2013-2014 Academic Catalog 
    
    Mar 28, 2024  
2013-2014 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

EDUC 255 - Ethnography at School


This course will use the lens of ethnography to examine the process by which social inequality related to race, class, gender and nation becomes manifest in classrooms and schools.  Conversely, we will use the space of schooling to better understand the basic practice of ethnography as one tool for making meaning of social dynamics.  To achieve this, we will critically examine several modern and classic school-based ethnographies to better understand the ways that social inequality is constructed and challenged in schools.  These analyses will be contrasted with students’ own critical interrogation of their own schooling experiences.  Further, students will become situated in local urban classrooms to employ the tools of ethnography in support of teacher action research projects.  Thus, in addition to a critical examination of inequality in schooling, this course will provide students with methodological training in the construction of ethnographic field notes and ethnographic interviewing.  Such analytical training is valuable not only for students interested in qualitative research, but also for anyone interested in working in schools and seeking to better understand the ways that culture is dynamically negotiated in social groupings.  Registration by permission, only.

Program of Liberal Studies (PLS) Designation: Previously approved

Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year