Ethnographic approaches developed gradually during the 1980ies and 1990ies from several sources. The general emergence of a strong turn towards qualitative research had opened this opportunity  and the establishment of ethnography has been described in a text from the early 2000ies as stepwise, ending with a number of pre-conferences to NERA’s yearly congress, starting 1998 (Larsson, 2006). The symposium has been developed looking forward from this history to the future of ethnography of education in the Nordic region. It has been developed through cooperation across two networks: “Gender and Education” and “Justice through Education”.  Its focus is on ethnographic methodologies and their development in education research in the Nordic countries in recent decades, with a particular focus on matters of research for justice through education and education equality.