This article considers contemporary policy claims about "what literacy is" and "what literacy does." First, the article reviews in-depth the ways in which development discourses define literacy, and the claims made in development discourses about the "consequences" of literacy for economic and political development. I…

This article uses "close-up" ethnographic research to provide an account of students' engagement with learning in a South African university. Broadly based on Halliday's [Halliday, M. A. K. (1973). "Explorations in the functions of language". London: Edward Arnold; Halliday, M. A. K. (1978). "Language as social…

Published in London between 1839 and 1852 and aligned with the commercial objectives of the New Zealand Company, the "New Zealand Journal" included letters from emigrants. This paper studies letters written by a small cohort of rural labourers who emigrated from Ham House in Surrey to Wellington in 1841. Following Dorothy Smith, I read…

This article describes a snapshot ethnography conducted in Uganda with the Agabagaya Women's Group. The purpose of the study was to explore how women share knowledge among themselves to support their communities. Using post-development theory and Freire's critical theory as a lens, I argue that although international development is often focused…

The global politics of reconciliation provide a blueprint for postconflict reconstruction projects around the world, including in South Africa, Rwanda, Northern Ireland, and Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H). Of these, the B&H case is of particular interest due to the extensive involvement of some of the world's most powerful states and leading…

Using institutional ethnography, I demonstrate how one young man's efforts to find housing are shaped in relation to a complex institutional maze through which the immigration, child welfare, social assistance, and sheltering systems are linked. My goal is to show how a particular person's narrative can be used to illuminate the general…

Research on the lack of civic and political engagement on the part of today's youth has relied on traditional, often quantitative, measures of political knowledge that may miss important elements of the process. Using an ethnographic approach with a group of inner-city high school students, our study reveals a richer construction of students'…

This article explores the possible contributions that children can make in educational settings that aim to move towards greater inclusion. In constructing her debate, Kyriaki Messiou, lecturer in education in the Centre for Educational Studies at the University of Hull, draws on understandings gained through an ethnographic study carried out in a…

What can philosophical Taoism teach us about interpersonal conflict and effective approaches for dealing with it? Examination of selected portions of the R. Hendricks translation of the "Lao-Tzu" or "Te-Tao Ching," and experiences recorded in fieldnotes while a member of a Taoist commune suggest a four-point protocol for…

Ethnographic methods can be a valuable supplement to our understanding of the limits and possibilities of social science research by addressing the question of subjectivity directly. When ethnographers enter a social situation, they explain themselves and participants see them primarily in the role of fieldworker. But field researchers also have…

Observational approaches used by ecological psychologists can focus on the behavior of persons or on their settings. The options for subject-centered observation are diary methods, specimen records, time sampling, and event sampling or critical incident recording. Serious limitations correlated to the time interval method, as it is often applied,…

This article examines the efficacy and potential of naturalistic methods of inquiry for addressing research questions related to teacher participation in personnel selection decision making in schools. (MT)

Participant observation methods and ethnographic techniques have developed extensively in educational research in recent years. Reviews some recent contributions, along with their application to educational evaluation and their capacity to provide an alternative to the quantitative tradition of scientific research. (Author/CS)

Describes qualitative research traditions (phenomenology, grounded theory, ethnography, and case study) that may be used to advance research and make evidence-based decisions in TRIO programs. (EV)

Describes ethnographic study to learn how women live, interpret, and express experiences of living with alcoholic husbands. Results suggested that these women are involved in an interaction of internalization of cultural expectations, weakening of self, and embeddedness in an alcohol-dependent marriage. Includes 56 references. (Author/CRR)