An ethnographic study of kindergarten through grade two classrooms was conducted of various sociolinguistic contexts in which young students were developing oral and written language competencies. Nonparticipant observations were conducted in both regular classrooms and Chapter I small group classroom settings. The observations were analyzed from…

The general aim of this article is to explore South Asian music and culture in an educational context. The fieldwork on which it is based mainly consists of semi-structured interviews with pupils of South Asian origin (aged 11-18) who attend a secondary school in Ilford, Essex. The learning methods of South Asian musicians are considered and a…

Participant observation techniques were used to observe and analyze a system of "informal education" practiced in a state-supported middle school of 260 students in South Yorkshire, England. "Informal education" was the term used to designate the general nature of the educational methodology of the school. The study focused…

The sociocultural significance of clothing and dress in Deerfield, a rural, midwestern elementary school, is examined. The underlying assumption is that clothing and dress illustrate the symbolic level of correspondence between patterns and meanings in public school life and those existing in society to which schools are linked. The first part of…

Ethnographic methods were used to study interactions between a college instructor and his class. The data collection methods included classroom observations, videotape recordings, interviews, and questionnaires. The focus of the study was on co-occurring behavior patterns in student-teacher interactions during a "subject matter loop" (when the…

This report presents a comprehensive discussion of issues affecting the use of ethnographic research methods in bilingual education classroom research. Quantitative methods alone have not provided an adequate understanding of how the bilingual classroom operates, the meaningful features of the classroom, how children learn, and what…

A year-long ethnographic case study was conducted primarily to investigate the developmental nature of children's spontaneous grouping activities in an elementary school setting. Participant observation and related methods were conducted for two days a week (on average) in a small, traditional parochial school located in a lower-class integrated…

This study examines some aspects of the interaction of one Hmong family with the English-speaking community to determine what sort of language contact situations they encounter and what means they use to communicate in those situations. Observations revealed that English language use outside of the classroom was limited. The subjects did not seek…

The major purposes of this study were to determine how individual third graders use and understand school time, to ascertain what relationships exist between their use and perception of school time, and to generate conclusions about third graders' use and understanding of school time that would be relevant for educational administrators and…

This research provides a detailed analysis of the inner workings of a bilingual program implemented in San Diego, California. The children in the study divide their school day between two separate classrooms, one offering instruction in Spanish and the other in English. The same students were videotaped as they participated in reading lessons in…

This final report describes activities of a Parent Education Center (PEC) at the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory (SEDL). The PEC was designed to serve the needs of practitioners, professionals and researchers in the field of parent education and to provide them with up-to-date information on parent education materials, programs and…

The Multi-Ethnic School Environments Study evolved in response to the need for a research base for identifying special teacher training needs in newly desegregated school districts. The ultimate goal of this five year project is to generate teacher training processes and materials to aid teachers in coping with the realities of desegregation. The…

The conference report recommends that NIE promote and support ethnographic studies of education in cultures without schools and in those where western schooling is being introduced. Since the values of formal education are now in question and alternative systems are being suggested, it is offered that non-formal educational processes be examined…

Describes a student ethnography project designed to explore contrastive rhetoric, and help ESL and native language speakers become more conscious, proficient participants in academic discourse. The project was designed to let the teacher and the students play the roles of participants and observers. (RS)

The effects on female ministry students of a theology program that has a humanistic ideology and a professional role inclusive of women were examined. Although the female students valued the ideology, they found it of little use in legitimating themselves to clients or in working out their family and career plans. (Author/RM)