This document describes the process of initiating an ethnographic research project at a non-elite school in England that asked the question: "Why do ordinary youngsters bother to go to school?" The study followed a selected group of students for 2 years of high school before they took the public examinations at age 16. The school was analyzed from the standpoint of an outsider using insider knowledge from trusted informants; in general, a "democratic" or collaborative approach was followed. Findings and interpretations, published in "Marks on the Memory" (Stanley, 1989), showed that what students got out of Cato Park school depended on where they fit into the school's class system and where they belonged on a spectrum of gender and ability. The main focus of the document is the process of participatory research, including the effort to make results meaningful to participants and insight acquired about the process from other researchers' work. (NL)