Ethnography and Education

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For ethnography

Geoffrey Walford

To cite this article: Geoffrey Walford (2009) For ethnography, Ethnography and Education, 4:3,
271-282, DOI: 10.1080/17457820903170093

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Ethnography and Education
Vol. 4, No. 3, September 2009, 271
282

For ethnography
Geoffrey Walford*

Green Templeton College, University of Oxford, UK

This article seeks to promote what might be called a traditional form of

ethnography. It recognises that all traditions change, but puts forward a view
that, for an activity or product to be regarded as ethnographic, there is a need for
some recognisable continuity with what has been regarded as ethnography in the
last century.
This article thus presents a defence of rigour and systematic research within
ethnography. It is not a response to the other papers within this special issue, but
it does put forward a case for a particular form of ethnographic research and
representation that follows rigorous research methods and presents the findings
of that research in a systematic and clear way. The first section of the article
discusses the nature of ethnography that I wish to promote. The second provides
a critique of some specific cases where the authors wish to apply the term
ethnography, focussing on autoethnography and performance ethnography. The
conclusion suggests ways in which these newer forms of qualitative inquiry might
be made more rigorous and thus warrant the name ethnography as it has been
traditionally understood.
Keywords: ethnography; representations; rigour; research

The nature of ethnography

There has always been some degree of ambiguity and diversity in what is meant by the
term ethnography. At one extreme, some authors have taken it to be synonymous with
all forms of qualitative research, while others see it as simply ‘what anthropologists
do’. Neither of these extremes can be reasonably held, for to take ethnography as
synonymous with qualitative research is to shear it of any independent meaning.
Similarly, to propose that ethnography is only conducted by anthropologists, or that
the only research activity of anthropologists is ethnography, is demonstrably false as
researchers from many other disciplines use ethnography and anthropologists
sometimes use only interviews or other methods in their work. There is a need for
some clearer and argued definitions.
Hammersley and Atkinson (2007, 3) start their discussion in the following way:
In terms of data collection, ethnography usually involves researcher participating,
overtly or covertly, in people’s daily lives for an extended period of time, watching
what happens, listening to what is said, and/or asking questions through informal
and formal interviews, collecting documents and artefacts
in fact, gathering
whatever data are available to throw light on the issues that are the emerging focus
of inquiry.

*Email: geoffrey.walford@education.ox.ac.uk
ISSN 1745-7823 print/ISSN 1745-7831 online
# 2009 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/17457820903170093
http://www.informaworld.com
272 G. Walford

In his text on ethnography, Fetterman (1998, 1) states:

Ethnography is the art and science of describing a group or culture. The description may
be of a small tribal group in an exotic land or a classroom in middle-class suburbia. The
task is much like the one taken on by an investigative reporter, who interviews relevant
people, reviews records, weighs the credibility of one person’s opinions against another’s,
looks for ties to special interests and organizations, and writes the story for a concerned
public and for professional colleagues. A key difference between the investigative reporter
and the ethnographer, however, is that whereas the journalist seeks the unusual
the
murder, the plane crash, or the bank robbery
the ethnographer writes about the routine,
daily lives of people. The more predictable patterns of human life and behaviour are the
focus of inquiry.

Alternatively, Bryman (2001, x) suggests five key features, the last of which moves
beyond the process to the product:
1. ethnographers immerse themselves in a society;
2. to collect descriptive data via fieldwork;
3. concerning the culture of its members;
4. from the perspective of the meanings members of that society attach to their social
world; and
5. render the collected data intelligible and significant to fellow academics and other
readers.

A list is also favoured by the editors of Ethnography and Education who listed in the
first issue what they saw as the seven main features of ethnography.
The key elements of ethnographic research applied to the study of education
contexts are:
. the focus on the study of cultural formation and maintenance;
. the use of multiple methods and thus the generation of rich and diverse forms of
data;
. the direct involvement and long-term engagement of the researcher(s);
. the recognition that the researcher is the main research instrument;
. the high status given to the accounts of participants’ perspectives and understandings;
. the engagement in a spiral of data collection, hypothesis building and theory testing

leading to further data collection; and
. the focus on a particular case in depth, but providing the basis for theoretical
generalisation. (Troman et al. 2006, 1)

