This article illustrates the importance of anthropology to the multicultural approach to education and depicts the relationship between anthropology and multicultural education as both reciprocal and intimate. (MM)

This ethnographic study identifies and explains instructional strategies that result in active, silent, or controlled classroom discussions. Strategies are explained by looking at the discussion's structural sequence, the content of the teacher's questions, and the use of informal language. (Author/MT)

Discusses a study of discourse patterns in the learning of second language oral skills. The study, based on research traditions such as ethnography of communication and conversation analysis, adopts as its main theoretical framework Vygotsky's theory of social origin of language and cognition. (DJD)

The research needs in special education are so great that a range of scientific inquiry (including technical and naturalistic ethnographic research) is needed to better understand how to meet those needs through acquired technical, communicative, and self-reflective knowledge. While effective, neither technical nor naturalistic ethnographic…

A response to a previous article discounting the effectiveness and contributions of the natural science model in special education research points out flaws in the article's premises and rationale and emphasizes the need for pluralism in research methodology, including correlational, ethnographic, group-contrast, historiographic, qualitative, and…

Three qualitative research methodologies (ethnography, microethnography, and ethology) are contrasted according to their disciplinary origins, methods for data collection and analysis, and use of audiovisual technology. Studies that exemplify the special education applications of these methodologies are summarized. (Author)

Studying and understanding classrooms narratively allows researchers to see the unities, continuities, and rhythms in the whole which cannot be discovered by analyzing parts. Narrative links educations to other aspects of the study of human experience and adds insight to the process of becoming a teacher. (MT)

Although education scholars have long valued contributions of the social sciences to theory and practice, educational researchers have contributed a significant legacy for organizational theory. By focusing the debate on culture and politics, the new paradigm shift in education interprets organizations as being rational, symbolic, and political.…

Advocating individualized instruction, this article provides a model for conducting research on individual student differences which teachers actually recognize and use to modify their instruction. Provides examples of how teachers accommodate individual differences in middle and junior high school classrooms. (JDH)

Defines ethnomethodology as the study of how reasoning and activities are organizable within the limits and resources of a culture as rational, identifiable events and occurrences. Discusses the aims, practices, and values of ethnomethodology, suggesting that it not be judged by the criteria of logical positivism. (DMM)

An ethnographic approach was used to discover patterns of behavior in six teachers nominated for their success in teaching gifted students. Results led to a model of the teacher's role in gifted education. (CL)

This article discusses how ethnographic research can provide valuable insights into the nature and function of writing which can, in turn, be used to improve writing instruction in schools. (MT)

The methodology of participant observation in evaluation research is described. The author cites examples of its use and includes references to additional sources of information. The characteristics of participant observation, appropriate circumstances for use, and specific techniques of this method are examined. (Author/DWH)

Applied ethnography has strengths in areas that vitally need research and can inform policymakers in areas where rationalism and positivism cannot. However, several threats to the ethnographic approach are posed by a utilitarian culture, e.g., redefinition of the variables studied, a focus on discrete facts and "controlling" knowledge…

This book offers an ethnography, history, and social critique of racial spectacles in college sports, arguing that collegiate athletics are created as a spectacle driven by contradictory meanings and exploitative practices. The chapters are: (1) Posting Up: Introductory Notes on Race, Sports, and Post-America; (2) White Out: Erasures of Race in…