Invisible Cultures

The book The Invisible Cultures calls attention to one of the very difficult issues that we observe as ethnographers, the ability to separate yourself from the focus topic enough to objectively report what you see. In this book, particularly in chapter 7, we become increasingly aware of the divide that exists between minority students and Anglo students in the classroom.


However the following questions arose while reading the book:

As an ethnographer, is it ever acceptable to make critiques of the culutral practices you observe? Often throughout the text, it appears that the author demonstrates her dissatisfaction with the teachers methods, implying that there are "problems." She seems to clearly be taking sides, suggesting that the instructor is largely at fault for the disconnect between them and the non-anglo students in the classroom.

Second, in the conclusions, the ethnographer who conducted the study offers suggestions for improvements, one of which being replacing the Anglo instructor with one who understands the cultural differences between the anglo and non-anglo students. This also appears to be a "judgement call". Does this suggestion violate the researchers objectivity?

If we were to replace the instructor, might this issue of non-comprehension shift then to the anglo students? If so, does this action resolve the issue?

If this study were conducted again today, would it still hold true? Are minority children still, for a lack of better terminology, "left behind" in the classroom? The author writes "Teachers are usually expected to expiriment with changes in their teaching" (p. 134). Is this true if we were to consider the prime directive of "No Child Left Behind?