Ethnography is a form of research focusing on close field observation of sociocultural phenomena which was originally developed by anthropologists. Typically, the ethnographer or anthropologist focuses on a community. Perhaps the most well known study titled "Coming of Age" by Margaret Mead (1928) in Samoa in which she studied the development of youth immersed in a natural setting over a long period of time. However, today the community need not necessarily be confined to a geographical area such as tribe or residents living a particular region. It has shited to include a community of workers in the office, the factory floor, a family, passengers at an airport, etc. Informants or subjects are interviewed multiple times, using information from previous informants to elicit clarification and deeper responses upon re-interview. This process is intended to reveal common cultural understandings related to the phenomena under study. These subjective but collective understandings on a subject are often interpreted to be more significant than objective data. The ethnographic method starts with selection of a culture, review of the literature pertaining to the culture, and identification of variables of interest -- typically variables perceived as significant by members of the culture. The ethnographer then goes about gaining entrance, which in turn sets the stage for cultural immersion of the ethnographer in the culture. It is not unusual for ethnographers to live in the culture for months or even years. The middle stages of the ethnographic method involve gaining informants, using them to gain yet more informants in a chaining process, and gathering of data in the form of observational transcripts and interview recordings. Data analysis and theory development come at the end, though theories may emerge from cultural immersion and theory-articulation by members of the culture. However, the ethnographic researcher strives to avoid theoretical preconceptions and instead to induce theory from the perspectives of the members of the culture and from observation. The researcher may seek validation of induced theories by going back to members of the culture for their reaction. Today, the method is used by sociologists, psychologists, educators, quality control researchers, market researchers, systems analysts and many others. The method offers researchers a rich and deep understanding of the behaviour of a group of people and their culture. What is culture? It is a difficult term to define but generally may be defined as the values, practices and relationships that exist among a particular group of individuals. In ethnographic research, the researcher is attempting to understand the behaviours of people in a particular cultural context by examining in detail the lives of these individuals.For example, in a social setting such as a classroom of low achievers, various behaviours will be observed such as students moving aimlessly, going to the bathroom, reading, sleeping, ect). In this classroom, we see the students (actors) who bring with them their cultural (native) knowledge, show particular actions (behaviours), the rules that organise the setting, the expectations of the actors. All these constitute the 'classroom culture'. An ethnographer will try to define the particular culture by asking questions such as 'What does it mean to be a member of this group?' and 'What makes someone an insider or an outsider here?'. The ethnographer tries to make sense of what people are doing by asking 'What's going on here? How does this work? How do people do this?' and hopes to be told by those people about "the way we do things around here" (Deal 1985). Answering those questions requires an openness to learning from those who inhabit that culture, and a willingness to see everything and suspend premature judgment on what should be selected as data. The usefulness of the information may not be immediately apparent, but is often collected and stored anyway. This quality of openness lies at the heart of ethnography, in its processes, purposes and ethics."Naturalism proposes that, as far as possible, the social world should be studies in its 'natural' state, undisturbed by the reseacher.... A key element of naturalism is the demand that the researcher adopt an attitude of 'respect' or 'appreciation' toward the social world. ....Moreover, social phenomena are ragarded as quite distict in character from natural phenomena....the social world cannot be understood in terms of causal relationships or by the subsumption of social events under unievrsal laws. This is because human actions are based upon, or infused by, social meanings: intentions, motives, attitudes, and beliefs. ....The same physical stimulus can mean different things to different people, and, indeed to the same person at different times"."According to naturalism, in order to understand people's behaviour we must use an approach that gives us access to the meanings that guide that behaviour. Fortunately, the capacities we have developed as social actors can give us such access. As participant observers we can learn the culture or subculture of the people we are studying. We can come to interpret the world in the same way that they do".