ABSTRACT
I begin this chapter with a brief introduction to institutional ethnography (IE), its history, and its particular approach to the study of social problems. In the remainder of the chapter, I discuss several examples of research on social problems undertaken by institutional ethnographers, in order to illustrate the general approach and some of its variations and adaptations. I outline the logic of the “classic institutional ethnography” and discuss how that logic has informed several action research projects with community partners. I then discuss applications in teaching that support student research. I end the chapter with a discussion of the scope and limitation of the IE approach.
