This paper gives a history of the Oxford Ethnography Conference. Over more than three decades, a regular conference of sociologists of education and ethnographers has met and produced a series of academic writings. The paper describes some of the interrelationships between developments that occurred within the conference and external changes to…

Fieldnotes are central to ethnographic practice, yet there is surprisingly little written about how fieldnotes are constructed. This article reports the results of some interviews with four well-known ethnographers of education who were questioned about their practice. It is designed to be a resource for those new (and, maybe not so new) to…

This article seeks to promote what might be called a traditional form of ethnography. It recognises that all traditions change, but puts forward a view that, for an activity or product to be regarded as ethnographic, there is a need for some recognisable continuity with what has been regarded as ethnography in the last century. This article thus…

Based on interviews with prominent ethnographers, this paper describes some of the diversity of forms of interview that are conducted by ethnographers in the field. It is suggested that there is utility in using the concepts of classification and framing to describe some of the differences in the nature and process of carrying out ethnographic…