Ethnographic Interviewing: Asking the Right Questions To the Right People in the Right Ways

Abstract

Current philosophy in early childhood education advocates family-centered intervention goals for handicapped children. To develop appropriate gaals for children from diverse cultures, professionals must understand parents' beliefs and values regarding the family's and child's resources and needs; and they must adopt an ecological framework that considers children's functioning within the broader aspects of their environment. Interviewing provides a means of obtaining the information necessary to develop culturally appropriate, family-centered intervention goals. This paper describes the influence of culture on the interview process and describes an approach to ethnographic interviewing of families of handicapped children that enables professionals to ask the right questions to the right people in the right ways so they can assist families in meeting the needs of their children.