hat has the discipline of anthropology contributed to the field of educational research? This is a daunting question that has been posed to us. It is also a question that invites some hubris. We try to avoid this temptation by narrowing our topic to highlight the growing influence of "insider" ethnic and gender research, especially on student identity and culture, within the U.S.-based anthropology of education. 1 We define such insider studies as those whose authors identify themselves principally with the ethnicity and/or gender of the students they study and who contribute ethnographic knowledge primarily for the benefit of such students. It should be clear that the review we develop here by no means constitutes an exhaustive survey of contemporary educational anthropology or even of educational ethnography more broadly. Rather, we present our own reading of this field within a field, our own sense of its most striking contributions and tensions, and, most important, our sense of the challenge and promise given by a new generation of socially committed researchers.Scholars of color, including what some now call "halfie" anthropologists, 2 are among the most visible and important insider ethnographers to have arrived on the intellectual scene. Their growing impact as researchers is a significant validation of me point that "insider" knowledge is important. To a certain extent, as we discuss later, the same can be said for feminist gender studies, in which women study women. "Insider" ethnographers become a species of border crosser. They construct insider ethnographic knowledge using conceptual tools from the academy, and they present this knowledge in a way that renders their subjects' actions and beliefs comprehensible and sympathetic to outsiders and insiders alike. We argue here that insider contributions are crucial in bringing to light the dynamics of culture that may lead to the design of more democratic educational arrangements and hence the attainment of greater equality of opportunity and achievement.