Detailed study of Detroit-area adolescents provides explanations for the spread of sound change outward from urban areas and upward through the socioeconomic hierarchy. Social network structure, orientation to the urban area, and phonology are contrasted for the two adolescent social categories, "Jocks" (middle class) and…

Summarizes what little is known about American Indian female undergraduate students, graduate students, and professionals. Research on these women needs to take into account the varied contexts, role, and commitments--such as tribalism, tribal sovereignty, feasible cultural and linguistic traditions, and treaty obligations--that comprise the…

Combines "rhetorical narration" with K. Burke's dramatistic pentad to argue that definitional cultural myths are rhetorically meaningful in relation to social consciousness if both evolved teleologically. Delineates two phases in America's frontier myth associated with recent space fiction films' representation of a pentadic term's…

Reported are findings of a study that investigated the interaction among public-school teachers in a barroom over a three-month period. The data suggest that teachers dichotomized their professional and personal identitites and that barroom interaction facilitated the transition from a restricted professional self to a more spontaneous personal…

Willis's ethnographic study "Learning to Labour" affirmed the education system as a site of the transmission of class inequality and showed that this transmission is not the result of mechanistic social reproduction but rather of cultural processes within schools. The study and Willis's thoughts on the subject since the study was…

Presents perspective on educational integration of disabled, emphasizing how Canadians, as a society, develop and maintain personal and public attitudes, values, and beliefs about their society. Discusses use of ethnographic case studies of classrooms, schools, and communities to understand dynamics of educational integration, attitudes toward…

Reviews research on poetry in the classroom. The first part concentrates on findings that emphasize the importance of the individual teacher; the second part presents teachers', students', and observers' perception on what it is that a good poetry teacher does. (HOD)

This volume is designed to accomplish three primary purposes: (1) illustrate a variety of qualitative methods that researchers have used to study teaching and teacher education; (2) assess the affordances and constraints of these methods and the ways that they focus and shape explorations of teaching; and (3) illuminate representative questions…

Few of the current major efforts to improve urban schools adequately appreciate the extent to which the problematic social climate of urban schools can undermine the implementation of even very good ideas. As a result, programs often come and go with little lasting impact. This paper uses ethnographic fieldwork to illustrate the ways dysfunctional…

This research employs an ethnographic approach in the examination of the effects that computers in schools have on student learning in the United States. It is argued that emphasis on technology, science, and mathematics is not enough to meet educational needs in America. The enthusiasm fostered by technological innovation often overshadows…

Over the past 20 years, approaches to educational policy analysis have opened up to qualitative research methods and to sociocultural perspectives on schooling. This volume is a collection of studies that view educational policy from a variety of angles and at different levels of social life. It consists of 12 chapters: (1) "Are Pedagogical Ideals…

This three-week high school American Literature lesson plan guides students to show how cultural artifacts from "The Grapes of Wrath" support one of the book's many themes. The teacher's guide describes the five lessons that constitute this lesson plan: (1) ethnography; (2) photo analysis; (3) oral history; (4) material artifacts and…

During the past 20 years, several of Utah's more populous areas have developed large, immigrant, non-Mormon populations. A study examined the effects over these years of the challenges caused by such cultural diversification on Utah's previously closed educational environment. Challenges were identified specifically by examining changes in…

This paper examines a case of educational innovation--the introduction of new methods for teaching reading in the Republic of Guinea, West Africa--as a reality check on the appealing but sweeping theory of John Meyer and his colleagues about the diffusion of educational ideals. The paper focuses on Guinea's official adoption of the…

Based on the view that the first weeks of school lay the foundation for the remainder of the year, this book uses an ethnographic approach to present the story of one teacher and the classroom she constructed during the first weeks of school. The book's introduction explores beliefs about children and teaching and a view of theory and practice…