This commentary on the previous article on an interpretive research approach discusses the journey of a researcher from radical behaviorism, to interpretive social science, to an emerging viewpoint in which art more than science is used as a way of seeing issues related to disability, education, and change. (Contains 10 references.) (CR)

Reacts to articles by Charles Bidwell, Paul Kingston, and Carolyn Riehl in the 2001 theme issue of Sociology of Education. Argues that Bidwell and Kingston's articles show the strengths that the educational sociology field has exhibited over the years. Evaluates Riehl's article as a movement toward examination of the current intellectually…

National narratives on the movement to desegregate Southern schools, as construed by dominant cultural forces, focus on school desegregation from the vantage point of dominant culture; portraying school desegregation as a singular and inevitable event emanating from jurisprudence and principles of democracy, with little attention to the…

A current movement in qualitative research is a preoccupation with representation of the "other" (Denzin and Lincoln 1994). Feminists, critical theorists and postmodernists have questioned the dominant, legitimized social order and remained sensitive to the multiple issues related to and emanating from power. This paper briefly reviews the…

This autobiographical paper describes the teaching of an adjunct faculty member at Washington University in Saint Louis, Missouri, and the doctoral and postdoctoral students he taught. The paper discusses the author's study of the area of biography and autobiography; the use of ethnography, history, and biography in qualitative research; the…

This paper offers reflections on personal beliefs and practices used to construct and communicate knowledge about social studies teaching and learning with preservice elementary teachers. The paper draws upon one person's personal experiences, student journals, student interviews, course documents, field notes, and audio tapes of an instructor.…

Computer software that is intended to assist the qualitative researcher in the analysis of textual data is relatively new. One such program, the Data Collector, is a HyperCard computer program designed for use on the Macintosh computer. A tool for organizing and analyzing textual data obtained from observations, interviews, surveys, and other…

Using as a starting point the painting "Las Meninas" by Velasquez, which depicts the painter within his painting, this paper discusses the interpretive paradigm in research and, within it, the value of metaphor as a research tool. Example situations from an ethnographic study of a master teacher and her kindergarten in Lisbon are used to…

Elliot Eisner has sketched the outlines of the move toward plurality in educational research in an essay that embraces, perhaps unintentionally, a postmodern orientation that has the potential to disrupt the historically monolithic character of educational research. Eisner's discussion is expanded to suggest that qualitative research in…

Discusses a variety of topics and their implications for library and information science professionals and their education. Highlights include the nature of science; contingency theories; the assumptions of sociology; the approach of symbolic interaction; recent scholarship on organizations; and the advantages of qualitative research methods.…

This article defines qualitative research, provides an illustration of its application, and suggests references that further explain and discuss this research technique. In addition, the strengths and limitations of qualitative research are appraised, particularly as they are illuminated by comparisons with the conventional model of inquiry in…

This article provides a brief overview of critical qualitative research. This type of research seeks to empower those being researched and declares that all research is value-based, not value-free. A brief description of the limited amount of critical research conducted in sport and physical education is given. (IAH)

Employs a pragmatic philosophical perspective to argue that there is no incompatibility at either the level of practice or that of epistemology between qualitative and quantitative methods of educational research. (FMW)

This paper argues that faculty career studies have neglected important work in life-span human development and narratives of the academic life. It suggests that such studies should use recent contributions from the behavioral sciences, pay attention to scholarly and scientific biography/autobiography, be discipline specific, and use varied methods…

Notes an antiscientific bias in writings that proclaim the value of qualitative approaches for studying information problems. Discusses the following methodological concerns: (1) scientific versus nonscientific traditions; (2) distinction between emic and etic perspectives; (3) artificial divide between qualitative and quantitative techniques; (4)…