One interesting feature of all these quotations is that none mentions ‘qualitative’ or
‘quantitative’ data or methods. While it is widely recognised that this crude division
is largely unhelpful, ethnography is still generally thought of as being linked to a
‘qualitative’ method or set of methods. In fact, while ethnographers are unlikely to
use sophisticated statistical analysis, they often generate quantitative data as well as
qualitative fieldnotes and descriptions. Some of the classic educational ethnogra-
phies (such as Hargreaves 1967; Lacey 1970; or Becker et al. 1961) presented a
considerable amount of quantitative data to support their arguments. Quantitative
claims, which are frequently made in ethnographies, require quantitative data, so
the use of structured observation, time sampling and even surveys may be required
in addition to more open-ended participant observation and interviewing. The
 Ethnography and Education 273

methods used depend upon the research questions that the study eventually tries to
answer.
While there are some differences between the lists provided, the writers above claim
that there are a set of specific criteria that have to be met before a study can be
considered to be ethnographic. A simple interview-based study, for example, would
not qualify as ethnographic
there needs to be long-term engagement, the use of
multiple research methods and the generation of rich data. The research process also
needs to be theory-led and systematic. Understanding is not achieved through chaotic
or biased processes, but by systematic and well-ordered generation of data appropriate
to the task.
Ethnography is sometimes disparagingly characterised as ‘hanging around’ and
writing about what is seen heard. But the ethnographer does much more than this. The
ethnographer takes great care with the selection of case study sites in which to ‘hang
around’. Sites need to be appropriate for the particular theoretical and empirical tasks,
and chosen for particular purposes rather than just convenience of access (Walford
2008). Once in the site, she or he will take care with presentation of self and will adopt a
particular role, or a series of roles, that will enable relevant and reliable data to be
generated. This means not simply observing those members of the culture who are
conveniently available or seem to be ‘interesting’, but searching out those who are
difficult to find and who may seem unpleasant or unlikeable. Observation does not
occur just once, but activities are observed at different times of the day, week and year.
Where interviews are conducted, the informants (or collaborators, Lassiter 2005) are
chosen purposively to test or extend particular growing hunches or understandings.
Care is taken about who to associate with, and time is taken to listen to everyone within
any hierarchy of power or prestige. Different views are sought and a variety of different
forms of data are generated.
Ethnography is sometimes characterised as a form of news reporting. But an
ethnographer does more than this. A news reporter will look for the unusual, the
scandalous and the ‘newsworthy’. People involved will be named and what they say
attributed to them. The more publicly well-known the people involved, the more
likely it is that their activities and statements will be reported. In contrast,
ethnographers are often more interested in the mundane than the unusual. The
identity of the individuals involved does not usually matter. What matters is a greater
understanding of how this particular culture works
how it maintains itself and
adapts to changing circumstances. News reporters care greatly about topicality. Their
work has to be reported fast to qualify as news; better to get a slightly inaccurate
article out today than a more accurate one tomorrow. Ethnographers are far more
interested in accuracy of descriptions and analysis than the rapidity of publication.
They take pains to ensure that they have sufficient evidence for all the claims that are
made (Hammersley 1990).
Ethnography is sometimes characterised as what everyone does when they enter a
new situation. It is certainly correct that when anyone enters a new culture they have to
learn the formal and informal rules about ‘the way we do things around here’ (Deal
1985) in order to survive. But an ethnographer does more than this. She or he tries to
suspend any judgement until there is sufficient evidence to make one, and self-
consciously looks for potentially contradictory evidence before accepting initial
guesses. Most importantly, an ethnographer systematically generates data and records
those data for future analysis. When involved in analysis and writing they do not rely
274 G. Walford

