In the United States and Mexico, public schooling, as a government institution, has attempted to reinforce cultural and national values explicitly through civics lessons and implicitly through attitudes and classroom management. This study shows how schools on each side of the U.S.-Mexico border attempt to teach distinct national and cultural…

This article revisits the debate between cultural and critical literacy through ethnography challenging popular academic views in education and literacy. Set in a preschool classroom at the inception of the "No Child Left Behind" initiative, this essay focuses on teaching assistant Marylou Anderson. Her experiences growing up in…

Based on the theoretical perspectives of socio-constructivism and language socialization, this study reports two Chinese Canadian first grader's experiences of language and literacy learning in and out of school in a unique sociocultural setting where they were "the mainstream." The article examines the students' reading and writing…

This essay responds to the question of what it might mean to educate "world teachers" for cosmopolitan classrooms and schools through an examination of an ethnographic play entitled "Satellite Kids". The author begins with the idea that teachers need to develop or build up "intercultural capital", that is, knowledge…

Ethnography, the preferred method of inquiry of the cultural anthropologist, is currently the most widely recognized qualitative method for research. Defined as the "art and science of describing a group or culture," it provides a means of studying and understanding other groups, their values and culture. This study documents the use of…

An ethnographic study examined school-community relationship and its effect on program implementation in six rural South Dakota towns serving as sites for the South Dakota Head Start/Public School Transition Demonstration Project (SDTP). SDTP is part of a national project to test whether providing continuous comprehensive services to Head Start…

An ethnographic study examined the nature of social and cultural contexts as they shaped literary practices in a combined fifth/sixth-grade classroom. Research questions focused on the meanings given to the reading and discussion of literature within the embedded contexts of classroom and community. The five focal students for the study differed…

A study examined the effects of a reader response approach to literature in which literature is viewed as a medium for exploration and the effects of such an approach on a group of young women. Subjects of the study were four female middle school students, with the adult female researcher as participant observer. Books chosen for…

A study explored how small groups of student readers interacted in a classroom over time to interpret short stories assigned by a teacher who functioned as participant/observer. The study focused on multiple readers in actual classroom situations to consider the relationship between the social and academic elements observable during day-to-day…

This study explores continuities and discontinuities between patterns of question use during lessons in a bilingual classroom and in the homes of two Spanish-dominant Puerto Rican kindergartners. Ethnographic techniques, including participant observation, audiotaping, and interviews were used to collect data in the classroom and the homes over the…

This collection explores the way in which critical theory and practice can unite in a common vision of democratic hope. Separate viewpoints are drawn together to constitute a democratic platform for an enlightened critical education agenda. Case studies from narrative and critical ethnography explore the multicultural and power struggles of…

This study presents findings from an ongoing study of urban childhood on public assistance. The study used interviews with aldermen, social workers, police, public housing and ghetto neighborhood residents, and medical personnel as well as the collection of field study data from local institutions and their representatives. The results appear in…

The training of researchers in the educational technology field has continued in the traditional vein of the experimental paradigm. This document describes a workshop presented to balance that training and to prepare students to undertake research in a non-traditional way. The workshop aimed to acquaint students with non-causal naturalistic…

This collection of four papers focuses on the Lancaster and Sussex Projects (England) that place an emphasis on writing outside of school and outside of work by "ordinary" people in their everyday lives. The papers refer to each other; the first is an introduction for the others. "Introduction: Making Writing Visible on the…

Two African American teachers teach English in the same inner-city high school. One teacher is successful--her students read, interact, and strive for success. The other teacher's students are frequently disruptive or are asleep. This book probes deep into the causes of classroom success and failure, as well as other issues that affect American…