Administrators, attorneys, and graduate students who are interested in law and education or in research methods will find this book useful. Rarely do researchers combine several methods for examining legal issues in education from multiple perspectives. Here four authors offer four different research methods that can be used in combination. Each author offers a rationale for his or her method, specific legal examples relating to controversial issues, and a bibliography. Each also explains the advantages and limitations of his or her strategy and how it compares to other methods. In the first chapter, Louise Adler examines the qualitative method, emphasizing why and how society creates specific laws. In the second chapter, Charles Russo delineates the traditional approach of asking exactly what the law is, based on statutes, cases, and other legal sources. In the third chapter, Grover Baldwin surveys the quantitative strategy. This can be described as using statistics to analyze data and the relationship between variables. Finally, Patricia First considers the policy-studies perspective, which uses multiple methods to analyze options and to provide comprehensive information to decision makers in their efforts to improve legal and educational policies. (Contains 67 references.) (RKJ)