on memory of events that may have occurred many months before, but refer to
fieldnotes that were written as soon after the events as possible. A teacher joining a new
school will make many assumptions about the similarity of this workplace to others
she has been in. Different people might see these assumptions as intuition, experience
or prejudice. The ethnographer tries to make as few assumptions as possible and is
only ready to describe and make claims about what goes on after months of
observation, interviewing, document gathering, systematic recording of all this, and
systematic analysis of all the data generated.
Those who adopt this way of thinking about ethnography are not ignorant of the
crisis of representation or of the many debates within the wider field of qualitative
inquiry (Clifford and Marcus 1986; Denzin and Lincoln 2005). While many may feel
that the discontinuities and discreteness of ‘moments’ (Denzin and Lincoln 2000) have
been overemphasised (Atkinson, Coffey, and Delamont 2003; Delamont, Coffey, and
Atkinson 2000), they accept that qualitative inquiry now embraces a wide range of
different forms of research and representation. They also recognise that there have
been inevitable changes in the nature of ethnography since its origins in anthropology
and sociology in the early twentieth century. In particular, increasing globalisation has
made the idea of single isolated cultures untenable
not, of course, that cultures were
completely separate even in Malinowski’s time, although he largely failed to identify
this. Fragmentation of people’s work and other lives has led to educational
ethnographer undesirably tending to study just activities within educational organisa-
tions and neglecting any wider culture simply because these wider cultures are multiple
and geographically spread. Ethnographers are all also more aware of ethical issues of
exploitation and access for particular groups and of the political nature of data
(Denzin and Giardina 2008). Ethical Review Board approval may, rightly, be difficult
to obtain. But for a particular research process and a particular piece of writing to
warrant the name ethnography, it seems reasonable that there should be some clear
and distinct linkages to the traditional research procedures and analytical and writing
genres. Indeed, why would anyone wish to use this descriptor unless there were such
linkages?
Yet, there is an increasing number of people who do wish to use the descriptor
‘ethnography’ for activities and writings that are at some distance from the traditional
form. Some claim it for studies that are based on interviews only. Others wish to do so
for studies where the author herself or himself is the focus and which do not even
require interviews. Others still wish to apply the term to alternative forms of
representation such as fiction, poetry and drama.
There are many possible reasons for this desire to use the term ethnography for a
wide diversity of forms of qualitative research and representation. Perhaps, in an
increasingly performative university world, many academics can no longer devote the
time necessary to conduct and write a traditional ethnography. Instead, they feel
forced to employ a series of interviews or conduct very compressed observations. Yet,
as their identities are still often tied to the idea of ethnography, they seek to broaden
the term to include their newer working practices.
But others have sought to broaden the term ethnography as part of a distinctly
political programme
a programme that seeks to break down the barriers between
academic disciplines and, in particular, seeks to break down the division between
social science and humanities. This particular movement is now quite old and has
had considerable success. Authors associated with the movement include Norman
 Ethnography and Education 275

Denzin, Laurel Richardson, Caroline Ellis and Arthur Bochner. There are
differences between these authors, but I will take the work of Ellis and Bochner
(who are academic and personal partners) as being at the forefront.
There is no doubt that the work of Ellis and Bochner (1996) has been extremely
popular amongst a wide range of academics, researchers and postgraduate students.
They are widely cited, meetings where they present papers are often very well-
attended, and they edit a lengthy book series called ‘ethnographic alternatives’. They
do not seem to have ever set out clearly their programme of change (indeed, to do so
would partly contradict the programme itself), but the thrust is that a continuity
should be seen between narratives in the humanities and those in the social sciences.
The essence of ethnography is seen as story-telling where the researcher is centrally
involved in the process and product.
Precise details are difficult to pin-down, as their writings often take the form of
imagined (or perhaps real) discussions between the two authors. This is the case for
the introductions to both major edited books (Bochner and Ellis 1996, 2002) but a
series of short snippets from those two introductions gives a feel for the political
nature of the enterprise:
Art: Our main problem is how to reach people who are looking for alternatives, who
want to write differently, and who see the opportunities to expand ethnographic
research. What is ethnography anyway? It’s not the name of a discipline.
Carolyn: Ethnography is what ethnographers do. It’s an activity. Ethnographers inscribe
patterns of cultural experience; they give perspective on life. They interact, they take
note, they photograph, moralize, and write.
Carolyn: [The new ethnography] appealed to people like me who didn’t want to stay
stuck at the level of data. I wanted to be a storyteller, someone who used narrative
strategies to transport readers into experience and make them feel as well as think.
Carolyn: I don’t know, sometimes I think analysis becomes an unnecessary diversion
from the emotional experience of the story. (Bochner and Ellis 1996, 16, 18, 30)
I want us to showcase ethnographic projects that blur the boundaries between social
science and literature. (Bochner and Ellis 2002, 1)

Extending the nature of what is to be counted as ethnography is seen as a democratic

process where everyone can join in and all voices should be heard. But it is not
simply a case of blurring the boundaries between social science and literature, but of
trying to re-shape the nature of the research and reporting process. Texts are seen as
plural and open to multiple interpretations. The emotional response is as important,
if not more important, as the analytical findings of the research. Indeed, research
methods are played down and new forms of representation valorised.

