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Study Design, Methodology, and Profile

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his opening section outlines the particular synthesis of methodological ap-

proaches used in this study. In addition, it describes the site selection process

and the trajectory of the research as it developed. Finally, it outlines some of the
complexities involved in coding turn-taking in law school classes.

Design and Methodology

Combining Methods

What method is adequate to the task of uncovering both similarities and differ-
ences across different law schools and classrooms? Being an anthropologist, I
begin with a preference for actually observing what people are doing, rather than
relying solely on their reports of what they do. Anthropologists pioneered the use
of participant observation, a method that relies on researchers to immerse them-
selves as much as possible in the setting they wish to understand. The kind of study
that is produced by this intensive and systematic observation over an extended
period of time is called an ethnography, also developed primarily out of the disci-
pline of anthropology, which has used this approach to study and understand cul-
tures.^1 Anthropologists and linguists studying classroom settings have adopted the
ethnographic method, providing rich accounts of the dynamics in classrooms—
dynamics that form students’ experiences.^2
In addition to observing and interacting in the settings they study, anthropo-
logical linguists concerned with the details of language-in-use frequently tape in-
teractions and then transcribe them to provide a basis for more exacting linguistic
analysis. This method permits careful scrutiny of the ways that minute aspects of