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).
