This study explores the role of social capital during a short-term study abroad experience in a nontraditional setting. The authors employed ethnographic methodologies to examine the impact of social capital on students traveling to a small town in a developing nation. The analysis revealed that students capitalized on abundant networks available…

This paper explores the role of digital media and creativity in the processes of learning that occur in groups of urban skateboarders. In particular, it examines how the production and consumption of amateur videos contribute to both skaters' mastery of the techniques of the sport and their integration into the culture of the sport. The data come…

Heath takes readers back to Hymes's years as Dean of the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. She recalls, in particular, his relentless passion for introducing public school administrators to ethnography's potential for seeing what could be done to increase equity and social justice within public education. She contrasts this…

This paper emerges from a view that the growing body of self-reflective qualitative research designs elsewhere in education is insufficiently represented in early childhood enquiry. Research of this sort has a rich capacity to inform critical understanding with experiential data that reveal the remarkable within the quotidian; more specifically,…

A doctoral study on constructions of gender in Lesotho rural primary schools has found that meanings attached to children's identities play a role in undermining gender equality in schools. The study employed the social constructionist paradigm as its theoretical framework. Drawing from ethnographic data (conversations, observations and informal…

The purpose of this paper is to explore the meanings of outdoor physical activity in the natural environment for parentally-bereaved young people. It draws on data generated from a two-year ethnographic study that focused on the experiences of those involved with the Rocky Centre, a childhood bereavement service in the UK. Data was collected via…

This paper examines the processes of tenure denial and appeal from the standpoint of the author, who has been the Grievance Chair at Carleton University since 2000. The focus is on the ways that the grievance process as textually mediated provides for regulation and control over the forms of interaction between appellants and senior…

What role do children play in education and stratification? Are they merely passive recipients of unequal opportunities that schools and parents create for them? Or do they actively shape their own opportunities? Through a longitudinal, ethnographic study of one socioeconomically diverse, public elementary school, I show that children's…

This article seeks to understand the role of drama pedagogy in second/additional language learning with data drawn from a school-based ethnographic study of English language learners taking a drama-English as a Second Language (ESL) course. Being aware that all drama teaching does not automatically lead into improvement in language learning, it…

Using data collected from a larger ethnographic study that explored the educational experiences of three generational cohorts of undocumented immigrant Latino students in a public secondary school setting, this study provides undocumented students' perspective on barriers (perceived or real) to feeling or not feeling like a member of the school…

The concept of "Ethnolinguistic Vitality" (EV) has received variable acceptance and support since its introduction by Giles, Bourhis, and Taylor. It has especially proven to be a valuable heuristic in studies of language maintenance and shift. However, the reliability and validity of the instruments used to investigate EV, especially…

Using critical ethnography guided by cultural sociology, this paper examines the role of "co" in teacher education; coresearching, coteaching, and cogenerating dialogue. The authors are a pre-service teacher and a college instructor, and through our multiple perspectives and positionings, we explore how collaboration served to dismantle…

Worldwide the prevalence of severe and life threatening allergies is rising. In 2007 35% of Victorian schools had students at-risk for anaphylaxis (Office of the Premier), and three children have allegedly died from anaphylaxis in Australian school and early childhood education settings during the last six years alone. Teaching personnel are…

This dissertation examines college student understanding and attitudes toward biological evolution. In ethnographic work, I followed a cohort of 31 students through their required introductory biology class. In interviews, students discuss their life history with the concept--in school, at home, at church, and in their communities. For some…

This article dares to suggest that the use of fairy tales as a pedagogical tool for children in and out of classrooms is and always will be about uplifting the human spirit: a way to survive; a pathway toward hope, especially for vulnerable children suffering from the trauma of war. (Contains 1 note.)