Background/Context: Over the past 5 years, there has been a growing body of scholarship that examines the intersections of hip-hop culture and classroom pedagogy. Although recent scholarship has persuasively demonstrated the classroom potential of hip-hop texts for promoting student engagement, scaffolding sanctioned forms of knowledge, and…

This year-long ethnographic study analyzed three California charter middle schools: one served mostly low-income, urban African American students; the second served students from working class Latino families; and the third served a middle class, predominantly White suburb. The study illustrates how socioeconomic context of a charter school's…

Drawing from a one-year qualitative research study, this article explores the transnational lives and experiences of three young women and their little sisters in New York with close ties to the Dominican Republic. Using ethnographic research methods--life history interviews, focus groups, participant observation, and document analysis, I examine…

This paper is an effort to explore the connections between feminist methodologies and more traditional research programs, specifically the ethnography of communication. The paper discusses four major areas. The paper provides an overview of the ethnography of communication. Second, the paper discusses feminist methodologies. Third, the paper…

One type of qualitative (descriptive) research that holds promise for studying gifted education is the ethnographic approach, which focuses on the students' and teachers' points of view and considers their social and cultural interaction. The process of ethnographic research demands several components, such as: theory (shared sets of explanations…

Examines a set of features intimately involved with marihuana use, e.g., the organization of marihuana distribution at the street level and the etiquette of social expectations regulating the use of marihuana on social occasions. (Author/AM)

Although conventional ethnography within the interpretivist research tradition offers certain advances upon positivist research, it is not without its own limitations. On the basis of a critique of the theoretical and ideological bases of these research traditions, the use of critical ethnography in the study of schools is advocated. (JD)

In an ethnographic study, 16 mentally retarded clients of a sheltered workshop were consulted about their work roles and program. The findings reveal their confusions about the workshop's role in helping them and describes their perspectives on whether to leave the workshops for "outside jobs." (Author/CL)

Two speech studies present information on communication skill development from ethnographic viewpoint (which focuses on the unique cultural organization associated with speech). Cases involve a private language engaged in by two children in East Africa and an analysis of cultural patterns in a Black low-income urban area. (CL)

Gives an analysis of the way in which Spanish speakers in rural New Mexico gain metacommunicative competence. Suggests that native metacommunicative routines provide a rich source of sociolinguistic and social-cultural data and that awareness of these repertoires can assist field workers in using interviews more appropriately and effectively. (EKN)

Arguing from a transaction costs perspective, this paper contends that local organizational cultures distinct from shared background cultures exist relatively infrequently. The relationship between local organizational culture and organizational efficiency is discussed, and it is concluded that changing organizations are more adaptive than is…

Rather than contributing to the clarification of social issues, current social science policy research efforts have led to more complicated views. Qualitative research can and should (1) restrict the problem definition, (2) isolate the levers of change, and (3) identify unintended consequences of policy decisions. (Author/GC)

An educational researcher describes absurdities and paradoxes encountered in the research process, arising from the nature of natural science, subjectivity, education, the profession, the naturalistic paradigm, and ethnography. (SK)

Reviews some themes and methods within qualitative research and makes the case for self-ethnography as an approach to study universities and other settings with which the researcher is highly familiar. Outlines advantages and disadvantages of this approach. (SLD)

This reader was designed to support the Open University Masters in Social Sciences program and as such includes an appendix of useful questions based on the texts used to stimulate seminar discussion. It offers insights into ethnographic research techniques and serves as a tool through which some limitations of conventional quantitative research…