Arrival stories are said to be typical components of anthropologically informed ethnographies in which the ethnographer as "stranger" comes face to face with research subjects as "others", establishes a context for the research and perhaps uses the story to justify the validity of his or her observations. The notion of a conventional ethnographic…

This paper offers a case study of the evolution of what is believed to be the earliest UK longitudinal ethnography in the field of education--and discussion of some issues arising. As such, it is a contribution to the contemporary methodological development of qualitative longitudinal research. The Identity and Learning Programme tracked the…

This study focuses on an attempt by a Swedish secondary school teacher to fashion a more participatory education situation by involving his students in deciding the rules for their group work. Five group sessions were video recorded and examined using a conversation-analytic approach. The findings show a complex interplay between democratic and…

Although heavily debated and sometimes rejected in the scholarly debates, notions of culture and identity have to a large extent become "the" framework through which to understand the realities, effects and implications of transnational migration for European societies as well as for migrants themselves. Drawing on ethnographic data from a…

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the ethical and methodological significance for children and university researchers to participate together in data collection and research interpretation. We examine this process in the context of a three-year study with the aim of understanding how children become identified as having difficulties in a…

The use of visual methods has become increasingly significant to ethnographic research. The possibilities and challenges I experienced using visual research methods in the school ethnography are examined. This paper explores some of the ethical, practical and methodological issues that arise from the use of video, photographs, pictures and images…

This paper is based on a year-long ethnography of a K-1 class. I report on the way gender was a significant implicit feature of interpreting kids' everyday classroom activities, like why boys tended to go to the computer center and girls did not. In addition to explicating the gendered interpretations, the paper also discusses the way teachers…

The historical context of teen pregnancy in the US and its evolution to the present embodiment of the predominantly urban "welfare mother" developed from specific socio-historical contexts that deemed early childbirth, especially illegitimate pregnancies, as morally and socially deviant. Two conceptual elements missing within the literature on…

Spending just a few hours in the classroom situation as a participant observer, one definitely recognizes "boredom" as one of the main features of this situation. In spite of the obvious relevance of boredom in the classroom situation there is almost no research on the topic of boredom at school. Boredom seems to be a taboo of sorts in school…

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…

This paper reflexively explores an initiatory period of ethnographic fieldwork undertaken in a UK secondary school by a first-time researcher. Concern is expressed over the tendency to memorialise early encounters, the impression being given that reflexive accounts should be "saved" for later in the academic career, when previously suppressed…

This article describes a multi-sited ethnographic study of a Turkish child, Fatih, and his mother, Elif, over a period of three years. The study was a longitudinal ethnographic project that focused on children's multimodal texts in the home. Additional research was also carried out in the classroom. This article describes the researcher's…

This article examines the experience of "stage fright" in teachers in higher education, drawing on the dramaturgical perspective from sociology. Interviews were conducted with 10 "novice" and "expert" lecturers, alongside focus groups with undergraduate students, to compare their perceptions and expectations. The students defined a good lecturer…

While the use of ethnographic and qualitative research methods has spread across many fields of educational inquiry, until recently this has had little impact on research in science education. However, there is currently a methodological shift taking place in this area, prompted by the rise of a sociocultural perspective on cognition, which sees…

In this paper, we draw on a cross-cultural ethnographic study conducted in two secondary schools in Helsinki (Finland), and two in London (UK). In our analysis of everyday life in schools, space is not merely a backdrop to activities that take place, it also shapes processes and activities, and spatial relations are simultaneously temporal. Here,…