Cultural Constructions of Identity Meta-Ethnography and Theory

Education research has seen a phenomenal growth in studies that explore the multiple, fluid, and changing complexities of culture and identity work. The nuanced, contradictory, and process-oriented nature of identity and identification has meant that the studies in education are largely, and appropriately, qualitative and ethnographic. However, because qualitative studies are marked by their focus on the particular, it has been difficult to discern exactly what these studies contribute to identity theory collectively.

In Cultural Constructions of Identity, a set of meta-ethnographic syntheses of qualitative studies addressing identity become the vehicle to speak across single studies to address cultural identity theory. Meta-Ethnography, first developed by Noblit and Hare in 1988, incorporates a translation theory of interpretation so that the unique aspects of studies are preserved to the degree possible while also revealing the analogies between these studies. While the studies in this book examine the various intersections of race and ethnicity with respect to gender, age, class, and sexuality, Cultural Constructions of Identity turns its primary focus on what these studies reveal about identity and identification theory itself.

Luis Urrieta, Jr. is an interdisciplinary scholar who specializes in the study identity, agency, social movements related to education, and learning in family and community contexts. He is specifically interested in Latinx and Indigenous cultures, Indigenous migrations, Indigenous knowledge systems, and oral and narrative methodologies.

George W. Noblit is a sociologist of education who specializes in the study of educational equity using qualitative research methods. He has won awards for his qualitative research and is widely known for having created (with Dwight Hare) the most popular approach to qualitative research synthesis, Meta-Ethnography, and for collaborating in creating post-critical ethnography.