ABSTRACT
Some scholars have rejected the Fordham-Ogbu thesis on the ground that the ethnographic research method is not scientific.1 Therefore, in this chapter, I want to address two methodological issues. First, I will argue that the ethnographic approach or way of knowing is as scientific as any other methodological paradigm. Second, I will show that the ethnographic method is more appropriate for the study of collective identity and schooling than the statistical and nonethnographic qualitative methods that critics of the Fordham-Ogbu thesis have employed. Through ethnography, we can learn about how Black students’ attitudes and behaviors are a part of the oppositional attitudes and behaviors in their communities, something that cannot be known or explored fully through the use of other research methods that critics of the Fordham-Ogbu thesis have employed.
