ABSTRACT
This chapter takes up the issue of the impact of ethnographic research on policy and practice, particularly as these relate to improving the educational outcomes of students in contexts where there are high levels of poverty and difference. It aims to reassert the value of ethnography to the formulation of educational policy and practice, and to describe influences on educational ethnography emerging from other fields that have the potential to emend and extend its value. The chapter includes an overview of peer-reviewed journal publications 1995–2015 in the US, UK, Australia and a number of other countries. This review functions as a 'pulse check' of the state and the scope of the contribution of ethnographers of schooling to knowledge about inequalities in educational outcomes. The chapter highlights enduring and new approaches to investigating these persistent problems. Thus, it attempts to suggest a means of sustaining hope in the achievement of more equitable outcomes from schooling.
