Five ethnographic researchers worked with five elementary school teachers to develop individualized research topics related to teaching in multiethnic classrooms. The teachers were familiar with the ethnographers, having participated in previous naturalistic studies in their newly desegregated schools. Subjects included two teachers from a predominantly white "back to basics" magnet school and three teachers in an extended learning program for gifted students at a school with 80 percent minority students. Ethnographers and teachers used research results obtained from previous studies to choose useful research topics: (1) differences in student responses to teacher's praise and reward behaviors according to ethnic identity; (2) underlying social and ethnic issues based on students' ethnic self-identification, self-expressed play choices, and bilingualism; (3) behavioral problems of three disruptive students; (4) student attitudes toward cooperative learning, peer relations, play choices, and perceived leaders; and (5) improvement of class management through new disciplinary procedures. The students' ethnic backgrounds were white, Hispanic, black, and Vietnamese. No attempt was made to generalize findings from one classroom to another, since the purpose of the study was to create an individualized partnership, between the observer and the observed, that can provide useful inservice training and evaluation. (FG)