There are many problems in the teaching and learning of ethnic studies. Several teaching approaches have been used in an effort to meet some of the educational needs of various ethnic groups. Some problems of research and teaching in the field of ethnic studies include: lack of awareness of the current social meaning of ethnicity; data deficiencies; lack of sensitivity to problems of scale in spatial analysis; the separation between teaching and research; and limitations imposed by discipline-bound viewpoints. The research-teaching approaches used in the effort to encounter these problems include: migration histories of students' families; studies of ethnic settlement at interregional, intraregional, and intraurban scales; the urban ethnic field trip; and the metropolitan Detroit ethnic mapping project. (Authors/JN)