ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews some of the ways in which symbolic interactionist ethnography, of the type that Peter Woods has done so much to develop throughout his academic career, can illuminate key issues in relation to the major aims of education. Bearing in mind changes in English and Welsh education over the past decade, we argue that the fulfilment of espoused national, system-wide goals requires better understanding of pupils’ individual identities, learning strategies, experiences and perceptions in relation to the social contexts that exist in classrooms and schools. In much of his recent work, for instance on creative teaching (Woods, 1995; Woods and Jeffrey, 1996) and school inspection (Jeffrey and Woods, 1998), Peter Woods has shown how the impact of policy can be understood and evaluated in terms of personal, social and educational consequences. Our work echoes this example.
