Because anthropology of education is a comparatively recent development, Wax(1978:2) points out that only a handful of school ethnographies were done prior to the past decade. It is only in the 1970s that in the United States a National Institute of Education was established which was able to underwrite contracts large enough and for a length of time that was in congruence with that needed for thorough ethnography. The National Institute of Education sponsored six ethnographic research projects in schools from August 1975 to December 1977 as part of the Field Studies in Urban Desegrated Scholls Program (Cassell, 1978:S).
Other school ethnographies depict schools in both Western and non-Western settings. Wolcott's (1967) ethnography describes the educational process in a one-room school in a Kwakiutl village in British Columbia. In
particular he looks at the teachers, the village school, the
pupils, the classroom programme and attitudes towards formal
education. Wolcott's 1973 ethnognaphy examines a
middle-class suburban school in which the focus of enquiry
is the school Principal. SingletonC1967) describes a
Japanese junior high school, and Warren(1967) has a case
study of a rural elementary school in a small German
village. Ogbu's(1974) ethnography concerns Black children
in an urban American school and the reasons behind their
school failure. Burnett1s(1976) article documents the
ceremony, rites and economy in the student system of an
American High School while Harding's(1978) ethnography
features a Southern desegregated school.
In England the best known ethnographies were done by
Hargreaves (1967) and Lacey(1970). Hargreaves spent one
year in Lumley Modern School for Boys. He entered 'the
school as a participant-observer, armed with his own
training and teaching experience and with the intention of
examining the behaviour and attitudes of boys in school and
their relationships with teachers and with one
another'(Hargreaves,1967:ix). Lacey's case study examines
the social mechanisms which differentiate the pupils in a
boy's grammar school.
To date very little school ethnography has been done in
Australia. The most significant contnibution to the field
Jewish day school in Victoria. Currently, McRae(personal communication) is writing an ethnography of the Canberra High School in the ACT for a Doctorate in Philosophy.
Further interest in the use of ethnographic methods for education has occurred at Canberra College of Advanced Education. WilliamsC1978:197-203) demonstrates how ethnography can contribute towards a student’s understanding of education and gives an account of the practical application of the ethnographic method in teacher education; he also discusses the strengths and weaknesses of it in
pre-service education for teachers.
Moving now from school ethnography to classroom ethnography one finds a few developments in this area. Spir.dlerC 1 974: 385) refers to sociologists and others who took the first important steps in the area of classroom ethnography. He refers to Smith and Geoffrey's (1968) work in an urban classroom and Jackson’s( 1968) Life in Classrooms. A small classroom ethnography was published by Doyle(1972:147-156) in Spradley and McCurdy's collection of urban ethnographies. It describes part of the school world as seen through the eyes of a third-grade child. In the description are three important domains in the culture of this class; they are 'activities, space and identity' - the content of which have been learned and shared by the pupils, and to a lesser extent by the teacher(Doyle,1972:156).
A major section in Roberts and Akinsanya's(1976:169-255) book has been devoted to anthropological analyses of classrooms. Jules Henry (1976:169-182) describes how attitudes are organized in a white elementary school in an urban setting. The elementany school classroom Henry(1976:169) believes is a powerful instrument in our culture in that ’it does not merely sustain attitudes that have been created in the home, but reinforces some, deemphasizes others, and makes its own contribution. In this way it prepares the conditions fon and contributes toward the ultimate organization of peer- and parent-directed attitudes into a dynamically interrelated attitudinal structure supportive of the culture*. In another article Jules Henry(1976:183) discusses the factors that affect ’initiative and spontaneity in elementary public school classrooms in
middle-class suburbs'. Hostetler and
HuntingtonC1976:194-205) examine Amish education and the means by which their rural values are sustained as they existed more than a hundred years ago.
Other anthropologists do not all portnay the 'continuous cultural system'(Roberts,1976:10). Rather, some are concerned with the problems of culture clash. Dumont and Wax(1976:205-216) look at education as it is imposed by the dominant culture on Cherokee students. Wax(1976:216-226) then gives a descniptive analysis of how Sioux boys come to drop out of high school and a comparison
between their experiences and those of urban lower-class youth. The crippling process described here is taken up by Rosenfeld (1976:226-238) in his study of Harlem School; and Moore(1976:238-255) looks at the realities of an urban classroom in which its individual members are seen as ’subhuman’ - belonging in the school to one of the ’wild’ classes. In his observations those in authority regard control as being critical while in fact control was something never achieved. Other work in this area has been done by Burnett(1976:288-298) who writes about event description and analysis in the microethnography of urban classrooms.
A review of the writings of these anthropologists illustrates two major contributions that anthropologists give to educational research. The first is the concept of culture for the anthropologists have embedded their findings within the cultural context. Learning for the anthropologist is seen in terms of cultural acquisition; and, as Roberts(1976:2) rightly points out, ’learning groups, often located in classrooms, can be understood only within the cultural groups that provide the learners and the institutions in which the learning takes place’.
Secondly, anthropology's unique contribution to educational research as evidenced in the work of the anthropologists just discussed, is its methodology. Ethnography, the descriptive account of what has been
observed and understood of another culture, seeks to identify those cultural patterns and cultural forms shared by members of a social system or subsystem(Wolcott,1976:24).
In Australia the work of educationists has contributed to the literature on classroom ethnography. ParsonsC1977:i) studies teacher-pupil interactions in the classroom and examines the social world of a classroom from the point of view of its inhabitants - namely, the teacher and pupils. Ethnographic methods are drawn upon for this study. M. Henry(1978:14) also draws upon ethnographic methods to examine eight classrooms in Brisbane to ascertain achievement levels, behaviours, social acceptance and self-image of mildly handicapped children.
Other educationists have borrowed from anthropology its methodology in order to do curriculum evaluation. An examination of this trend shows the wa ys in which the ethnographic method can be used for the purpose of evaluation.