I will run the risk to seem a little bit naive...

I have been silent until now on the matter ethnography/qualitative
research.

My understanding is (from what I have seen so far, which is three
semesters in graduate school) that often research in education has its
main focus on educational issues rather than on people in the educational
system (that's to say students and their parents, teachers,administrators
AND (I wish) the researchers! Not to be forgotten, of course.

So, my point is: an ethnography to be called ethnography MUST have its
focus on people.The educational application of the research is the happy
result of our caring for the people that make the institutions alive.....

Is it too naive?   

There are other important features that make of a qualitative study an
ethnography, which instead are often missing. I mean that I have come
across works defined "Ethnographical" just because the researcher could
claim to have spent some time in the setting.... this is still not enough.

Last but not least an ethnography may also been based on quantitative as
well as qualitative data, and still be an ethnography. Personally I do not
like numbers but it is just another language, is what you do with numbers
and words that counts :) -little play on words-

I also think that Letizia's urge for giving to the Italian students a
textbook on ethnography of education is legitimate. 

But, maybe not enough...

What about considering learning to read in another language a NEED for
university students? Many students around the world do read and study in a
second language. Are not we getting ready to work for a  multicultural
society?
How can this generation students understand the effort of their future 
students to express themselves in another language if they have never
experienced this need themselves.
Is Multicultural, just another "winning" world to make appear all that is
old new and still maintain everything unchanged?

 Are Italians lazy second language learners?

I see that having access to a few (and moreover) translated literature may
become a risk.

Students may consider what they read to be the truth about ethnography in
education.

Correct me if I am wrong, but as an Italian student and teacher I have an
experience about the cultural monopoly of textbooks. Textbook may
become:all you need to know about..... Maybe just to pass the exam!

Do apologize my being so critical on my people.
ooops

Anna Governale
Anthropology Ph.D.Student
Indiana University USA



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