Heath takes readers back to Hymes's years as Dean of the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. She recalls, in particular, his relentless passion for introducing public school administrators to ethnography's potential for seeing what could be done to increase equity and social justice within public education. She contrasts this…

Three aspects of the question of ethnography in education are considered: (1) an explanation of how some ethnographic methodology might be applied in ethnographic research in education; (2) some weaknesses and strengths of ethnography; and (3) a proposal for a case study in which essentials of ethnographic research might be carried out in a…

Discusses various responses to the author's book "Ways with Words--Language, Life and Work in Communities and Classrooms" (1983). Describes how these reactions have led the author to see things in the work that she had not seen before. Strengths and weaknesses of the book she identifies have implications for the conduct of future ethnographic…