In this reflection, I contextualize my own experiences conducting educational ethnography in a synchronous online kindergarten classroom during the COVID-19 pandemic. I highlight how conducting research in online classrooms transforms ethnographic research methodologies and concepts such as the field site. I offer four suggestions, derived from my…

Across our combined 15 years of experience as methodologists and research methodology instructors, we have found that the concept of 'failure' is only a small portion of methodological literature and is similarly missing from scholarship on teaching and learning social science research methodology. We define failure in terms of our inability as…

Ethnography as a methodological approach presents the fieldworker with many ethical crossroads throughout the research process. This is because of the unique position that ethnographers find themselves in, the environments that they research and the relationships which are formed. This paper presents four confessional vignettes from a broader…

The author makes a case for fieldwork as having a strong capacity for increasing both science and nonscience majors' abilities to learn complex concepts, with the added benefit of actively engaging minority and female students in science.

In this article I will present a range of experiences of graduate socialisation that have been discussed in past articles in the journal "Anthropology Matters". These are the experiences of social anthropology Ph.D. students in the United Kingdom. The overarching theme for the article is "regulating emotions", and the excerpts…

Relationships are central to the profession of social work; relationships with allied disciplines, among professional social work organizations, and between classroom and field education. However, embedded within these relationships are historical tensions, and contemporary opportunities that can advance both the science of social work and the…

The aim of this paper is to discuss the development and evolution of particular personas adopted by researchers in the quest for rich exchanges within the social field. It analyses my role (the principal author) as a female ethnographer (and the sole female) in the world of elite male rowing. Data are drawn from personal notes, reflections and…

I apply the concept of unalienated recognition as a form of democratic exchange, introduced by Rheingold (2012), to a different educational setting. Through a case study of the School for Field Studies international environmental programs, that are, like Rheingold's study school, field based and community centered, I explore the hypothesis…

Like everything else today, there is a changing pattern in education. Some obvious elements are education's social function, demographics, and technology. A fourth dimension is being added to function, audience, and technique, and that is research. Research is also being reorganized, and now it is becoming an issue in the colleges. When, for…

Scholars of educational change agree that leaders need to develop a vision, build capacity and ensure ownership of change by staff. We argue that understanding the actual work that leaders must do in order to convert these categories into action, requires a social practice approach. Taking the notion of sense-making as a social practice, drawn…

In this essay I reflect on the ethical challenges of ethnographic fieldwork I personally experienced in a female gambling study. By assuming a covert research role, I was able to observe natural occurrences of female gambling activities but unable to make peace with disturbing feelings of my research concealment. By making my study overt, I was…

Recent federal education policies and reports have generated considerable debate about the meaning, methods, and goals of "scientific research" in mathematics education. Concentrating on the critical problem of determining which educational programs and practices reliably improve students' mathematics achievement, these policies and reports focus…

In contrast with nonindigenous workers, to what extent do unique ethical problems arise when indigenous field-workers participate in field studies? Three aspects of study design and operation are considered: data integrity issues, risk issues, and protection issues. Although many of the data quality issues that arise with the use of indigenous…

This article aims to stimulate debate about the nature of field courses in higher education. We use a colloquium format that allows each of us to reflect on the philosophy of field course teaching and our writing endeavours to establish a dialogue between the authors and leave the reader with a sense of curiosity. It starts with a position paper…

Considerable resources and intellectual attention have focused on seeking to raise the status of teaching in higher education over the last two decades. Initiatives at an institutional level have included the funding of pedagogic research, teaching awards and the creation of teaching professorships. In a broader context, the scholarship of…