The transformation of ethnographic practice: past and current challenges

Abstract

Ethnographic research design was virtually unknown in American educational research until the 1970s. Only in the late 1980s was it recognized by leading professional educational research associations. Using an historical analysis of the gradual evolution and legitimation of ethnographic design in education, this article redefines the principles guiding traditional ethnography. It argues that ethnography was marginalized because it was subversive to positivistic and entrenched conceptions of research rigor, and it privileged alternative ways of thinking, knowing, and viewing the world. Subversion was initiated by non-mainstream scholars who joined the Academy and introduced hitherto unasked or silenced questions about social relationships of power; it also resulted from the failure of experimental approaches to answer critical questions asked about the field. The article further addresses challenges to basic tenets of ethnography, showing how the concepts of culture, population, identity, the study site, and researcher stance traditionally used by researchers must be revised to conform to realities of contemporary technological, global, and multicultural, racial and linguistic existence.