Social justice is a complex construct that invariably lacks unproblematic operationalization within social research. This book uses ethnographic research to situate a rich and complex model of social justice, foregrounding the potential of the participant to generate emancipatory spaces.
How can interactions between ethnographers and research participants influence the development of the research process, the practices being investigated, the perspectives of participants, and the contexts in which the research takes place? What are the possibilities for these approaches to ethnography of education to generate knowledge that is truly useful for educational change and social transformation for social justice? This monograph explains the creation of spaces where researchers and participants acknowledge the research process to generate possibilities for mutually transformative dialogues. The analysis of information during the research process provides knowledge that serves to stimulate and focus participants' awareness of what they know. It also enables them to develop that knowledge and allows them to have a point of reference for adjusting their own experiences. It broadens this lens of analysis beyond teachers to students, parents, community leaders, and anyone else who may claim an interest or concern in educational processes, practices, and praxis from a social justice point of view. This book was originally published as a special issue of Ethnography and Education.

Begoña Vigo Arrazola is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at Zaragoza University, Spain. She is on the organizing committee of the Oxford Ethnography and Education Conference and is convenor of the network 19 of ethnography in the European Educational Research Association. She is a member of the board of the journal Ethnography and Education. Her research focusses on social justice, inclusive education, disadvantage spaces,
teacher education, and ethnography.
Jonathan Tummons is Professor in the School of Education at Durham University, UK. He sits on the organizing committee of the Oxford Ethnography and Education Conference and is deputy editor of the journal Ethnography and Education. His research explores a variety of contexts including workplaces, technical colleges, and universities, not only describing processes of learning and education but also challenging discriminatory attitudes towards particular forms of provision. To do this, he draws on the work of Bruno Latour alongside sociocultural theories of cognition. His new book Communities of Practice in Higher Education: Learning, Teaching, and Research is published by Routledge.