QUALITATIVE/QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES IN EDUCATION: A LINGUISTIC PERSPECTIVE 1

Abstract

The study of language has a special role in discussions of qualitative methodology by anthropologists. In Section (I) the origins of this role are sketched, and in (II) some consequences and implications. The principal implication is the need for a study of language that is equivalent to linguistic ethnography, addressed to institutions of our own society, such as education. This need, the possibility that change in this regard is up against deeply embedded cultural views of language, and the study of assessment of language development outside of schools are touched on in (III). (IV) takes up the characterization of the kind of ethnography that is intended, stressing a distinction between “ethnography” and “field work,” a conception of linguistic inquiry as generi‐cally the interpretation of codes, and a conception of ethnography as the discovery and interpretation of cultural worlds. (V) brings the discussion of ethnography and the preceding discussion of linguistic methodology together. (VI) adds reflections on uses of language by anthropologists. The possible democratic implications of one use of language in anthropology are also suggested.