ABSTRACT
The issue of access, also aptly referred to as the “problem of access” (Delany, 1960; Prewitt, 1984), is a well-known aspect of ethnographic enquiries in both institutional and non-institutional settings. It is tackled in most textbooks devoted to ethnography (e.g. Silverman, 2000; Hammersley and Atkinson, 2007; Gobo, 2008) and has been addressed in studies conducted in fi elds as various as health care units (Bruni, 2006), refugee communities (Miller, 2004), courtrooms (Blank, 1987), and-of interest in this chapter-schools (e.g. Beynon, 1983; Burgess, 1991; Klaas, 2006; Troman, 1996; Wanat, 2008).
