CHAPTER 14
ETHNOGRAPHY AND CRITICAL RESEARCH
TEACHING ACTIVITIES FOR CHAPTER 14
Activity 1. Controversies about critical ethnography.
Critical ethnography makes explicit criticisms of all aspects of society. Some students are likely to agree with
the published criticisms cited in this chapter, while others will likely disagree with them. Typically we have found
that students view critical ethnography and critical research from the perspective of their political allegiances. For
Activity 2. Designing a critical ethnography.
Have your students imagine that they are going to undertake a critical ethnography with the goal of empowering
a particular oppressed group of concern to educators. Ask them to discuss and make a list of the most essential
Activity 3. Using critical theory to analyze popular and educational texts.
Ask students to bring to class examples of media advertisements or of educational materials that they would like
to deconstruct to uncover their possible racist, sexist, or classist messages. Ask each group to pick one example and
Activity 4. Analysis and evaluation of the article reprint.
You can ask students to read the reprinted article about urban students at the end of Chapter 14 and evaluate it
MULTIPLE-CHOICE TEST ITEMS FOR CHAPTER 14
1. Ethnography primarily focuses on the study of
a. ritual and myth.
b. overt and covert customs.
c. features of a culture and patterns within it.
d. the emic perspective within different cultural roles.
2. The main difference between holistic ethnography and microethnography is that
a. holistic ethnography examines a particular culture more comprehensively.
b. holistic ethnography is more focused on how cultural leaders shape a culture.
c. microethnography requires more researchers because it requires more data collection.
d. microethnography focuses on the emic perspectives of a culture’s members.
3. Ethnographers’ goal of making the familiar strange” involves
a. assuming different cultural roles at different points in the process of data collection.
b. collecting data on a culture, but having different ethnographers analyze the data.
c. studying subcultures within a larger culture bounded by geography and population density.
d. analyzing a culture unfamiliar to them from both an etic and emic perspective.
4. The difference between cultural transmission and cultural acquisition is comparable to the difference
between
a. learning and forgetting.
b. teaching and learning.
c. overt and covert education.
d. intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation.
5. Members of a culture who have a sense of agency
a. are able to easily learn a culture’s values and rules.
b. are able to shape the conditions of their lives, whatever their cultural situation.
c. are in a position of power and authority over oppressed groups within the culture.
d. All of the above.
6. Critical researchers
a. engage in inquiry to uncover unequal power relationships within a culture.
b. try out methods to remedy the negative effects of unequal power relationships within
a culture.
c. engage in both inquiry and practice involving remedies relating to unequal power relationships
within a culture.
d. All of the above.
7. In anti-oppressive education, the process of troubling primarily involves
a. improving the distribution of power within school systems.
b. questioning the use of funds for educational research as opposed to school improvement.
c. critical reflection about how to close the achievement gap.
d. exposing the assumptions underlying widely accepted, but oppressive cultural practices in
education.
8. Hegemony exists in a society when
a. privileged groups in a culture dominate other groups through cultural agencies that exert power.
b. most of its members subscribe to one ideology.
c. most of its members have formed themselves voluntarily into various cultural subgroups.
d. anti-oppressive education has become institutionalized both formally and informally.
9. Critical researchers generally believe that
a. a culture’s members who lack privilege have sufficient agency to resist internalizing their
oppression.
b. individuals who join a culture, rather than being born into it, do not behave consistently with
hegemonic attributes of that culture.
c. oppressed members of a culture unknowingly participate in their own oppression.
d. individuals with some form of privilege are unlikely to suffer from internalized oppression.
10. In general, critical researchers would be likely to
a. value instrumental rationality.
b. oppose the IQ testing movement.
c. agree that educational research should focus on maximizing educational productivity.
d. subscribe to a positivist epistemology.
11. In general, critical researchers
a. believe that facts can never be value-free.
b. are skeptical of any method that claims to have universal application to understanding the human condition.
c. reject the notion that research should focus on the emancipation of non-privileged groups.
d. All of the above.
12. Deconstruction involves the belief that
a. capitalism involves oppression of non-privileged groups.
b. education is biased against non-privileged groups.
c. texts have a definitive interpretation, if read from the perspective of critical theory.
d. texts have no fixed meaning and therefore are subject to multiple interpretations.
13. Conscientization is a process by which
a. privileged groups learn how to mute the voices of less privileged groups.
b. certain groups in society establish their hegemony over cultural institutions.
c. individuals challenge their role in maintaining cultural processes that are not consistent
with their basic values.
d. individuals learn how to deconstruct cultural texts.
14. The field of cultural studies primarily investigates
a. particular cultures as holistic entities.
b. texts as cultural artifacts.
c. the economic, legal, and political underpinnings of cultural phenomena.
d. the philosophical assumptions of critical theory in relation to positivism.
15. Feminist research is often referred to as feminisms so as to
a. reflect its varied foci and methods in the study of females’ cultural experience.
b. emphasize the connection between gender oppression and other forms of oppression.
c. highlight the international concern of feminists.
d. distinguish feminist research from mainstream research.
16. Critical pedagogists
a. subscribe to different goals and values than critical researchers and critical theorists.
b. subscribe to the same goals and values as critical researchers and critical theorists.
c. support as the primary goal of learning the attainment of skills that promote economic success for all
students.
d. believe that community-building activities might appear worthwhile but in fact maintain the power of
privileged groups in society.
17. Giroux’s theory of border pedagogy
a. endorses the “melting pot” view of American society.
b. emphasizes the need for a country’s students to understand the cultures of adjacent countries.
c. assumes that there are stable differences between individuals and groups in society and that these
differences should not be the subject of educational interventions.
d. argues that cultural differences between individuals and groups are permeable and changing.
18. The primary purpose of critical ethnography is to
a. engage in research that tests the assumptions of critical theory.
b. study power relationships and forms of oppression within particular cultures.
c. use the methods of traditional ethnography to study developing nations.
d. study leaning outcomes in educational organizations that are founded on the principles of critical
pedagogy.
19. Monological data collection
a. is conducted from an etic perspective.
b. is conducted from an emic perspective.
c. is conducted collaboratively by the research team and the research participants.
d. is the last phase of a critical ethnography.
20. Reconstructive analysis involves
a. examining data from a longitudinal period and segmenting it into meaningful phases.
b. preparing thick descriptions of critical events.
c. coding the meanings of the research participants’ statements or nonverbal behavior.
d. having research participants check the accuracy of recorded events.
21. Hermeneutics is a process in which
a. research data on emic perspectives are analyzed for their cultural meaning.
b. research data reflecting the researchers’ etic perspective are analyzed for their cultural meaning.
c. researchers seek to understand human phenomena by analyzing how each part of a text relates to
the whole.
d. research data are analyzed for expressions of hegemony and oppression.
22. Dialogical data generation is a process in which
a. researchers discuss their critical-ethnographic data with other researchers to expose their biases.
b. researchers create notes reflecting their emotional reactions to research participants’ expressions of
oppression and lack of privilege.
c. research participants interact with critical-ethnographic data that have been collected about them.
d. researchers help research participants explore issues with their own vocabulary and ideas.
SHORT-ANSWER TEST ITEMS FOR CHAPTER 14
1. Briefly (a) define the term culture as it is used by ethnographers, and (b) explain why they view it as worthy
of systematic study.
2. Explain (a) cultural acquisition and (b) cultural transmission, and explain (c) how each of these processes can
lead to oppression or privilege among members of a culture.
3. Describe the two main goals of critical-theory research.
4. State two assumptions of critical theory.
5. Name and describe any two of the five stages of critical ethnography, including the goal of each stage.
CHAPTER 14
ETHNOGRAPHY AND CRITICAL RESEARCH
Multiple-Choice Test Items
Short-Answer Test Items
