of critical theories regarding place, space and education. The study was based on 63 observations during the school daily activities and 75 semi-structured interviews with students, teachers and other staff,…

This article explores supervision conferences in (Religious Education) RE teacher education in Sweden. Two discourses that are often articulated in supervision conferences are 'representation' and 'safe space'. These are investigated and presented as necessary components for becoming a competent teacher of upper secondary school RE in Sweden. The…

Programmes based on intercultural encounters with the 'Other' place culture and cultural difference at their centre. 'Cultural discourse' has even been defined as a new epistemology and praxis that plays a key role in the process of recognition. In the light of these assumptions, this study used ethnographic field work to examine the ways culture…

The purpose of this paper is to develop and illustrate an analytical framework for exploring how relations between knowledge and power are constituted in science and technology classrooms. In addition, the empirical purpose of this paper is to explore how disciplinary knowledge and knowledge-making are constituted in teacher-student interactions.…

Background: Pleasure is often a key feature of school physical education (PE) and, indeed, a lot of students find pleasure in and through PE while others do not. However, pleasure is rarely considered to be of educational value in the subject [Pringle, R. (2010). "Finding Pleasure in Physical Education: A Critical Examination of the Educative…

Aaron Koh contributed to a collection of multi-site global ethnographic articles published here (2014, Vol. 12, No. 2) that present class reproduction as operationalised in elite education. While the collection adds to the current international critique of meritocracy, a close look at Koh's contribution reveals that critical ethnography can lose…

A substantial body of research emphasises school leadership as a major influence on quality improvement in schools. Although numerous studies have identified the importance of the principal, fewer studies have examined the middle management level within schools, the deputy heads and assistant principals. Influenced by international trends, local…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the crossing of knowledge and power boundaries within a bureaucratic organization by using enterprise social media (ESM). (Carlile's 2002) boundary crossing framework is used to guide this research. Design/methodology/approach: This is a qualitative study based on semi-structured interviews and…

School governing bodies in England have considerable powers and responsibilities with regard to the education of pupils. This article explores how power relations operate, within governing bodies, through struggles over which types of knowledge are claimed and valued. The article draws on the analysis of policy and on ethnographic research in the…

This article is concerned with gendered spaces as they emerge from exploring Emirati female learners' spatiality in a single-gender context. By conducting ethnographic research and utilising Lefebvre's triad of perceived, conceived and lived space for the analysis and categorisation of students' spaces, three types of gendered spaces emerged:…