This ethnographic study explored aspects of how the natural sciences were represented in a Reggio Emilia-inspired laboratory preschool. The natural sciences as a discipline--a latecomer to preschool curricula--and the internationally known approach, Reggio Emilia, interested educators and researchers, but there was little research about science in…

Emotions are important aspects in/for the pedagogy of environmental education (EE). However, the literature on the relationship between emotions and EE has not explored how emotion talk furnishes teaching identity claims and mediates instruction in/about the environment. Therefore, the present study draws on two ethnographic case studies to…

The study builds on ethnographic research noting an emphasis in many Indigenous communities of the Americas on learning through keen observation of and participation in ongoing community activities. Forty-four U.S. Mexican-heritage 5- to 11-year-old children whose families likely have experience with Indigenous ways more frequently attended to and…

Calls from policymakers to assimilate immigrants through English literacy have grown urgent. Yet the 2007 U.S. Census has reported that one in five U.S. residents speaks a language other than English at home. What's more, new immigrants often settle in long-standing immigrant communities in which these non-English languages are the lingua franca.…

This article explores the meaning of community and perceptions of disability in Rwanda, as revealed through a community-based ethnographic study. This study took place in Rwanda in an educational policy context driven by international rhetoric about human rights, inclusion and the arguably unachievable Education for All targets. We argue that the…

The Xhariep District is the largest district municipality of the Free State Province of South Africa, covering 26% of the total land surface of this province. It comprises three local municipalities, namely Letsemeng, Kopanong and Mohokare and contains a total of 17 towns. The District is a multilingual area, with Afrikaans (37.1%) and Sotho…

The changing social, cultural and economic conditions of transmigrant communities in rural Mexico require that women who stay behind, while their loved ones travel back and forth to the USA, create social relations that ensure their survival. From over five years of ethnographic research, this article explores the healing potential of…

This article provides an analysis of assessment practices on one university-led teacher-training course in England, delivered across a network of further education colleges. After establishing that assessment practices are bound up in texts of different kinds, this article draws on two theoretical frameworks--institutional ethnography and…

The development of a series of theoretically based interventions for newcomer (immigrant) parents was undertaken over a 10-year period through an iterative method of designing and analyzing a series of ethnographic studies of its implementation. The results of three such interventions are reported here. The work was based on the critical theory of…

This paper studies high school classroom sequences, compiled through critical sociolinguistic ethnography, where norm-transgression is made explicit, and how authority is recovered by the teacher after an open period where class participants generally seize to digress. This way, we will be able to approach several dimensions of linguistic…

In this article, the authors engage the theoretical lens of multimodality in rethinking the practices and processes of composing in classrooms. Specifically, they focus on how learning new composing practices led some fifth-grade students to author new literate identities--what they call authorial stances--in their classroom community. Their…

This article explores the sociological dynamics of pedagogic transition that occur with the passage of newly qualified teachers (NQTs) of Physical Education (PE) into their first posts. It draws its empirical illustration from life history and ethnographic data collected in 2006, from two first-post NQT status PE teachers with contrasting…

This ethnographic study uses discourse analysis to examine how one White college-educated activist worked in coalition with other White and African American activists to create a "Community Learning Center" for African American residents of a low-income housing project. Dissatisfied with Whiteness theories that mark White activists as privileged…

This article explores the extent to which stories for young people encourage environmental engagement and a sense of agency. Our discussion is informed by the work of Paul Ricoeur (on hermeneutics and narrative), John Dewey (on primacy of experience) and John Macmurray (on personal agency in society). We understand fiction reading about place as…

This paper focuses on the notions of insider and outsider and these positions as they are situated in and out of the established western academic tradition, and the associated ethical, epistemological and methodological concerns, specifically as relates to both our independent and collaborative research "with"("in") Alaska Native Yup'ik…