"This text presents a fresh new look at critical ethnography by emphasizing the significance of ethics and performance in the art and politics of fieldwork. The book explores an ethics of ethnography while illustrating the relevance of performance ethnography across disciplinary boundaries. The new edition is comprehensive, incorporating more extended discussions on theories and methods, thereby providing the reader with a broad range of considerations and choices. It also includes chapters on visual culture and performance"--

Whilst exploring the ethics of ethnography, this book illustrates the relevance of performance ethnography across disciplinary boundaries, exploring links between theory & method, various theoretical concepts & a number of methodological techniques.

In this book, Fitzpatrick and May make the case for a reimagined approach to critical ethnography in education. Working with an expansive understanding of critical, they argue that many researchers already do the kind of critical ethnography suggested in this book, whether they call their studies critical or not. Drawing on a wide range of educational studies, the authors demonstrate that a methodology that is lived, embodied, and personal—and fundamentally connected to notions of power—is essential to exploring and understanding the many social and political issues facing education today. By grounding studies in work that reimagines, troubles, and questions notions of power, injustice, inequity, and marginalization, such studies engage with the tenets of critical ethnography. Offering a wide-ranging and insightful commentary on the influences of critical ethnography over time, Fitzpatrick and May interrogate the ongoing theoretical developments, including poststructuralism, postcolonialism, and posthumanism. With extensive examples, excerpts, and personal discussions, the book thus repositions critical ethnography as an expansive, eclectic, and inclusive methodology that has a great deal to offer educational inquiries. Overviewing theoretical and methodological arguments, the book provides insight into issues of ethics and positionality as well as an in-depth focus on how ethnographic research illuminates such topics as racism, language, gender and sexuality in educational settings. It is essential reading for students, scholars, and researchers in qualitative inquiry, ethnography, educational anthropology, educational research methods, sociology of education, and philosophy of education.

In this volume, Thomas unites two traditions in social science - critical theory and qualitative research - in an attempt to apply a critical worldview to the conventional logic of cultural inquiry. Rather than standing in opposition to traditional ethnography, it offers a style of considering the direct relationship between knowledge, society, and political action. Thomas addresses the question: If the duty of the researcher entails the righting of social wrongs as well as producing valid research results, how is it possible to juxtapose the two goals? He defines the rules and guidelines for a praxis-oriented ethnographic tradition, one both ideologically engaged and scientifically valid. In addition, he outlines the various types of critical ethnography, explaining the tenets of each and how research can be carried out under these frameworks.

First Published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

One of the world's most distinguished authorities on qualitative research establishes the connection of performance narratives with performance ethnography and autoethnography, the linkage of these formations to critical pedagogy and critical race theory, and the histories of these formations.

Ethnographic methods are becoming increasingly prevalent in contemporary educational research. Critical Ethnography in Educational Research provides both a technical, theoretical guide to advanced ethnography--focusing on such concepts as primary data collection and system relationships--and a very practical guide for researchers interested in conducting actual studies.