CLASSROOM-BASED ETHNOGRAPHY - A RESEARCH PEDAGOGY

Fieldwork courses are in an ideal position to move sociological education toward a more experiential, more practice-based stance because ethnographic methods are best taught in the context of serious sociological research. The difficulties of classroom-based research nonetheless lead many fieldwork instructors to separate the activity of teaching from the activity of research. Obstacles to conducting classroom-based ethnographic research are discussed; experiential approaches available to fieldwork instructors are reviewed; and an ongoing classroom-based study on homelessness is presented.