A study applied an ethnographic approach to present a contextualized interpretation of children's competence as revealed in their play activities outside of school. The purpose of the study was to de-construct claims that Taiwan's aboriginal children cannot make it at school because of their "lacking cultural stimulus." Five play…

Theorists, researchers, and practitioners need to develop a better awareness of the oppressive nature of dichotomies in literacy research and practice and work to use dichotomies profitably by moving beyond them. Dichotomies can be convenient generalizations which make communication possible, but they run the risk of creating warring camps of…

Medical education is undergoing one of its most intense reassessments in a quarter of a century. The current reassessments often have focused on reevaluation of the manner in which basic science and clinical education are provided. This paper aims to identify and illustrate the processes by which members of "MWCOM" (a pseudonym), a…

Ethnography is a research approach that seeks to understand and represent the points of view of the members of a particular culture. As in other forms of qualitative research, the data collected are rich in their descriptions of people, places, languages, and events. Ethnographic research can be characterized by its multi-instrumental approach,…

The problematic relationship between education research and improved practice in the schools is examined in terms of several parallels between the work of school ethnographers and educational administrators. Ethnography includes the perspectives and methods associated with anthropology and sociology through which researchers try to develop an…

A dilemma faces the ethnographer whose discipline forces the creation of an objective text from an intimate participatory experience. There have been three ways in which ethnographers have attempted to solve the dilemma of producing the objectivity of a scientific text while acknowledging their presence in the field. The first approach is the…

Contemporary studies of literacy can be divided into two sorts: those approaches which treat it as a psychological phenomenon and those which treat it as a social practice. This practice view of literacy can be sketched out by reporting the continuation and changing focus of a study conducted on adult learners' perceptions of literacy and…

An ethnographic study examined the interdependence and synergism of multiple symbol systems of first grade writers. Subjects, four first grade students, were followed as they engaged in playful literacy--composing with blocks, clay, shadow puppets, tissue paper collage, drawing, and written and spoken words. "Thick description" was used…

Ethnographers find themselves among a family of researchers referred to as naturalists. This rather diverse family conducts research described by turns as qualitative, participant observational, case study, symbolic interactionist, phenomenological, constructivist, and interpretive. The focus of the ethnographer's inquiry is on the mundane,…

This description of ways in which a microcomputer can enhance the process of conducting qualitative research uses a multiple site case study in education carried out during 1986-87 as an example (the study examined the mobilization and implementation stages of introducing microcomputers into a majority adopter school district). Specific…

The staged performance of oral history narratives scripted by interpreters/ethnographers has significant potential for instigating social change. Recent articles by Dwight Conquergood and Kristin Langellier provide the basis for merging ethnography, oral history and social action projects. Narratives from a 1984 farm crisis project illustrate this…

The focus of this paper is on women with respect to three themes: the reasons why women are attracted to ethnographic research, the problems they may encounter in making this choice, and the prospects for women researchers to influence the future direction of educational research. Four interrelated psychological aspects seem to attract women to…

After the terms "qualitative research" and "quantitative research" are defined, this paper considers why it makes sense to integrate these approaches, at least under some circumstances. This discussion necessitates attention to the issue of whether quantitative and qualitative research are inextricably linked to incompatible…

This paper examines the metatheoretical concepts associated with ethnographic/qualitative educational inquiry and overviews the more commonly utilized research designs, data collection methods, and analytical approaches. The epistemological and ontological assumptions of this newer approach differ greatly from those of the traditional educational…

Examples of metacognitive material from different cultures are presented. These include not only clear mnemonic strategies, but more complex cases in which the element of metalinguistics enters. The relevance of this ethnographic material to issues in the experimental psychology of metacognition is discussed. Illustrations of metacognition from…