This paper analyzes how knowledge is reproduced as "universal" in contemporary higher education and how this production of universality influences the application of knowledge. Using a case study of clinical psychology, it describes the results of over two years of ethnographic fieldwork in a university and professional settings in…

This article presents data from a two-year ethnographic case study to explore how immigrant and refugee youth in the United States made sense of participation in a weekly human rights club after school. Three types of student responses to human rights education are exemplified through the profiles of students. The article offers new insights on…

In the late 1980s, I embarked on a "small" project in India to obtain a "bit" of comparative data on Indian women in science and engineering. At that time, there was little cross-cultural research on the scientific gender gap outside of the United States or Europe. As a cultural anthropologist, I initially envisaged a…

In usual understandings of learning, youths' development in classrooms is portrayed as a move from being a novice to an expert. However, findings of the present anthropologically framed study support us to argue that learning, rather, can be characterized as youths' simultaneous occupation of novice and expert roles. We refer to this simultaneous…

Undergraduate students often struggle with understanding the theories of Bourdieu, but they are essential for understanding how power and privilege are reproduced in society. Revealing students' complicity in this system is a powerful teaching moment, but it is often difficult to make the lesson and advanced theory accessible without triggering…

In this article, we explore three anthropological approaches to science education research: funds of knowledge, third space/hybridity and practice theory. Definitions, historical origins, uses and constraints of each approach are included along with reviews of exemplary studies in each tradition. We show that funds of knowledge research draws on…

The article analyzes the Brazilian Indigenous formal educational policies through two ethnographic cases (Karipuna and Mebengokre-Xikrin) that allow us to approach the Indigenous perspective on schooling. We first discuss the possibilities and limitations of past and current legal references and educational policies. In the analysis of the two…

Drawing from a multiyear ethnography and a longitudinal case study, this article examines how one Guatemalan American teenager negotiates the multiple socializations to ethnic and gender identities in her home, her Pentecostal church, and her high school. She must face processes of Americanization and Mexicanization. Americanization's thrust is to…

Intelligence and creativity are concepts used to describe the efforts of human beings to achieve the highest aspirations of the human brain-mind-spirit system. Howard Gardner, intelligence and creativity researcher, applied his Multiple Intelligence theory to case studies of creative masters from seven intelligence domains developing a template…

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…

Demonstrates that the whole of an anthropological study (from deciding who, what, and where to study to publicizing results) can be termed an "ethnographic process". Within this process, four major components can be identified: research conditions, research design, research implementation, and product creation. Discusses each part of…

Reports a case study of the village of Illukwewa, Sri Lanka, which examined traditional technologies, life skills and the feasibility of implementing formal learning programs based on these methods. Makes recommendations on focusing the learning process toward formal education. (KO)

Presents ethnographic analyses of two school boards which are characterized by their decision-making processes. One is described as elite (conflict exists between the board and the dominant need of the public), the other as arena (representative segments of the public conflict with one another). (KC)

Some organizational activities can be understood in anthropological terms as "rites" affecting and reinforcing the organizational culture. Six specific rites are described and a case study is reported in which a change in a school committee's culture was attempted through a change in its rites. The first three rites examined relate to the…

To illustrate his claim that schools generally do a remarkably good job of schooling while the society makes inadequate use of other means to educate young people, the author presents a case history of a young American (identified pseudonymously as "Brad") whose schooling was adequate but whose education was not. Brad, jobless and…