Autoethnography
Autoethnography is one area where Ellis and Boucher have had a considerable
influence. Autoethnography (or auto-ethnography) is a relatively new word. It was
first used by an anthropologist Heider (1975) to refer to the cultural accounts given
about themselves by his Dani informants. Later Hayano (1979) used the term to refer
to the study of the ethnographer’s ‘own people’
in this case members of a particular
card-playing group. Since then the word has been used for a much wider range of
276 G. Walford

inquiries. Angrosino (2007, 65) retains elements of this second idea in his discussion
where he claims that the ‘basic assumption in autoethnographic representation is
that the researcher is a member of a cultural or social group, and that their personal
experiences accurately mirror the experiences of the group as a whole’. But divisions
can been drawn between those authors such as Denzin (2006) and Ellis and Boucher
(2000, 2006), who argue for a much more ‘evocative’, subjective and emotionally
engaging autoethnography, and those such as Anderson (2006) and Atkinson (2006),
who wish to defend a form of autoethnography more closely linked to traditional
ethnography and to formal research practices.
The basic idea is not totally new. To take just one example, while not called an
autoethnography, my own study of change within my own university (Walford 1987a)
was centrally concerned with a study of ‘my own people’. I examined the management
of change process that followed a dramatic cut in government funding to my
institution at that time (Aston University). I was a participant observer making notes
on important meetings, as well as collecting documents and interviewing key
informants. I attempted to document and theorise a change in culture and draw
wider conclusions (but not, of course, generalisations) from the single case. In Van
Maanen’s (1988) terms, this was a realist tale.
Van Maanen (1988) also writes of ‘confessional tales’ which are again far from
uncommon in educational ethnography. Confessional tales are accounts that give
background information on how the research was conducted. They usually include
some of the more problematic aspects of doing research as well as successes. Perhaps,
the best know ‘autoethnography’ of this type is the appendix to Whyte’s (1955) Street
corner society which discusses, amongst other things, Whyte’s relationship with the
legendary Doc. Educational ethnographers have been far from reticent in providing
similar stories. I have been among several academics who have edited such volumes,
and have included my own accounts of aspects of conducting two separate
ethnographic investigations (Walford 1987b, 1991). I have also warned of the
potential dangers to new researchers that writing such ‘confessional tales’ might
bring (Walford 2002). It is worth noting that all of the ‘autoethnographies’ of this
type are based upon fieldnotes, documents and other evidence generated at the time
of the research. They do not simply reflect back on the past using what we all know
are very unreliable memories of events (cf. Bochner 2007). These accounts, although,
confessional, also have elements of being ‘realist tales’.
But Ellis and Bochner (2000) have a rather different view of autoethnography. For
them, autoethnography is ‘a genre of writing and research that displays multiple
layers of consciousness, connecting the personal to the cultural’ (739). It is about
blurring genres and transgressing conventions. It is about putting the researcher at the
centre of the account and coming to understand self and others more deeply. It is
about the need to be introspective about feelings and motives, to be self-questioning,
and prepared to confront contradictions and ‘less than flattering’ things about the
self. ‘The authors privilege stories over analysis, allowing and encouraging alternative
readings and multiple interpretations’ (745). They even state: ‘Autoethnography
provides an avenue for doing something meaningful for yourself and the world . . .’
(738).
As I have argued elsewhere (Walford 2004), this raises several inter-related
problems. The first, as Ellis and Bochner (2000) discuss, is the problem of the nature
of the truth to which such stories aspire. To what extent can such autobiographically
 Ethnography and Education 277

