This paper focuses on methodological issues in designing and conducting a longitudinal study of teachers' careers, as being explored by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). The paper outlines the need for data in four areas (teachers' worklives, teacher quality, the context of teaching, and teachers' career paths) and identifies…

This paper focuses on the technique of role-switching as a workable field relationship tactic in the observer's work site. It describes the nature of subject use of the observer's dual status during the research activity, and conceptualizes the relationship between this type of researcher-role management and the premise of role reciprocity in…

Professional educators must take advantage of public awareness and demand for change if education is to avoid a decade "full of sound and fury" in the 1980s. A solid statistical base is needed from which to describe, select, test, and evaluate policy alternatives. Teachers and government are critical inputs into the educational system.…