ABSTRACT
Several fundamental precepts of ethnographic research guided my process of inquiry. First, I limited my efforts to a case study of one required semester ninth-grade health/physical education course that included a four-week unit of study on sexuality. Becoming immersed in a single classroom in a single school context allowed more in-depth analysis than if I had attempted to become immersed in more than one setting. I tried to become part of the everyday social fabric of this classroom, examining the setting “as it is viewed and constructed by its participants” (Wilcox, 1982, p. 458). At the same time, I endeavored to remain the analytic outsider who continually called into question what I saw and heard, detecting inconsistencies and contradictions of which participants themselves may not have been aware. Finally, I explored the relationships between the classroom I observed and its context—the school as a whole, the community, the cultural experiences of students and teacher outside the school, and the wider political and economic context. Ethnographer Robert Everhart succinctly summarizes these principles:
