Purpose: The paper seeks to show the contextualisation of call centres as a work-specific ethnographically and culturally based community, which, in turn, influences pedagogical practices through the encoding and decoding of cultural texts in relation to two logics: cost-efficiency and customer-orientation. Design/methodology/approach: The paper…

There has been little research on play undertaken in the UK from the child's perspective. This article is based on a year long ethnographic study of children's role play in school. It draws on two main sources of data. First, data from the children concerning their perceptions of role play, what they liked and disliked about it, and secondly…

This paper aims to show the relevance of spatial proximity and social capital in accelerating the spread of agricultural technologies such as integrated pest management (IPM). The research was done in response to the problem of slow diffusion of agricultural technologies. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used in investigating the…

This article seeks to explore notions regarding the conceptualization of culture in the field of Christian religious education. These conceptualizations are central to understanding the social nature of faith communities and the role of religious educators as they respond to this nature. The author proposes that the faith community is…

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the ways in which creating and sustaining authentic inclusion requires significant alterations to more than the programmatic regularities that characterize schools (Sarason, 1996). Data from ethnographic case studies of inclusive schools in the United States, United Kingdom and Portugal are drawn upon to…

Test-based accountability systems aim to direct the behavior of educators toward the improvement of student achievement. The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act codified accountability as the national educational blueprint, requiring schools to increase test scores incrementally so that all students are proficient in reading and math by 2014. Yet,…

Parents and two children (average ages: 8 1/2 and 5 1/2 years) in 76 families each appraised the quality of their relationships with one another. Family members described generally positive relationships, both from their own perspectives (e.g., "I am often nice to my mother") and from the perspectives of their relationship partners (e.g., "My…

The Brazilian martial art, "capoeira", is popular in many countries outside Brazil, including the UK. "Capoeira" is generally taught by Brazilians whose livelihood depends on recruiting and retaining enough paying customers to keep their classes economically viable and socially pleasurable for the students. The teachers also…

Drawing upon a year of ethnographic research with the Los Angeles public school system, this article follows the translation and negotiation of several key technology grants and their policies. It argues that as a global trend, myths of technological neutrality and transparency merely cloud the panoply of negotiations taking place in public…

This paper documents the translation of a performed ethnography into an anti-homophobia curriculum activity for teacher education students. The performed ethnography, called "Wearing The Secret Out", is based on the life histories of eight physical education teachers who identified as "lesbian", "gay" and "queer". Pedagogically, "Wearing The…

This paper examines the choices parents have made regarding language of instruction in their children's classrooms, particularly in California after the implementation of Proposition 227. The data for this study are drawn from a 2-year ethnography of eight Latino families from an urban immigrant Latino community. The parents in the study held a…

The purpose of this study was to explore the community response of how American Indian families adapt to having school age children with disabilities in two diverse American Indian communities. An ethnographic design was utilized to construct a taxonomy about family adjustment of American Indian families with disabilities. Community Assessment…

In this paper we look at three identity positions salient in research of young people studying in complementary schools in Leicester, a large linguistically and ethnically diverse city in the East Midlands, England. Our discussion of identity focuses on three identity positions: multicultural, heritage and learner. The first two of these are…

Human interactions are multimodal in nature. From simple to complex forms of transferal of information, human beings draw on a multiplicity of communicative modes, such as intonation and gaze, to make sense of everyday experiences. Likewise, the learning process, either within traditional classrooms or Virtual Learning Environments, is shaped by…

Drawing on a multisite ethnographic study that spans educational, domestic, and workplace contexts in the United States and Laos, this article investigates the interplay between gender identity shifts and second language socialization, documenting the process by which working-class Lao women and men redefine gender identities in the United States.…