This ethnographic study of interpretations about stress among hospital social workers reveals concrete ways that institutional systems take form in employees' mundane actions and interpretations. There was a dominant form of stress experience consistent with medical ideology and a marginalized form consistent with social work ideology. Ambiguity…

Describes the experiences of a master of arts student in professional writing and editing who undertook ethnographic research to explore ghostwriting in a military headquarters. Investigates the ways in which the military's review process influences writer psychology and the final written product. Discusses changes in local writing and reviewing…

Two approaches for evaluating community development are: community stories--locally developed ethnographies for community-led change; and sponsor-backed evaluation using coproduced indicators and standards. (SK)

Ethnography was applied to investigate 47 students' ability to persist in distance education courses in resource management and environment-related subjects. Results have been useful in deriving a classification of situational, institutional, dispositional, and epistemological problems shared by withdrawers and persisters in a broader context.…

Describes the data collection guidelines developed by the World Health Organization's Global Program on acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). The guidelines apply anthropological methods of observation and interviews to the information on AIDS-related beliefs and behavior. (JOW)

Discusses how adult second-language acquisition proceeds in, more or less, cultural ways. The discussion focuses on the literature of bilingualism, one individual's recent experiences with Austrian German, and a discourse analysis perspective. (38 references) (GLR)

Objective/subjective and qualitative/quantitative aspects of vitality in Solvang, a Danish-American community in California, are analyzed by ethnographic-like means. The setting represents a radical transformation from a fulfilling Grundtvigian community life to one that attracts tourists with a Danish facade. (52 references) (Author/LB)

An ethnography is a richly textured description of community life that allows us to understand others on their own terms. The ethnographic work of Heath, MacLeod, Taylor, and others can help teachers uncover their buried assumptions and see faces instead of abstractions and statistics. This article summarizes six ethnographic works revealing…

Presents a comprehensive study of a select set of conversational texts to establish the following: (1) the texts are Indian in formal linguistic terms, (2) there are discoursal markers (interactional features) that are Indian or are, at least, "nativized" in Indian English. (seven references) (GLR)

Provides discussion and critical analysis of the modern system of the "professional" and how this system goes about constructing "knowledge." Describes a growing aversion among academics to the culture of specialization. Argues that the current deconstruction of the disciplines was inevitable. Suggests the creation of a…

Ethnographic auditing combines concepts of ethnography, evaluation, and traditional auditing to evaluate university management. It is another tool in the institutional researcher's repertoire that enables the researcher to interpret cultural aspects of the organization to facilitate its academic mission. (MSE)

The little known Bryn Mawr Summer School for Women Workers in the 1920s is an example of the marginalization of women in adult education. Its story, focusing on women as adult students and as makers of social change, enriches the history of the field. (SK)

Defines and illustrates the main tools used in intercultural research: ethnography, ethnicity, social interaction, identity, and culture. These are the ongoing product of intersecting processes. All are social accomplishments, influenced by the context in which they occur. The anthropologist and native jointly participate in these enterprises. (17…

Interpretive approaches to the study of children address the fundamental question of how children come to invest cultural resources with meaning. The theoretical rationale and the key premises of these approaches are described. A discussion of interpretive methodological principles focuses on ethnographic methods. (MM)

Examines the relationship between technical writers and their texts. Suggests the amount of ownership any writer has varies depending on context; therefore, in technical writing, the more a document represents an organization, the less likely the words and ideas are to be solely under the control of the writer. (NH)