Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork at a community-based organization (CBO) engaged in parent organizing for urban school reform, this paper examines how organizers engaged with the imperatives of neoliberal reform and the broader neoliberal policy context. It highlights organizers' agency but also shows how hegemonic discourse constrained their…

The use of photographs in ethnographic education research is an emerging method that promises to enable scholars to collect deeper, more meaningful data from individuals who may otherwise be silenced. When used to empower participants, photo methodologies can remove what Foucault (1980) described as the analytical "gaze," allowing for…

Documentary films have often taken a pivotal role in strategies to internationalize (geography) curricula and classrooms, being used as a method of bringing the world to the classroom. These documentaries overwhelmingly take ethnographic form. Problematically, the documentary gaze is characteristically that of an outside film crew and narrator…

Following initial educational enthusiasms for 'Making' technologies and the 'Maker Movement', increasing numbers of students are now using digital fabrication programs and equipment in school. Given the current lack of empirical research exploring the realities of Making as a school activity, this paper presents an in-depth auto/ethnographic…

A language policy document on English teaching asserted that in India, "the colonial origins [of English are] now forgotten or irrelevant" (NCERT 2006: 1). Using data obtained in the course of a longitudinal ethnographic investigation into the language and literacy practices of young multilingual boys living at an "anathashram"…

This paper builds on previous research (Ball, 2012, Ball & Junemann, 2012) to explore some aspects of the embodiment of policy. The author draws on Larner and Laurie's (2010) work on technocratic expertise and how, as she puts it, "privatisation ideas and practices are transferred in embodied forms," and in particular her argument…

Rapidly changing policy contexts in England have dramatically affected the provision of career guidance, and the training and development of its practitioners. This paper takes an autoethnographic and self-reflexive approach to exploring the experience of a Senior Lecturer in Career Guidance who manages a centre that offers the Qualification in…

Despite the increasing use of portable tablets in learning, their impact has received little attention in research. In five different projects, this media-ethnographic and design-based analysis of the use of portable tablets as a learning resource in science museums investigates how young people's learning with portable tablets matches the…

Although the incomplete school histories of homeless youths are often highlighted, little is written about their school careers involving special education. This study is based on the educational narratives of homeless youths in special education. Their narratives were constructed using "direct scribing" and narrative ethnography. The…

This article is based on a meta-ethnography of research about schools, school experiences and learning following the recent (post-market) introduction of personalisation policies in Swedish schools. It pays particular attention to issues of equity. Tensions between personalisation, privatisation and equity are discussed and it is noted that…

Art rooms are dynamic and multifaceted, determined by our everyday engagement with them. K-12 art rooms are also an underemphasized element in beginning art teacher pedagogy. Drawing on qualitative research using ethnographic maps of place as an elicitation tool during interviews, I discuss the importance of understanding the art room as a…

Higher education institutions in the United States (U.S.) were founded for a select segment of the population, i.e. white Christian men from upper socioeconomic classes (Thelin, 2011). Research shows the policies, pedagogies, and practices created for use within majority populations and dominant cultures are not as beneficial or effective for…

This case study is an example of organizational qualitative research in action. In 2013, I began the methodological journey for my PhD to study the link between how violence (in particular bullying) is constructed on an everyday basis by organizational members and organizational practices developed and implemented to counter and respond to forms…

As ethnographers we are familiar with methodological debates problematising ethnography's inherited and inherent connections to ideas of authenticity commonly mobilised to legitimate modes of representation. In this paper, we engage with the post-structural philosophies of Jacques Rancière and Judith Butler, to argue that methodological tools of…

This study was conducted with the aim of identifying reflections of bilingualism on preschool education. Ethnographic case study design was adopted in this descriptive research. It was carried out with the participation of eight preschool teachers who were teaching at different village schools and 13 pre-school students in the Southeastern…