Ethnographies of higher education: introduction to the special issue

While acknowledging that ethnography has been a rarely adopted approach in the field of higher education research, I will try to demonstrate the contributions that ethnographies have made to higher education studies. I will introduce readers to several of the most important and interesting ethnographic studies of university settings, focusing on two aspects. On the one hand, I will highlight the novel perspectives on several key themes in higher education research that are enabled by a unique ethnographic perspective. On the other hand, I will spotlight ethnography itself by focusing on the ways the studies were conducted, especially on the methodological and epistemological dilemmas inherent in ethnographic research.