SAGE Journal Articles
Select SAGE journal articles are available to give you more insight into chapter topics. These are also an ideal resource to help support your literature reviews, dissertations and assignments.
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Abstract: This paper addresses an issue that constantly plagues all social science research: How should we adjust our conceptual orientations and methodological priorities to take into account apparently changing human experiences and priorities? I take up this issue in the form of three “muddles,” or confusing situations, that confront me as an ethnographer trying to work in today’s contentious educational research atmosphere. In my case, the three muddles concern the meaning of “culture;” the enthusiasm (or not) for ethnography; and the researcher’s responsibility to those she writes about and hopes to help.
Singer, J. B. (2009) Ethnography Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly. 86, (1), pp. 191-198.
Abstract: Many qualitative studies in journalism and mass communication research draw on ethnographic methods that originated in anthropology and sociology. These methods involve studying people within their own cultural environment through intensive fieldwork; they emphasize the subjects' frames of reference and understandings of the world. This article uses a comparison between journalism and ethnographic research as a framework for highlighting common problems with manuscripts using this method. It offers veteran ethnographers' tips about what they look for in a manuscript and identifies three ethnographies that are examples of successful application of the method to topics of interest to journal readers.
Abstract: The articles in this collection are about the development, possibility, exercise and possible frustration of human agency within educational exchanges. They are also all based on ethnography, which is now a common approach to educational research. Ethnography is not a seamless, neutral observational practice but is instead variable in relation to theoretical perspectives and methodological application. However, central to all approaches is an emphasis on an active and creative citizen and an assumption that there is a dialectical relationship between human social practices, human consciousness and social structures.
Abstract: In this article we unravel the difficulty of being researchers in the homes and classrooms of children and their families whose origins are, for one of us, very different and, for the other, very similar to our own. We first situate our work within theories of early socialization and literacy teaching which underpin our understanding of how young children in cross-cultural contexts learn. We then turn to the question of working with the families and teachers of these children which poses dilemmas not explained by the theories presented. We illustrate these through a series of vignettes typifying both the ‘Outsider’ and the ‘Insider’ role.
Abstract: This article explores three ways intersubjectivity is implicated in an ethnography of the lived experience of members of an interfaith and labor coalition. First challenging dualistic thinking and the strict application of typologies, I emphasize the importance of understanding faith practices through the study of lived experience. Furthermore, field interactions between the researcher and participants affect members’ explanations of their activism. Finally, the life of the ethnographer is affected by the overall experience of fieldwork.