This article is a response to the methodological problems I experienced during fieldwork. It follows that the article is an experiment of creating alternative possibilities for thinking about ethnocentrism as a phenomenon in transformation in a contemporary, innovative, higher educational setting. Throughout the article, I argue for the…

Despite tertiary institutions acknowledging that reflective practice is an essential component of undergraduate dance teacher training, there is often a disparity between the tertiary students' reflective skills and the more sophisticated reflective ability needed to navigate the twenty-first-century workforce. This paper charts the evolution of a…

As part of recent complex transformations, it seems that higher educational organisations are being forced to reorganise, standardise and streamline in order to survive in the new political and economic context. How are ethnographers in general going to approach these contemporary phenomena? By drawing on the conceptual history of anthropology,…

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…

This study aims to explore the development of higher education research in South Korea based on historical and scientometric perspectives. After the evolution of the country's higher education research community is presented, articles focusing on higher education from 1995 to 2012 are analysed. In total, 145 articles in international journals and…

This is a unique and groundbreaking collection of questions and answers coming from higher education institutions on diverse fields and across a wide spectrum of countries and cultures. It creates routes for further innovation, collaboration amidst the Sciences (both Natural and Social), the Humanities, and the private and public sectors of…

Academic literacies research has been identified as an emerging but significant field in higher education. This article extends the discussions around methodology in academic literacies research by drawing on the current text and context debates in sociolinguistics and linguistic ethnography. It uses illustrations from a recent academic literacies…

This annotated bibliography of approximately 100 items, represents a continuing effort to identify statements dealing with field study methods and problems relevant for research in formal educational settings. The bibliography emphasizes, but is not limited to, contributions by anthropologists. A thoughtful perusal of this bibliography and a study…

Describes ethnographic field schools as successful strategies for improving methods training and contributing to the development of competent ethnographers and anthropologists. Introduces three essays that illustrate the value of field-school experience for undergraduates and graduate students. (SLD)

The essays in this section offer different possibilities and prospects for first-time fieldwork and make a strong case for directly supervised early fieldwork that includes peer collaboration and individual activity. (SLD)

Describes a fieldwork training school for graduate students sponsored by the University of Georgia (UGA). Bringing graduate students to the summer program at the school gives school organizers new perspectives on their own work, surroundings, and relationships. (SLD)

Describes a course on amphibian research for environmental science majors. Involves students in field studies and introduces them to investigative research. Evaluates the course. (Contains 19 references.) (YDS)

The value of the grounded theory approach to inquiry for the study and practice of higher education is discussed. It is suggested that there is a need to identify approaches to inquiry that maintain scientific validity while revealing meaningful responses to the complex problems of higher education. An approach that may be employed for this…

The cognitive and learning styles research domain is a highly complex one which has recently been the focus of rigour-relevance debates (Coffield et al. 2004; Evans and Sadler-Smith 2006; Rayner 2006). There is considerable support for the existence and value of style as a construct (Sternberg 1996) even though further work is needed to evidence…

Describes the rationale and method of research in natural settings explaining the concept of systematic observation and discusses the uses of this type of research in the classroom. (MH)