This case study outlines an appreciative inquiry approach to program reform using an agricultural teacher education program at a land-grant university that had begun to suffer from a large decline in student enrollment. Documents were analyzed that provided recommendations toward a master plan for reform made by 23 key agents based on their…

The purpose of this deconstructive case study was to conduct a Foucauldian power/knowledge analysis constructed from the perceptions of three teachers at an intermediate school in South Texas regarding the role of the teacher evaluation process and its influence on instructional practices. Using Foucault's (1977a) work on power/knowledge, of…

Participation in an ensemble is a significant aspect of tertiary music experience. Learning and assessment practices within ensembles have rarely been investigated in Australia and the perceptions of staff and students as to how they learn and are assessed within ensembles remain largely unexplored. This paper reports on part of a larger project…

Induction in enterprises is a crucial phase for each employee not only to become able to fulfil all relevant tasks but also to enable professional development as well as social and value-oriented integration into the new organisation. This is even more relevant for young people coming from initial vocational education and training with…

Urban schools often experience rapid turnover among teachers and leaders. Yet, research and practice highlight the importance of sustained leadership over time as an integral component of school improvement. Successful leadership requires principals who operate in multiple dimensions at once, moving from individual capacity to group empowerment,…

From an ethnographic case study of a state-funded residential school for the Deaf, the authors employed Critical Discourse Analysis to identify competing discourses in the talk of educators. These discourses are embedded in the historical oppression and labeling of deaf people as disabled and the development of Deaf culture as a counter-discourse.…

With strong connection to schoolwide policy and vision and to the realities of the daily life of teachers and students, the department chair is uniquely positioned to play an important role in advancing instructional effectiveness (Printy, 2008; Weller, 2001). This article provides an in-depth look at the efforts of three urban comprehensive high…

This article describes how early years practitioners working in different settings, with different experiences and qualifications, can work and learn together. It is a small-scale case study of an eight-month project, with a grass-roots approach, involving early years settings within the reach area of an inner-London Children's Centre. The data…

States have been given flexibility under No Child Left Behind to create need-driven comprehensive school improvement plans with an approved accountability system, however those unable to show increased student learning will be deemed as failing. Schools labeled as failing require a comprehensive framework for improvement. Research has identified a…

This exploratory qualitative case study investigated rural K-8 special education teacher perceptions of their positional status as special education teachers who co-teach with their regular education peers. Four special education teachers participated in journal prompts, one-on-one interviews, and a focus group interview. The conceptual lens for…

This dissertation is based on a case study of 8 beginning English teachers who participated in a collaborative inquiry group at an urban, comprehensive, high school in the San Francisco Bay Area. Qualitative data (including audio-transcribed meeting data, individual interview data, and classroom observations) were collected over two school years,…

This study examined 10 elementary school teachers' narratives of their teaching experiences to determine the political aspects of that development, particularly the processes of control, power, dominance, conflict and ideology that interacted with the teacher's developing sense of the working conditions necessary for proper job performance. Data…