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This paper considers an undergraduate student's coming to, and use of, an ethnographic approach as a particularly appropriate way in which to investigate aspects of life in a British hospital school. Such schools occupy a liminal position with regard to education policy and provision. There is a paucity of research on hospital schools and particularly of the experiences and perceptions of teachers who work in them. This lack of research has implications for policy development. The paper therefore offers some rare insights into one of these schools. It also gives insights into how ethnography can challenge taken for granted assumptions.

An ethnographic participant observer approach was adopted.

This paper gives insights into how ethnography can challenge researchers' taken for granted assumptions as well as offering illustration of some aspects of life in schools.

Although there is an extensive literature on uses of ethnography, this approach has rarely been applied to hospital schools. The paper makes a small step towards addressing this lack.

In the UK and countries following similar systems of doctoral assessment, there is little research-based evidence about what goes on in vivas. However, “doctoral assessment ‘horror stories’”, abound. The purpose of this paper is to report a study focussing on difficult doctoral examining experiences and argue that sharing such stories can provide a useful basis for examiner and supervisor education.

The study took a narrative auto/biographical approach.

The stories participants told show that doctoral examining is relational, emotional and ethical work and that viva outcomes are strongly influenced by subjectivities. There was felt to be a need to share stories of difficulties in order to bring them into the open with a view to prompting transformational change.

Participants were self-selecting and all worked at the same institution.

There are few accounts of examiners’ experiences of the viva.

The following classified, annotated list of titles is intended to provide reference librarians with a current checklist of new reference books, and is designed to supplement the RSR review column, “Recent Reference Books,” by Frances Neel Cheney. “Reference Books in Print” includes all additional books received prior to the inclusion deadline established for this issue. Appearance in this column does not preclude a later review in RSR. Publishers are urged to send a copy of all new reference books directly to RSR as soon as published, for immediate listing in “Reference Books in Print.” Reference books with imprints older than two years will not be included (with the exception of current reprints or older books newly acquired for distribution by another publisher). The column shall also occasionally include library science or other library related publications of other than a reference character.

This chapter will detail the methodologies and methods used in a research project aimed to develop a working democratic model of parent engagement in a coastal primary school in England. Building on John Macmurray's (1958/2012) insistence that learning to live and act in relationship with each other is vital to democracy and thus education, the project involved working with a group of parents who explored different ways of working with and relating to the school. Initially, the study involved using Community Philosophy (SAPERE, 2015) which provided a forum to discuss, problematise and develop new concepts and forms of parent engagement. As the research project continued, it was necessary to take a post-structuralist turn and develop a more dissensual approach to both parent engagement and research. This chapter explores the need for such an approach argues for a re-conceptualisation of action research as the rope makers tool, the fid, an approach that ruptures understandings and the status quo. The implications of such an approach are explored, especially the need for a destabilising approach to methodology and research ethics.