OBJECTIVES To demonstrate the benefits of applying meta ethnography to the synthesis of qualitative research, by means of a worked example. METHODS Four papers about lay meanings of medicines were arbitrarily chosen. Noblit and Hare's seven-step process for conducting a meta ethnography was employed: getting started; deciding what is relevant to the initial interest; reading the studies; dete...

While ethnography is an established part of CSCW research, teaching and learning ethnography presents unique and distinct challenges. This paper discusses a study of fieldwork and analysis amongst a group of students learning ethnography as part of a CSCW & design course. Studying the students’ practices we explore fieldwork as a learning experience, both learning about fieldsites as well as le...

In order to harness the value of workplace ethnography, it is becoming more and more apparent that we need a way to incorporate ethnographic data into work system analysis and design efforts. One of the biggest problems we face in this regard is making the best use of the insights that ethnography brings to a design process. Traditionally ethnography takes a lot of time, is done mostly in isola...

This paper is an ethnography of a four-year, multi-disciplinary adolescent sexual and reproductive health intervention in Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador. An important goal of the intervention--and of the larger global field of adolescent sexual and reproductive health--is to create more open parent-to-teen communication. This paper analyzes the project's efforts to foster such communication and...

AIM To provide an overview of the relevance and strengths of focused ethnography in nursing research. The paper provides descriptions of focused ethnography and discusses using exemplars to show how focused ethnographies can enhance and understand nursing practice. BACKGROUND Orthodox ethnographic approaches may not always be suitable or desirable for research in diverse nursing contexts. Foc...

BACKGROUND Syntheses of qualitative studies can inform health policy, services and our understanding of patient experience. Meta-ethnography is a systematic seven-phase interpretive qualitative synthesis approach well-suited to producing new theories and conceptual models. However, there are concerns about the quality of meta-ethnography reporting, particularly the analysis and synthesis proces...

We consider the role of ‘workplace studies’ in design and specifically, what it means to use ethnography to ‘inform’ design. We suggest that there is a need for a foundational change in the configuration of the practical relationship between ethnography and design if the approach is to be of lasting utility: from the traditional product-oriented configuration where ethnography attempts to infor...