On Ethnography: Approaches to Language and Literacy Research
The authors weave together narratives of practice and theory that draw on their own field work and that of a novice ethnographer. Their stories take us outside the usual progression of how-to-do-ethnography, which moves from research question to data collection and analysis to publication. Readers learn of the motivations and mishaps behind the authors' own classic ethnographic studies of language, multimodal literacies, and community practices. The authors use their stories to illustrate the...
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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 ixAcknowledgments and an Opening for Conversation xi1 Language, Culture, and Learning: Ethnographic Approaches 1Languages and Literacies in Symbolic Structure 4Culture as a Verb 7Learning Across Recurring Situations 10Multimodalities 21Summary 24Notes 252 The Ethnographer's Field Entry and Tools of Practice 27Entering the Field: Shirley Goes to Trackton and Roadville 29The Constant Comparative 32Co-Occurrences for Pattern Detection: Shirley Figures Out How Skateboarders Tell Time 38Resisting Preconceptions 42Reliability, Replicability, and Validities 44Summary 473 Setting Decision Rules for Fieldwork 48Literature Reviews: The Company We Keep 49"What Really Happens Here?" 55The Ethnographer as Instrument 57Setting Time Frames 60Determining the Space as "Sample" or "Case" 63Summary 664 Research Questions and Fieldnotes 68Research Questions 69Fieldnotes 76Conceptual Memos 79Summary 815 Analysis and Coming Home from the Field 83Language in Action 84Quantitative Analysis 92Discourse and Narrative 93Language Socialization 96Social Theories of Language and Literacy 101Summary 1066 Taking Note of History and Writing Ethnography 110The Embrace of Anthropology 112Applied Anthropology 119Ethnography in Education 120Reflexivity 122The Making of Public Texts 126Summary 128Suggestions for Further Reading 131References 133Index 145About the Authors 154
