This book is of the opinion that school reform does not reform schools. The reason is that reform movements conceptualize schools as transmitters of knowledge. The book asserts that, rather, schools are involved in the construction of meaning and morality in the lives of students and communities. Successful reform must, therefore, be based on an…

During the last decade, the impact of social sciences on educational theory and practice, and anthropology, in particular, have changed the way in which educators view classrooms, teachers, students, and learning itself. Classrooms are subcultures that require particular behaviors, linguistic patterns, and mind sets for members to succeed;…

This paper, a follow-up to a previous review of literature on academic excellence that synthesized information from the United States and Mexico, describes an ethnographic study of high-achieving and low-achieving Hispanic secondary school students from Calexico, California and Mexicali, Baja California Mexico. Five students for each group were…

This paper explores technical questions of ethnographic study and uses as an example an actual episode observing college students and the subsequent decisions and steps taken to produce a written account. In particular, the paper seeks to address the question of researcher subjectivity by examining some issues relating to the practice of…

The role of Texas school principals has been redefined to include instructional leadership for the planning, operation, supervision, and evaluation of educational programs. This study examined how principal trainees at the College of Education of the University of Houston (Texas) were preparing for their redefined role. It investigated the…

This ethnographic study explored Hmong cultural and educational values. The interview data revealed some Hmong values similar to mainstream American values such as a respect for hard work; a concern about personal honor; and honesty. Some values, however, were in conflict with dominant American values such as: a strong clan-oriented society; a…

This study explores how high school students learn from their experiences in an extracurricular adventure program and illustrates how students' narrative inquiries relate to experiential learning. Twelve canoe trips were studied by participant observation methods. Data were collected from recorded interviews with students and staff, field notes,…

This paper describes an ongoing case study of how a group of teachers are becoming researchers and what this means for their classrooms and the professional development school where they work. A collaborative teacher development program was implemented in Dickinson Elementary School of Albuquerque (New Mexico) which serves a mobile and mixed…

This paper describes the development and implementation of a collaborative, interdisciplinary curriculum program, the Quest program. Implemented at a suburban New England high school, the program was loosely based on the tenets of the Coalition of Essential Schools. Ethnographical methodology included document analysis, participant observation,…

This book of essays draws on a cultural geography project in which an ethnographer and Apache consultants mapped the area around Cibecue, on the Fort Apache Reservation (Arizona). The essays focus on different Apache individuals and examine the ways that Apache constructions of place reach deeply into other cultural spheres. Many Apache place…

This book presents an ethnographic study which examines the ways first-year college students make sense of, engage, resist, and learn from the critical literacy approach practiced in the composition program at one Midwestern college. It argues that first-year students typically enter composition classes with an idea of writing and an understanding…

The purpose of this study is to describe, analyze, and interpret through participant observation the teaching of art to Amish eighth graders in a public school. The description of what and how art is taught by a non-Amish art teacher raises questions of appropriate content, patterning of instruction, strategies for developing perceptual awareness…

This paper describes the communicative function of language in a monolingual public school kindergarten. The study was based on observations of classroom communication and interviews with the teacher. The paper describes the speech of students and the teacher during different segments of the school day, and presents an analysis of 290 speech acts…

A college course in American culture, designed for students of English as a second language as an introduction to both American culture and university content courses, is described. The course was developed based on the philosophy and techniques of ethnography and foreign language pedagogy, and requires a combination of student participation,…

The four papers in this report summarize several research and development efforts currently being undertaken on behalf of the Government of Papua New Guinea. In the first paper, the Indigenous Mathematics Project, established in 1977 to investigate various aspects of traditional and Western mathematical development, is described. The intent of the…