This qualitative policy study of 6 states and 12 school districts identified 6 factors that influenced implementation of least restrictive environment provisions of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Factors included financing, the state-local context, organization, advocacy, implementors, and knowledge and values. The study…

Self-managed peer group discussions were used to examine achieving high school seniors (n=40) peer relationships and attitudes toward school. Interviews, student-shadowings, field notes, and 25 hours of open student talk were analyzed. Findings are discussed in terms of overall communicative actions, content, group life, group culture, and…

Describes differences between systems-rationalist and subjectivist-interpretivist inquiry. Maintains that much of the enormous potential of subjectivist-interpretivist research could be lost due to the consequences of choices and compromises that researchers make in conceptualizing, proposing, and conducting subjectivist inquiry in the…

Drawing on 5 years' experience with collaborative activities, examines school leadership's role in creating and supporting an appropriate ambience for collaborative inquiry among teachers. Leaders can become participant-learners who contribute to a collective understanding of this practice. Learning together furnishes a sturdy scaffold for further…

Examines fourth and fifth graders' ideas about historical evidence through a year-long qualitative study of two classrooms. Discusses the results, focusing on understanding the reliability of sources, evaluating evidence and reconciling conflicting accounts, and using evidence to reach conclusions. Addresses the implications for instruction. (CMK)

Reviews three qualitative case studies on the educational systems of Japan, the United States, and Germany, conducted as a component of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). States that the studies provide a basis for understanding the differences in mathematics and science achievement among Japan, Germany, and the United…

In this response to an article that explores the practice of social inquiry in professional work by drawing from the democratic ethics of John Dewey (Danforth, 2001), tensions, unresolved issues, and seeming paradoxes in Dewey's thinking are discussed. The value of multi-perspective and multi-voiced inquiry is emphasized. (Contains references.)…

Applied qualitative methods to assess students' interest in science to responses of 2,118 German students in grades 5 through 7 to items measuring interest. Each method (additive cluster analysis, multidimensional scaling, and latent class analysis) is considered qualitative because it supports a focus on the structure of interest. Each approach…

A qualitative research methods course, offered for faculty at an Israeli school of education, was a significant "cultural event" promoting inclusion of qualitative methods in a strongly positivist setting. A profound change in faculty attitudes was eased by administrative support and by participants' ability to find entry points to ideas…

This article presents results of a qualitative study of values development in U.S. and Scottish social work students who participated in a study-abroad program. Six themes emerged: opening the mind to new ways of thinking; awareness and insight into one's own values and beliefs; social awareness and challenges to societal values and beliefs;…

Organized youth programs can serve as a context in which youth are connected to resource-bearing adults in the community who promote the development of social capital. This article explores the process of how this happens and what types of resources are gained by youth. Qualitative interviews were conducted with adolescents in three youth programs…

Increasingly, public health practice is turning to the application of community collaborative models to improve population health status. Despite the growth of these activities, however, evaluations of the national demonstrations have indicated that community health partnerships fail to achieve measurable results and struggle to maintain integrity…

Asynchronous online discussion has been shown to enhance communication between students and to elicit many cognitive indicators. Nevertheless, historians have often been reluctant to make use of such instructional technology. Students enrolled in a fully online world civilization course corroborated qualitative research findings regarding the…

Introduction: An earlier study of physicians' perceptions of interactive online learning showed that these were shaped both by program design and quality and the quality and quantity of interpersonal interaction. We explore instructor roles in enhancing online learning through interpersonal interaction and the learning theories that inform these.…

In this study we investigate how prior knowledge influences knowledge development during collaborative discovery learning. Fifteen dyads of students (pre-university education, 15-16 years old) worked on a discovery learning task in the physics field of kinematics. The (face-to-face) communication between students was recorded and the interaction…