This article examines the transition in Romanian child welfare policy from a paternalistic attitude of taking responsibility for "abandoned" children to a capitalist orientation of reinstating responsibility for "abandoned" children to the private sphere. While this shift in child policy is often seen to reflect a withdrawal of…

This year-long ethnographic study explores one alternative school's journey of creating a positive and collaborative learning community while negotiating through the disadvantages and marginalization within a school district and society at large. This study examined various aspects of school culture, including learning processes, discourses,…

In this article I illustrate how some commonalities that I share with my participants--ethnic background, native language, and immigration experience--create unexpected ethical concerns. I explore how these commonalities facilitate the establishment of rapid intimacy, at the same time creating the temptations of over-identification and blurring…

There has been little research on academic writers that shows how social interaction influences the construction of "discoursal identity" (the impressions that writers convey about themselves in their texts and that readers develop about writers). This study analyzes a collaborative writing session among college students to explore the negotiation…

The present article focuses on in situ social comparison among junior high school students. Rather than studying social comparison as an individual phenomenon in experimental situations, which has been common in previous research, the study analyzes social comparison as a real-life social practice. The results show that the practice of social…

Male teamsport athletes have traditionally been described as some of the most homophobic and femphobic men in North American culture. However, in this ethnographic research of an education-based soccer team at a small Catholic university in a rural part of Middle America, I use inclusive masculinity theory to highlight that a softer version of…

By juxtaposing male secondary student and teacher classroom practices with a postcolonial analysis of the structural and discursive forces that characterize education reform in Jordan, this study draws attention to the ways that authoritarian regimes may coopt peace education language and concepts, such as "dialogue" and…

This article ethnographically examines the ways in which No Child Left Behind (NCLB) links local practices to the centralized processing of data through its narrowing of procedures and measurements aimed at accountability. Framed by actor-network theory, it draws upon data consistently collected between June 2005 and October 2008, and then…

In his poem entitled "Privacy", Alberto, an inmate in the state prison of Oaxaca, Mexico, vividly evokes the conflictive dynamics of space and time within his living quarters. This is his way of dealing with the sadness, trauma, and mundanity of his incarceration. Alberto's poem has emerged from our ongoing ethnographic project based on…

This article examines the concept of "White racism" in relation to the experiences of Gypsy and Traveller groups in England. It is based on ethnographic research conducted in two secondary schools during the years 2006-2009. Interviews were carried out with pupils attending the secondary schools, their mothers and members of the…

This ethnographic study aims to contribute to better counseling services for the Greek American population in the U.S. by providing cultural knowledge and insight into one of the smaller ethnic groups that has been overlooked in the literature. More specifically, it explores the role of the "embodied language" of dance in the formation…

The Naphtali Herz Imber Jewish Day School proudly proclaimed its commitment to Israel, yet many of its students experienced profound ambivalence toward the Jewish State. Why? The school was committed to a series of contradictory values which surfaced in its approach to Israel education. This article outlines three distinct yet interrelated…

Since the rise of the Internet, the act of border crossing has become a pursuit that must necessarily be conceptualized in both real and virtual terms. By using theories connected to virtual communities, new technologies, fan cultures and tourism, this paper seeks to show that the culturally productive activities of a transnational virtual…

This article is based on an ethnographic study of the transport program, a vocational education with strong masculine tradition, in a Swedish upper secondary school. It looks at the ways that notions of intelligence and smartness are culturally produced and used in the daily practises of students and teachers. In the article, I discuss how such…

This article uses conversation analysis (CA) to look at how students in an advanced EGAP (English for general academic purposes) course discussion test create and manage the silence of a group member during the 7-min session. This is combined with a personal narrative inquiry, coinspired by autoethnography, on the author's participation in the…