Although methodological discussions abound in qualitative research, little time is devoted to access, arguably one of the most important methodological components of social research. Access has often been treated as a side issue by scholarly sources, receiving only cursory attention, generally in a way that reduces it to a mere strategy and severs…

The article discusses how the use of ethnographic approaches to the study of researcher-child relations highlights the importance of structures that shape and define children's actions. The discussion is illustrated by using case study material from research with pre-school and pre-adolescent children in Indian educational settings. The article…

This paper is concerned with the experiences of Muslim students attending secondary schools and an elite university in England. The research explores how Muslim young men's identities are defined by their social and cultural locations. It is argued that identity is multi-dimensional. It intersects and overlaps with several categories of difference…

A curious piece of ironic, partially-dramatised auto/ethnography, this paper reflects an ongoing attempt to explore the vapid certainties of my own faith, some of the brittle discomforts of contemporary schooling, and the possibilities of a social science research methodology which can artfully assemble on the same stage belief, empirics and…

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…

The first thing a visitor notices when entering Hollytree primary school is the art-work displayed on every wall. This paper, based on a three-year ethnographic study of the school, mobilizes field notes and interview and photographic data to probe the meanings of this visual "display". We argue that the walls (re)produce and promote normative…