On Ethnography: Approaches to Language and Literacy Research » (1st Edition)

Two experienced and esteemed ethnographers examine how to use ethnographic methods to conduct research in language and literacy. The authors begin by mapping some of the developments in ethnography across the last century, from colonial interests to contemporary studies of migration, multiculturalism, and global citizenship. The authors then draw from their own field work and that of a novice ethnographer to inform a succession of chapters on research questions, field notes, and analysis. Throughout, the book stresses that "doing ethnography" involves engagement with public life and cannot be separated out as an academic activity.

From the NCRLL Editors ix

Acknowledgments and an Opening for Conversation xi

1 Language, Culture, and Learning: Ethnographic Approaches 1

Languages and Literacies in Symbolic Structure 4

Culture as a Verb 7

Learning Across Recurring Situations 10

Multimodalities 21

Summary 24

Notes 25

2 The Ethnographer's Field Entry and Tools of Practice 27

Entering the Field: Shirley Goes to Trackton and Roadville 29

The Constant Comparative 32

Co-Occurrences for Pattern Detection: Shirley Figures Out How Skateboarders Tell Time 38

Resisting Preconceptions 42

Reliability, Replicability, and Validities 44

Summary 47

3 Setting Decision Rules for Fieldwork 48

Literature Reviews: The Company We Keep 49

"What Really Happens Here?" 55

The Ethnographer as Instrument 57

Setting Time Frames 60

Determining the Space as "Sample" or "Case" 63

Summary 66

4 Research Questions and Fieldnotes 68

Research Questions 69

Fieldnotes 76

Conceptual Memos 79

Summary 81

5 Analysis and Coming Home from the Field 83

Language in Action 84

Quantitative Analysis 92

Discourse and Narrative 93

Language Socialization 96

Social Theories of Language and Literacy 101

Summary 106

6 Taking Note of History and Writing Ethnography 110

The Embrace of Anthropology 112

Applied Anthropology 119

Ethnography in Education 120

Reflexivity 122

The Making of Public Texts 126

Summary 128

Suggestions for Further Reading 131

References 133

Index 145

About the Authors 154