The use of anthropological research methods in educational research has become considerably more complicated in the past few decades. At one point in time, lone ethnographers tended to focus on a single community, school, or classroom (e.g., Spindler 1955, 1987). The advent of multi-sited research (Marcus 1998) and ethnographic investigations of educational “policy as practice” (Levinson and Sutton 2001, Hamann and Rosen 2011) have complicated the ethnographic project, requiring researchers to attend to social and cultural processes in multiple locations. Further, ethnography emerged from a vigorous period of postmodern critique only to have its value questioned anew as to whether it constitutes “scientifically based research” (Demerath 2006; Gonzalez 2004; Eisenhart 2001).

Scholars have adopted multiple strategies to cope with these exigencies. One approach is to endeavor, as a single researcher, to trace the trail of educational policies and practices across multiple levels or “scapes” (e.g. Brayboy 2005; Koyama 2011; Vavrus and Bartlett 2009). Some ethnographers have explored the use of video in ethnographic research (e.g., Pink 2006; Tobin et al 1989; Tobin et al 2009). A third and much debated direction is the move toward autoethnography (e.g., Ellis and Boechner 2000; Reed Danahay 1997). In contrast, some researchers have engaged a research team that includes multiple ethnographers (eg, Demerath 2010; McCarty et al, 2011; Bartlett and Garcia 2011; Vavrus and Bartlett 2013). Comparative ethnography involving multiple researchers in multiple sites using a similar research design constitutes a final, often challenging, possibility that recasts older approaches to ethnology (see e.g. Burawoy, 2009; Hirsch et al 2012).

At the same time, culture—the central concept in the field of anthropology—has been subject to intense debates. Some scholars in anthropology have recommended jettisoning the concept altogether, citing its complicity with essentializing concepts like race (Abu-Lughod 1991; Gonzalez 1999). Others adopt a Geertzian, meaning-centric definition, while yet others encourage a social interactionist definition that focuses on the on-going process of humans creatively adapting to each other and to social structures and political and economic institutions “under both perduring and emergent circumstances” (McDermott and Varenne 2006, 8; see also Eisenhart 2001, Erickson 2011). Despite these debates and disagreements, culture continues to be a concept of great significance in educational research, especially with the emphasis on culturally responsive approaches and the imperative to build on the cultural and linguistic assets of diverse students (see e.g. Brayboy and Castagno 2009; Brayboy and Maughn 2009; Gay, 2000; Ladson-Billings, 1995, 1997). Meanwhile, culture is invoked ever more frequently, and not always accurately, in schools themselves, in terms such as cultures of learning, collaborative cultures, organizational culture, and cultures of school improvement and in the ways student teachers refer to multiple dimensions of difference (see, e.g., Ladson-Billings 2006).

These approaches and debates have led to various dilemmas for ethnographic researchers in education. Where are the relevant contexts for ethnographic research, what questions demand the use of ethnographic methods, and what sites should researchers prioritize? How can ethnographers acknowledge central lessons from the postmodern critique of ethnography regarding researcher subjectivity, positionality, and reflexivity, while still maintaining the legitimacy necessary to present authoritative, policy-relevant research findings? How central is embodied, personal experience to ethnographic knowledge production? How can multiple ethnographers working on a single project maintain the emergent, iterative nature of ethnographic work? What epistemological dilemmas do mixed method designs present for ethnographers? What are the advantages and disadvantages for ethnographic data analysis of having multiple researchers? More generally, what new and more transparent strategies for data analysis may now be necessary, given the changes outlined above? Finally, how might researchers best explain the value of ethnographic research in the current era, especially in efforts to impact policy and school improvement efforts?

These are questions I hope we will have the opportunity to address during our conversations together at the October 2013 event. I look forward to our deliberations.