Ethnography and Educational Policy Across the Americas

Third in the series Sociocultural Studies of Educational Policy Formation and Appropriation, this volume brings together scholars from North America, South America, and Europe to examine the relationship between ethnographic research and educational policy. The product of papers and discussions originally taking place at the Interamerican Symposium on Ethnographic Educational Research, the book presents both original empirical research reports and theoretical-methodological proposals for using ethnography to study and influence educational policy. After an introduction and opening chapter that highlight the different ways of conceptualizing education, education policy, and diversity across American borders, five full chapters address the relationship between ethnography and educational policy through sustained empirical attention to specific research sites and projects.

The next section of the book presents shorter position statements that relate specific research or policymaking experiences and reflect on the ways that ethnography can be involved in a project of formulating or revising policy. In this section, edited transcriptions of workshop discussions give the reader a vibrant sense of the challenging issues facing educational ethnographers attempting to address policy. The book closes with a commentary by a veteran educational ethnographer. Of interest to educators, researchers, and policymakers across the Americas, this volume contributes to an ongoing dialogue about how ethnographic research can intersect advantageously with the policymaking enterprise.

BRADLEY A.U. LEVINSON is Associate Professor of Education and Adjunct Professor of Anthropology at Indiana University.

SANDRA L. CADE is Assistant Professor of Education, Olivet College, Michigan.

ANA PADAWER is an instructor and researcher with the Program of Anthropology and Education, School of Philosophy and Letters, University of Buenos Aires. She is also as a researcher in the Ministry of Education of the city of Buenos Aires.

ANA PATRICIA ELVIR is a doctoral candidate at Harvard University Graduate School of Education.