based stories reflect anything other than a constructed fiction? Their answer is to
admit, even embrace, the fact that all stories distort the past: ‘stories rearrange,
redescribe, invent, omit, and revise’ [ . . .] and ‘a story is not a neutral attempt to
mirror the facts of one’s life; it does not seek to recover already constituted
meanings’ (745). My own reaction to this is that, if people wish to write fiction, they
should call it fiction and not call it ethnography or any other form of research. While
it is clearly correct that all accounts are selective and distorting, the aim of research is
surely to reduce the distortion as much as possible. Whilst recognising multiple
realities and all the difficulties of representation, I would argue that a piece of writing
that claims to be ethnographic (or any other form of research) does not try to present
as evidence something that is clearly not factual. But this is exactly what Ellis and
Bochner (2000) seem to do. For example, their article contains a great deal of
reported conversation within quotation marks. Yet it is not clear whether the events
described even actually happened. If an account is to be treated as an ethnography,
the reader has a right to know how much is deliberately fiction and how much is at
least trying to represent what actually occurred. Blurring the boundaries between
creative literature and social science research writing does little to enhance either.
But, for Ellis and Bochner (2000), autoethnography is about personal identity
and the desire to make sense and preserve coherence over the course of our lives. The
extent to which a story corresponds to a reasonable view of ‘what happened’ does not
seem to matter to them
all that matters is this self-exploration. My own reaction to
this is that, while this may well be of interest to the author, I see no reason for
expecting it to be of interest to any other readers except, perhaps, those who already
know and love the author.
Ellis and Boucher’s (2006) political programme is made clear in their response in
a symposium within the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography which focused on a
paper by Anderson (2006) which put forward a more robust notion of how
autoethnography might be conducted. Again, their paper is rather annoyingly
presented in the form of a conversation between the two of them, so the argument is
left deliberately unclear, ambiguous, and incomplete. Realist ethnographers are cast
as an enemy of their project without any discussion of what this might mean or the
different forms of realist ethnography that have developed. What is of note is that
they present realist ethnographers as appropriating the idea of autoethnography
rather than present their own work as a systematic attempt to appropriate the term
‘ethnography’ to a far wider range of processes and products that those with which it
has traditionally been associated. For example:
Don’t rush me. I’m trying to put this together. I guess my fear is that analytic
autoethnography may be an unconscious attempt by realists to appropriate autoethno-
graphy and turn it into mainstream ethnography.
Leon [Anderson] wants to take autoethnography, which, as a mode of enquiry was
designed to be unruly, dangerous, vulnerable, rebellious, and creative, and bring it under
control of reason, logic, and analysis.
‘I remember how hard I worked to get the term ‘‘autoethnography’’ accepted in the first
place’ I [Carolyn] acknowledged. ‘That acceptance seemed extremely important from a
political standpoint. I wanted autoethnography to be recognised as a distinct genre that
would provide a rallying point for all of us doing similar kinds of work. As a woman and
as a feminist, I think that it’s important not to lose sight of the politics of ethnography’.
(Ellis and Bochner 2006, 433, 433, 436)
278 G. Walford

The programme goes further than this. It is, in fact, an attack on the nature of social
science knowledge. Traditional social science knowledge is seen as ineffective but
autoethnography is seen as therapeutic for both the reader and writer (Ellis 2007, 215):
. . . we need to see the knowledge we’re seeking in ethnography as the kind that helps
readers use other people’s sorrows and triumphs as a way to reflect on or recontextualize
their own, enhancing their capacity to cope with life’s contingencies. (Bochner and Ellis
1996, 27
8)

But this is not a fixed form of knowledge, for what the reader takes from any
autoethnography is not predictable. Instead of trying to make knowledge claims
based on evidence that will be convincing to the reader, this form of autoethno-
graphy anticipates and tries to generate an emotional response to the writing which
will differ for each reader.

Performance ethnography
Recently, the word ‘ethnography’ has also become linked to that of ‘performance’
(Denzin 2003). As with autoethnography, there is debate about what the term
‘performance ethnography’ actually means. Alexander (2005, 411) argues: ‘Perfor-
mance ethnography is literally the staged performance of ethnographically derived
notes’. McCall (2000, 427) states: ‘Performance ethnography requires at least the
following from the ethnographer or adapter: He or she must write a script and then
cast and/or perform and/or stage it (adding movements, sets, costumes, props)’. For
both of these authors, performance ethnography is a way of presenting an account
that is directly based upon the work of ethnography as traditionally conceived. It can
take the form of students beginning to understand the culture of others by taking
roles in a performance or it could be a performance in front of an audience so that the
audience can appreciate and come to an understanding of the culture of the group
studied in a new way. The performance is simply another form of representation
beyond the monograph or article, but it is one where the author still wishes to present
a particular message based upon systematic research and analysis.
Some academics, however, wish to go beyond this interpretation of the term.
Bagley’s (2008a) use of performance is a good example. His research explored the
impact of an early years government intervention, Sure Start, which was designed to
improve the health and education of children aged up to four from disadvantaged
families. He staged a performance based upon this research at a conference. However,
instead of providing a script and directions for the actors based upon his own lengthy
analysis of interviews and other data generated during the two-year study, Bagley
delegated the task of interpretation almost entirely to a group of actors with whom he
had little contact and who knew practically nothing about the research. The group of
performers were given 10 unedited interview transcripts and linked audio tapes and
some background material on the Sure Start programme and asked to interpret them
with just minimal instructions. In writing about this process, Bagley (2008b, 18) states
that he hoped the performance ‘would provide the performers and audience with an
opportunity to co-create an emotional, sensory and kinaesthetic experience around
the (re)telling of the data’, but that, as he was neither an artist nor trained in
playwriting or stage production, he did not consider it appropriate to be involved in the
creative process. He admits that he ‘had no control over which aspect of the data they
 Ethnography and Education 279

would choose to (re)present, the perspective they would take, nor ‘‘the range of
actions, meanings and intentions’’ (Denzin 2003, 53) they would attribute to
individuals and social contexts’ (Bagley 2008b, 19). This is akin to a simply publishing
a journal article that presents a selection of interview transcripts and asks the readers
to make sense of them
it omits the all important analysis stage that must occur prior
to any ethnographic representation.

