This paper handles ethnographic approaches to language policy studies from the viewpoint of sociological realism. It asserts that grounding ethnographic studies in realist social theory can accommodate recent evolutions in the field and foster the grasp of how policy actors’ agency is informed by factors from other societal strata that could go unobserved in ethnography of language policy. As example, the case of policy enactment in kindergartens and preschools in Tabriz is proposed.