Noting that success defines the American identity, this ethnographic case study examined the dynamics of culture, spirituality, and success in the lives of three generations of three Cambodian families. The study pursued three research objectives: (1) to challenge the dominance of quantitative measures to judge refugee students' academic success;…

This book provides theoretically informed guidance to practicing the key research methods for investigating society and culture. It is a text in both methods and methodology, in which the importance of understanding the historical, theoretical and institutional context in which particular methods have developed is stressed. The contributors of the…

This report presents findings of a three-year study to examine how preservice teachers develop an awareness of the needs of academically diverse learners, including gifted students, and implement and/or modify instruction to meet those needs. Preservice teachers were assigned to one of two treatment groups: either participation in an interactive…

This paper presents a model for a co-mentoring support group among graduate students and faculty, using as a case study the development of a faculty-student support group in a college of education at a university. This support group began in 1995 and consisted of 11 participants who met formally for one year and have continued to meet informally…

A study examined two upper elementary classrooms efforts to incorporate experiential democratic citizenship into the life of each classroom. A major research question guiding the study was: what are the characteristics of an elementary classroom that values civic participation? The assertion generated from the findings and attentive to this…

The challenges of early adolescence are intensified for girls of color who live in disadvantaged urban communities. One response to the needs of these girls comes from the Boys & Girls Clubs of America (BGCA), a youth development organization that has a long-standing presence in innercity neighborhoods. A gender equity initiative designed to…

Examined the role of awareness in relation to R. W. Schmidt's noticing hypothesis in second language acquisition. The study analyzed the think-aloud protocols of adult learners of Spanish as a second language as they were completing a problem-solving task as well as their immediate performances on two post-exposure assessment tasks, a recognition…

Explored relationship between family resources and social competence of 300 adolescents. Found that parental education, occupation, and family income were related to positive peer and teacher-related social competence among advantaged adolescents. Negative responses and outside family support were positively related to disadvantaged adolescents'…

A study investigated the standards used in refereeing scholarly journal articles to judge qualitative research methods. Examination of reviewers' critiques of 57 manuscripts submitted to the "Review of Higher Education" revealed 7 themes that reviewers focused on, and also found reviewers emphasized good writing and clear articulation of…

Analyzes some of the mistakes made and the lessons learned doing participant-observation research on six special congressional elections. Briefly describes seven of these lessons including schedule strategically, get multiple perspectives, do not overlook details, be a pack rat, and recognizing that some goals and processes are antithetical. (MJP)

Presents an application of a model of user evaluation of four major Web search engines (Alta Vista, Excite, Infoseek, and Lycos) by undergraduates. Evaluation was based on 16 performance measures representing five evaluation criteria-relevance, efficiency, utility, user satisfaction, and connectivity. Content analysis of verbal data identified a…

Twelve older Aboriginal women in a Canadian city were trained to be co-researchers as part of a participatory health assessment and health promotion project involving 40 such women. Lessons were learned about project ownership, Native perceptions of research, use of traditions, participants' capacity to engage in research and analysis, conflict…

Investigates job satisfaction of Chilean secondary school teachers. Determines that teachers were most satisfied with interactions with students, relationships within the school, and opportunities to contribute to the development of individuals, future generations, and society. Shows that the main dissatisfactions are poor salary, excessive…

Explores what second-grade students learned about reading, writing, and literature through a year-long program of strategy instruction integrated within a literature-based environment. Reveals that students grew in overall instructional reading level, coming to view reading as a natural component of the school day; developed skill in word…

Analyzes the proposal-writing environment, the characteristics of proposals, and the practices of seven engineers at a Silicon Valley engineering firm that does government defense work. Finds that engineers write proposals collaboratively and have a highly structured composing process. Describes how the firm's Proposal Writing Center dramatically…