Engaging students in a course in the Sociology of Religion can be a challenge, particularly when working with student populations in a homogeneous region of the country who have limited experience with religious diversity. We approached the course from a sociological/anthropological perspective, requiring each student to complete an in-depth…

Fantuzzo, McWayne, and Bulotsky (2003) describe a collaborative community research program that aims to decrease the population incidence of child maltreatment and build preschool children's competencies. Additionally, Fantuzzo and his colleagues have demonstrated their commitment to collaborate with community residents, practitioners, and…

This article addresses the issues of how cultural historical theory of activity can help design democratic teacher education classrooms aimed at developmental learning and dialogical, humanitarian thinking of students and prospective teachers. On the basis of retrospective analysis, the author begins by summarizing activity-based approaches to…

This article deals with the possibilities of participatory action research in quality enhancement projects at the level of university departments. The projects, carried out between 2002 and 2004, were aimed at developing leadership and management, fluency and division of academic work, well-being, and the health of academic staff. Four departments…

In the past five years, there has been a surge in the attention shown to community and community-based health programs among Native Americans, particularly for chronic health problems such as diabetes. Community participation in health programming--from the efforts of community health workers (CHWs), to participatory research, to the impact of…

Action Learning is now a well established strategy for reflective inquiry in healthcare. Whilst a great deal is know about action learning there has been inadequate research on the process of learning that takes place, and the impact that this holds for individuals, groups or organisations. This article reports on the findings of 15-month action…

To educate young people to be productive citizens and to ensure that the democratic objective of equality is realized, service learning must adopt an alternative paradigm that promotes the ideals and values of participatory democracy. Three problematic assumptions of service learning are that (1) good citizenship requires students to "give" back…

This chapter addresses issues of action research from three perspectives. In the first section, what it means to engage in action research as a methodology for investigating teaching and learning in science education is overviewed and various conceptions of action research are explicitly made. The second perspective is that of an individual…

This paper draws on data from a participant action research project with adult basic mathematics students in inner-city areas of south London. The students all attended general basic mathematics courses and most of the students also attended literacy courses. The data challenges the view that curricula for basic mathematics should be determined by…

A 1996 research project in St. Paul, Minnesota, found high rates of poverty and unemployment in its American Indian population and a lack of connection between social service agencies and the Indian community. A follow-up project aimed to support the Indian community in identifying its own priorities for research and action. Eight focus groups…

In this paper the work of democratic theorists is applied to an analysis of democratic decision-making in a public high school. The article opens with a brief description of democratic decision-making as a school-reform strategy. The data for the study were collected in 1998 and 1999 and were based on 52 interviews with teachers, administrators,…

Ten female doctoral students in nursing, aged 30-50, expressed a loss of "voice" in the educational experience. In a process viewed as an heroic journey, they achieved empowerment through the formation of a community of scholarly caring and emancipation resulting from assertion of their scholarly identity. (SK)

A participatory research project was designed to teach eight British adults with learning disabilities about keeping healthy. The development of the project, the recruitment of the participants, and the involvement of the participants in the project are discussed, along with the role of researchers and support workers in participatory research.…

From case study articles drawn from four journals in gifted education, two are identified as exemplars of qualitative case study research. The works of Coleman (2001) and Hebert and Beardsley (2001) are used to illustrate how researchers can plan qualitative case studies so that the perspectives of gifted students are included. (Contains…

A project is described in which a support team collaborated with the science department of a British high school to develop a "whole school" approach to serving children with special educational needs. "New paradigm" research, which aims to involve the subjects of an inquiry as collaborators, was used in the project. (JDD)