The 50 years since the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) have been marked by a continuing struggle by African American scholars and urban education advocates to promote educational excellence for African American students and other students of color. A number of qualitative and observational studies converge in…

Background: Self-managed learning groups are increasingly used in higher education. There is a need for more systematic investigation of university students' perceptions of the processes and outcomes of this learning method. Aims: This study aimed to identify the domains of process issues that students perceive as relevant to their participation…

In this article, the author, who is an educational author, speaker, and consultant, briefly discusses how the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act has played large role in her past three jobs over the past four years. Four years ago she was the president of Foxfire, three years ago she taught elementary school methods courses in a university teacher…

School counselors work individually and with other educators to meet the developmental needs of all students, including those with special needs or disabilities. In this article, the results of qualitative research are summarized involving comparative case studies of university students who were both academically talented and learning disabled.…

Research on special needs education is often very complex and puts specific demands on the methodology used. Data-triangulation, at the very least, is required. In most of our recent research projects on the development of special needs education in Flanders (the Dutch speaking part of Belgium), we have made use of qualitative case studies to…

Context: Many rural elders experience limited access to health care. The majority of what we know about this issue has been based upon quantitative studies, yet qualitative studies might offer additional insight into individual perceptions of health care access. Purpose: To examine what barriers rural elders report when accessing needed health…

In this paper I ask how educational researchers can believe the subjective perceptions of qualitative participant-observers given the concern for objectivity and generalisability of experimental research in the behavioural and social sciences. I critique the most common answer to this question within the educational research community, which…

In-person semi-structured interviews were conducted with 7 homeowners selected by 6 state homeownership programs as representing good examples of homeownership by individuals with developmental disabilities. Recurring themes were found in the choice of a home, advantages and disadvantages of homeownership, handling problems, community…

American Organizations bringing assistance to deaf people in developing countries unintentionally create relationships of dependency or oppression rather than relationships of support. Using qualitative methods, the author examined the effectiveness of development assistance provided to the Jamaican Deaf community by two American churches, one…

How do intellectual initiatives across disciplines evolve? This qualitative case study of 11 interdisciplinary research initiatives at Emory University identifies key factors in their development: the passionate commitments of scholarly leaders, the presence of strong collegial networks, access to timely and multiple resources, flexible practices,…

Largely absent from the literature on adolescent girls' extracurricular activities is exploration of the process and effects of vying for entry to extracurricular activities that are competitive and selective. This qualitative study contrasted the immediate and longer term effects of auditioning for two high school extracurricular activities…

Therapeutic discourse is the talk-in-interaction that represents the social practice between clinician and client. This article invites speech-language pathologists to apply their knowledge of language to analyzing therapy talk and to learn how talking practices shape clinical roles and identities. A range of qualitative research approaches,…

This paper explores the problems and challenges of teaching for diversity, social justice and global awareness in initial teacher education. It addresses the issues of student teacher identity, the attitudes of students, and their approach to classroom practice. The authors argue that general attitudes to issues of diversity, must be placed within…

This article begins by arguing for some bridge building in ESOL research between what is often seen as a quantitative/qualitative dichotomy. Instead of taking up a position on one side or the other, the differences are construed as different ways of seeing, depending upon the nature of the research questions asked. As a qualitative researcher by…

This qualitative study utilized a grounded theory methodology to assess the conceptions about the school counselor role held by 26 administrators employed in public elementary, middle, or high schools. The study was designed to build a deeper understanding of how school administrators conceptualized the school counselor role. Four distinctive role…