This collection of essays are on the cutting edge of contemporary ethnographic methods that are based in a critique of critical ethnography. It is based in the assumption that ethnography is the ultimate colonialist project and critical theory the ultimate modernist project.

In this book, Fitzpatrick and May make the case for a reimagined approach to critical ethnography in education. Working with an expansive understanding of critical, they argue that many researchers already do the kind of critical ethnography suggested in this book, whether they call their studies critical or not. Drawing on a wide range of educational studies, the authors demonstrate that a methodology that is lived, embodied, and personal—and fundamentally connected to notions of power—is essential to exploring and understanding the many social and political issues facing education today. By grounding studies in work that reimagines, troubles, and questions notions of power, injustice, inequity, and marginalization, such studies engage with the tenets of critical ethnography. Offering a wide-ranging and insightful commentary on the influences of critical ethnography over time, Fitzpatrick and May interrogate the ongoing theoretical developments, including poststructuralism, postcolonialism, and posthumanism. With extensive examples, excerpts, and personal discussions, the book thus repositions critical ethnography as an expansive, eclectic, and inclusive methodology that has a great deal to offer educational inquiries. Overviewing theoretical and methodological arguments, the book provides insight into issues of ethics and positionality as well as an in-depth focus on how ethnographic research illuminates such topics as racism, language, gender and sexuality in educational settings. It is essential reading for students, scholars, and researchers in qualitative inquiry, ethnography, educational anthropology, educational research methods, sociology of education, and philosophy of education.

This popular text provides useful and pragmatic guidance for developing and successfully defending proposals for qualitative inquiry. The Fifth Edition addresses the advances and challenges presented by developments and new applications while providing direct guidance. Focusing on the proposal stage of research, this edition allows the reader to have a clear plan for data analysis and for the challenging varieties of final reports of qualitative inquiries. The new edition includes expanded coverage of ethics, analysis processes, and approaches, and is full of updated vignettes that illustrate the methodological challenges that face today's qualitative researcher. This edition also includes discussions about distance-based research (such as email interviews and online discussion groups), the implications of postmodern turns, integrating archival material in qualitative research, and creative ways of presenting the research. This text is an invaluable resource to teachers and students of research methods across disciplines and is a must for the library of those using qualitative approaches.

This book provides a contemporary overview of work in critical ethnography that focuses on language and race/ism in education, as well as cutting edge examples of recent critical ethnographic studies addressing these issues. The studies in this book, while centred primarily on the North American context, have wide international significance and interdisciplinary reach and address a range of educational contexts across K-12 education and less formal educational settings. They explore the racialized construction, positioning and experiences of bi/multilingual students, and the implications of this for educational policy, pedagogy and practice. The chapters draw on a range of critical theoretical perspectives, including CRT, LatCrit, Indigenous epistemologies and bilingual education; they also address significant methodological questions that arise when undertaking critical ethnographic work, including the key issues of positionality and critical reflexivity.

Whilst exploring the ethics of ethnography, this book illustrates the relevance of performance ethnography across disciplinary boundaries, exploring links between theory & method, various theoretical concepts & a number of methodological techniques.

The revised Second Edition of Critical Ethnography guides readers through theories, methods, and ethics of ethnographic research creating a confidence to complete fieldwork while demonstrating analytical and theoretical depth. This text highlights the productive links between theory and method and how both become more valuable as they interact through fieldwork. Theoretical concepts range from queer theory, feminist theory, and critical race theory to Marxism and phenomenology. The methodological techniques range from designing and asking in-depth interview questions and developing rapport to coding and interpreting data. The various theories and methods culminate in three fictional ethnographic case studies that guide readers on how to incorporate theoretical concepts with their interpretations and data analysis.