This paper describes ethnosociology and provides an application of this interpretive research model in dealing with problems in rural special education. The expansion of rural special education knowledge should begin with discovering and elaborating on special education knowledge at the local theory level. Such inquiry would be based on the following principles of ethnosociology (which combine interpretive anthropology, enthnomethodology, and existential sociology): (1) reality is socially constructed through interaction and reflection, and is constantly changing; (2) cultural meanings provide for the ways to construct realities; (3) individuals choose their actions based on socially constructed local theories of social order; (4) at any given time, local theories of social order are potentially rational and irrational, cognitive and affective, conscious and tactic, and formal and informal; (5) local theories of special education social order are the proper subject matter for an ethnosociology of special education; (6) local theories of social order are primarily accessible through the use of interpretive ethnographic methodologies; and (7) interpretive researchers should reflect on their own local theories of the special education phenomena under study. An application of this model to the problem of recruitment and retention of rural special education teachers is presented. (LP)