This micro-ethnographic study investigated pedagogy in two English primary schools, following a change of government and challenges posed by economic austerity. Unlike the previous decade's emphasis on children's curiosity and agency and valuing arts and partnership, emphasis on knowledge and attainment was now foregrounded. A two-stage…

This article explores how ethnography allows for an understanding of the way children are empowered through the use of popular culture during sociodramatic play. The study discussed was conducted in an inner-city Primary school in regional New South Wales, Australia. The participants were a composite fifth-to-sixth grade class, and the research…

The central purpose of this paper is to highlight the research in a context where inclusive education is recognised within current global challenges in education. We aim to present different teaching practices and perceptions of teachers from rural schools regarding attention to diversity, before and during a collaborative action that reinforces…

In Australia, as in many western education systems over the last two decades, discourses of accountability and performativity have reshaped education policy that has in turn reorganised the work of school leaders and teachers. One of the effects of this reorganisation is increased attention to the production, analysis and display of student…

This study, part of a larger linguistic ethnographic enquiry carried out in two primary school classrooms in Flanders and the Netherlands, sheds light on the perils faced by the ethnographer caught between pupils' inventiveness and his own ethnographic naivety when dealing with these pupils' ethnolinguistic identity construction. The…

Children's transition to school is a key issue in early years of education. Research in this field points to the counterintuitive possibility that the transition to school may actually lead to a reduction rather than a facilitation of children's agency. The paper presents findings of a longitudinal comparative ethnography on children's transition…

In this article, we explore three anthropological approaches to science education research: funds of knowledge, third space/hybridity and practice theory. Definitions, historical origins, uses and constraints of each approach are included along with reviews of exemplary studies in each tradition. We show that funds of knowledge research draws on…

Temporal and spatial configurations that constitute learning and identity work across practices have been little explored in studies of science literacy development. Grounded in multi-sited ethnography, this paper explores diverse girls' engagement with and identity work in science locally, inside a newsletter activity in an afterschool programme…

Participatory research with young people has enjoyed a decade of sustained development including the development of a range of embodied and visual methodologies. Much of this has been in the service of a participatory citizenship agenda, as articulated in the Every Child Matters agenda in England, in the work of the UK's Children's Commissioners…

Our aim in this article is to analyse the impact of the standardised test on classroom practices in grade 5 in a compulsory school in western Sweden. In our analysis, the use of the concept of the pedagogical device (Bernstein 1996) provides a framework for understanding how high-stakes, standardised testing regulates classroom discourse and…

This interpretive study explores the relationship between spatial qualities and school-parent engagement in three primary schools which serve low income periurban Indigenous families in north Australia. Drawing from interviews with educators and parents, school-based observations and community fieldwork conducted over the course of two years in…

This article offers a narrative account of a research enquiry focused on children's play in one London primary school playground. The central question addressed by the article is that of how to determine what meanings the children give to their play activities. The initial sketch of the methods used in the research is followed by a series of…

This article explores the approaches to risk that some teachers adopt when they are involved in facilitating outdoor activities. The research was carried out at a residential outdoor centre as part of a PhD study and a follow-up pilot project. The participants were primary school pupils, their teachers and the centre staff. For the purpose of this…

Practices and policies of Japanese schooling for immigrant and marginalised students are examined through the lens of a primary school which serves one of the largest foreign student populations in Japan. Student families include Southeast Asian refugees, South American immigrants of Japanese descent, recent and longstanding Chinese and Koreans,…

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is popularly understood to be a condition which resides in the person. In this scenario, the school is an innocent bystander, a container for the "maladjusted child". Drawing on an ethnographic case study of one classroom, the first stage of doctoral research into the production of the diagnosis of…