What Makes School Ethnography ‘Ethnographic’?

TLDR

This paper began as a memorandum to participants in a 1972 AERA research training session on ethnographic research. The article is revised for reprinting. The revision involved Katz editing the essay for publication and the author eliminating outdated citations. The revised article largely draws on the original essay, emphasizing the interdependence of ethnography and ethnology, which signals the field’s growth over fourteen years. The editing was skillful, and the author expresses gratitude.

Abstract

This paper began as a long memorandum to participants in a research training session on ethnograhic research conducted for the American Educational Research Association in 1972. One of the participants attending that presession was Arthur A. Katz, then one of John Singleton's students. Katz edited my essay for publication in the Anthropology and Education Newsletter. The editing was skillful and I am grateful for that. I have made a few changes in revising the article for this reprinting. Almost all of them consist of material retrieved from the original essay, notably the references to the interdependence of ethnography and ethnology. I also have eliminated all citations, since many of the original ones are out of date. That in itself is testimony to the growth of the field in the past fourteen years.