How much should ethnographers involve themselves with the people, places, and processes they study? One answer has become increasingly popular: invert the standard method of participant observation into observant participation. This article draws on an ethnography of ambulance work to consider the trade-offs between these approaches. My fieldwork…

Opinions on the value of self-study in teacher education are fierce. Utilising our relative perspectives as insider and outsider to this methodological approach to researching one's own teaching, the authors promote the value of self-study while simultaneously questioning certain assumptions associated with how it is typically enacted. To engage…

In this article, we reflect on our experiences with teaching ethnographic skills and sensibilities to MSc students at a Dutch university. Using methods such as (self)observation, journaling and reflection, we highlight dilemmas (conceptual, practical, ethical) faced by students when doing ethnographic fieldwork and dilemmas that emerged in…

This study demonstrates the value of the field of public theology for cathedral studies. Both of these fields are concerned with the continuing role of religion in public life in contemporary societies, and yet those writing within these fields often do not draw from the work of the other. Therefore, in this study I show some findings of my PhD…

This work presents experiential criticism as a methodology for researching experience in education. The approach draws on elements of pragmatism, phenomenology, ethnography, and educational criticism and connoisseurship and was developed through a study of the adventure education experience. It is comprised of three modes of inquiry: (1)…

As the popularity of ethnographic research methods grows across and beyond the social sciences, it is of paramount importance that practitioners reflect on how to best teach participant observation to increasingly diverse and interdisciplinary audiences. While available literature stresses the importance of learning-by-doing to develop students'…

Ethnographic note-taking in the field is often imbued with emotions, shaped by power relations and influenced by participants' voice and agency. Though enough has been written about ethnography, discussions on the specific challenges of taking notes, particularly in research with children are limited. Drawing on three ethnographic field studies…

Taking a sociological view, we can investigate the empirical consequences of variations in the rhetoric of sociological methodology. The standards advocated in Qualitative Literacy divide communities of qualitative researchers, as they are not explicitly connected to an understanding of social ontology, unlike previous qualitative methodologies;…

There is a dearth of methodological guidance on how to conduct participant observation in private spaces such as family homes. Yet, participant observations can provide deep and valuable data about family processes. This article draws on two ethnographic studies of family life in which researchers conduct in-depth interviews, recruit families, and…

This paper aims to critique approaches to qualitative coding that carry a bottom-up or inductive thinking. Despite the wide contributions of this epistemology to the social sciences, this paper contends that contemporary research and methodological debates have inadequately explored different epistemologies for coding. As such, this paper proposes…

Being a graduate student while becoming a teaching assistant (TA) is fraught with struggles of knowledge and identity. While the field of rhetoric and composition has long theorized the needs of undergraduate students in first year writing (FYW) classes, it has only recently begun to theorize the needs of the TAs who teach a majority of the FYW…

The notion of the ethnographer as participant observer, as an active agent rather than passive observer, is well established within conversations about method and methodology. Less well explored is the extent to which the inherent curiosity and inquisitiveness of the ethnographer might be reciprocated: how might this be established and how might…

In primitive communal society, the cave was not just a place of dwelling but seen as a fortress gifted by Mother Nature and a sacred place for direct communication with higher, mystical forces. The main aim of this study was to examine the evolution and the development of cave studies and how this evolution gave new interpretations of the cave,…

Observational research has a long history in many disciplines, such as education and organizational studies, yet has had slow uptake in the scholarship of work-integrated learning (WIL). Observational research enables the researcher to journey inside workplace or community sites where actions and conversations unfold, to unpack the complexities of…

The main objective of this research is to present and analyse the collaboration process established between the ethnographers and a school that faces the challenge of promoting change towards a more inclusive and social justice model. The methods used to carry out this four-year process were, in essence, participatory observation in multiple…