The Wiley Handbook of Ethnography of Education

In the past 30 years ethnography has grown from an emerging tradition in education research to one of the important research methods in the field. Impulses in this development have come from different national directions and disciplines. Predominant amongst them, however, have been influences from the UK and the USA and the disciplines of sociology (in the UK) and anthropology and sociology (in the USA) respectively. Following this, as discussed by Paul Atkinson (2005), the position has changed significantly. Ethnographic research has flourished; methodological reflection has grown. There is now extensive writing around matters of research methods and a need to return to some fundamental principles of ethnographic inquiry, along with a desire to describe and analyze the many modalities of ethnography that now exist. These developments have led to Wiley-Blackwell's interest in creating the present volume and our desire to edit it.