Reviews three books that encourage practioners to be researchers of their own practice. Discusses absolutist and relativist approaches to research by examining assumptions related to questions the research generates. Recommends unification of practitioner and researcher roles through a dialectic, critical, reflective orientation that strives for…

Describes the Written Literacy Forum, a collaborative research effort between Michigan State University's Institute for Research on Teaching and the East Lansing, Michigan Public Schools, which attempted to identify ways that research on writing could be applied to instructional problems. Depicts the first year's experience and offers sample…

Details part of a larger project undertaken by Swedish Save the Children in order to inform the current debate about child labor with evidence from working children engaged in a range of occupations, in contrasting regions of the world. Summarizes issues, children's occupational preferences, and views on work and school. (SD)

Timber operators, ranchers, corporate timberland owners, environmentalists, state government, and local schools in rural northern California formed an alliance to save the local salmon from extinction. The community's struggle toward consensus was an attempt to abandon the polarization that arises from power struggles. Local nonprofessionals were…

Discusses the role of teachers as researchers. Includes personal reflections on participation as a teacher researcher, observations as a teaching administrator conducting doctoral research in the classroom, and personal viewpoints as a state visual and performing arts supervisor. Considers the relationship between classroom research and the…

Introduces workshop papers proposing research agendas based on the assumption that street children's public image hinders both research and program development. Argues that research emphasis should shift to analysis of children's relationship to the street environment; this approach, derived from social science research, entails innovative and…

This special book review section contains reviews of 18 books in adult and continuing education and development. Subjects include rural development, feminist discourse, group facilitation, Paulo Freire, professional development, social change, participatory action research, and the ecology of written language. (SK)

Describes research methods used and problems encountered in fieldwork with rural English youth. Discusses the researcher's positionality and self, making local connections and finding "gatekeepers," building trust with young people, issues of youth safety versus confidentiality, types of communication and parental consent, the…

This article investigates parents' status within educational research and examines some research paradigms that have been used. A number of inherent methodological and ethical issues are identified and several fundamental aspects are explored. It is argued that researchers should adopt a partnership model for cooperative research on parental…

Participatory research by the State University of New York at Potsdam and the Mohawk Nation involved community discussion groups, which established needs for bicultural education for Indian students, the use of Mohawk culture as the arena for curriculum development, development of Mohawk cultural standards, and teacher training in Mohawk culture.…

This study provides a qualitative test and illustration of a model of how students cope with the demands of part-time study. The model shows that students who are successful in finding the time to complete the requirements of part-time courses do so by adopting three mechanisms; sacrifice, support and the negotiation of arrangements. All three…

This article describes the North Carolina Youth Empowerment Study (NCYES), a 3-year participatory evaluation of youth programs addressing tobacco use prevention. The study goals of NCYES were to (1) convene an advisory board comprised of lay youths and adults in a participatory research process, (2) document the characteristics of youth programs…

Mental health consumer-run organizations are alternatives to mainstream mental health services, and they have the dual focus of supporting members and creating systems change. The existing literature suggests that these organizations have beneficial impacts on social support, community integration, personal empowerment, subjective quality of life,…

This paper examines research in science education, making a case for the interpretive researcher to value both reason and emotion for generating a reflective and reflexive understanding of the classroom experiences of teachers and students. It discusses the role of rationality and emotions in fieldwork, and presents two impressionistic…

This book offers guidelines for action research, a process in which teachers experiment with various strategies at the classroom level. Action research is the process of systematically evaluating the consequences of educational decisions and adjusting practices to maximize effectiveness. Essentially the examination of one's own practice, it…