ABSTRACT
This study is an ethnography focusing on single classrooms rather than larger cultural systems. The methodological base for my study is bricked together from three different types of ethnographies: holistic ethnography, ethnography of communication, and symbolic interactionism. My research is holistic in that it focuses on a unified whole-interaction in the classroom-with all parts perceived as being interdependent (Jacob, 1988; Mead, 1973). I conducted the intensive fieldwork required by a holistic approach through participatory observation in four first-grade classrooms in the fall semester of 1991; I collected the supplementary informant perspective on teachers’ own classroom interaction that is also required by holistic ethnographies through interviews and researcherteacher journaling.
