On Ethnography

I found this book to be very engaging and helpful on both a theoretical and a practical level. I kept finding myself marking pages and ideas, and trying to consider how the process of ethnography fit with the research ideas that have been stewing in my brain over the past year. I wanted to highlight some of the important concepts that I found the book.

"A broad effort for ethnographers of classrooms should go to identifying conventions that students learn that parallel (and often originate from) those of "real" life." 20

"Relflexivity, rather than innocence, characterizes contemporary ethnography" (34)

"Most ethnographers stick with questions of who, when, what, where, and how. The fundamental challenge to ethnographers is to lay out what is happening. Why questiosn are teleological in nature and resist proof by empirical means" (35).

The emic v. etic perspective has become particularly important in considering ethnographic research. The different perspectives allow researchers to look at situations from a variety of ways, and to consider information that they may not be able to understand from an outsider's point of view.

Finally, decision rules constitute and important part of research and can be found on p. 46