Conclusion
In writing about autoethnography, Sparkes (2002) uses Barthes’ (1970/1990) distinc-
tion between types of text. He argues that ‘authors of autoethnographies seek to
produce writerly rather than readerly texts’ (220), so texts are deliberately written such
that they are less predictable, and a reader is forced to bring to the reading his or her
experience as a way of filling the gaps in the text. ‘This focus on the reader response
encourages connection, empathy, and solidarity, as well as emancipatory moments in
which powerful insights into the lived experiences of others are generated. This kind of
writing can inform, awaken, and disturb readers by illustrating their involvement in
social processes about which they might not have been consciously aware’ (221). He
thus celebrates multiple readings and invites the reader into a therapeutic relationship,
where they explore their own lives through the reading process.
Good literature, drama or poetry should certainly try to encourage ‘connection,
empathy, and solidarity’. Good literature is centrally a writerly text with multiple
possible interpretations designed to engage the reader in a reflexive process of new
understanding. However, the reports of ethnographic research (and, indeed, all
research) are surely fundamentally attempts to construct a readerly text
one where
the attempt is made to restrict multiple meanings as far as possible. For me,
ethnographic reports need to be logically constructed and be clear about what
empirical claims (factual and explanatory) are being made and what empirical data
have been generated that support those claims (Hammersley 1990). The traditional
ethnographic text or other representational form is one where attempts are made to
reduce ambiguity and to exhibit precision.
This does not mean that autoethnography or performance ethnography is not a
viable form of ethnography on some occasions. For example, Chang (2007, 2008)
restricts her consideration to a form of autoethnography that ‘shares the storytelling
features with other genres of self-narrative but transcends mere narration of self to
engage in cultural analysis and interpretation’ (2008, 43). Chang sees autoethno-
graphy as being centrally focussed on the concerns of anthropology and argues that
it should not be seen as a form of therapy. Her recent book (Chang 2008) has four
chapters out of 10 devoted to generating autoethnographic data, starting with the
importance of the research focus, then going through personal memory data, self-
observation, self-reflective data and external data. This is followed by three chapters
on managing data, analysing and interpreting data, and writing autoethnography.
Hers is a long and arduous process of ensuring that good quality data are generated,
and that they are analysed in such a way that claims are backed by evidence
it
justifies the name ethnography as it follows the tenets and procedures of traditional
ethnography.
In a similar way, the results of a period of ethnographic research could be
performed as well as the researcher producing academic books and articles.
280 G. Walford

Performances are able to reach different audiences and to provide a more visual and
direct encounter with what the ethnographer wishes to communicate at the end of
the research and analysis. But, for such reports to be worthy of the name
‘ethnography’ they need to take account of the traditional purposes of ethnographic
research and aim to construct a readerly text
one where the attempt is made to
restrict multiple meanings as far as possible and tell a story where claims are based
on evidence.
Telling a story is central to educational ethnography (Walford 2008). One of the
problems with newer forms of writings and representations linked to ethnographic
research is that they often forget that the traditional purpose has been to communicate
something about others. Willis (2004, 169) states:
In one way I am a simple empiricist: Write down what happens, take notes about what
people do and say, how they use objects, artefacts, and symbolic forms in situ. Do not
worry too much about the endless debates concerning ethnographic authority and the
slippages of discursive meaning understood from an abstract poststructuralism. Tell me
something
I know all the method problems
tell me, tell your readers, something
about the world. We launched the journal Ethnography in part addressed to an old-
fashioned motion of ethnography and ethnographic articles having some empirical data
in them, rather than endless methodological discussions where we learn everything
about the sacred bourgeois formation of the writer and nothing about the profane
formation of the subject. I seem to hear subjects screaming silently from the margins of
the page, ‘but what about us?’

In 2006, we established Ethnography and Education with the same aim.

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