An ethnographic approach to teacher action research is presented in this paper. The paper argues that an ethnographic, rather than a qualitative approach, should be considered by teachers wishing to engage in interpretive inquiry (action) research because of the focus on classroom and larger cultural contexts on the teaching-learning situation. Issues such as multiple perspectives, subjectivity, role of culture, data analysis and interpretation, and teacher issues related to action research are discussed. The paper proposes an ongoing interactive model of interpretive inquiry research in the teaching-learning context in which teacher-generated questions lead to data collection, analysis, and interpretation, which then leads to both needed changes in instruction and the generation of additional questions to be researched. (Contains 36 references.) (Author)