This interview with Dianne Roberts, director of the Minimbah Aboriginal Preschool in Armidale, New South Wales (Australia), explores research issues, leadership styles, and how decision making and responsibilities are handled at Minimbah. Incoming researchers must show how research will benefit the community under study, how they will work in…

An Australian study was conducted to develop a strategy for safe use of farm chemicals by Asian migrant market gardeners in Western Sydney. The researchers chose to use participatory approaches for which policy makers and development practitioners had in other studies shown enthusiasm, although this enthusiasm could not at times be sustained…

A great deal of traditional indigenous knowledge is being irretrievably lost in New Zealand as the Maori elders age and pass away. There has been a resurgence of interest on the part of the Maori in recording traditional knowledge, particularly at the local or community level, and using new technologies to make aspects of traditional knowledge…

Argues for the need to adopt a more participatory and research-based approach to teacher development in India. Describes the democratizing opportunities offered by a research-based collaborative approach to teacher educator development in a 2-year project in three states. Concludes that this approach requires individual development of autonomy and…

Seven noted researchers each describe a different orientation to research exemplified in their own studies and currently predominant in the teaching of English to speakers of other languages. The statements consider aspects of language behavior, frameworks for interpreting curricula or culture such as classroom interaction or ethnography, or…

Describes the role of the rural community development worker in achieving social change by encouraging participatory decision making. Presents results of a participatory research study in which the author, as a community worker, empowers a village with a failed water supply to seek change where they had previously experienced resistance by…

Reports on the Improving Education Quality Project in Uganda, which sought to improve primary education by using participatory action research to involve and empower teacher and community participants. Discusses the complexities and dilemmas of moving toward participatory ways within the context of Ugandan society, and how dialogue among all…

In this article, the author explores the different research approaches to the issues on "race/power/culture" with those of "action, experience, behaviour" and "technology" in the field of environmental education research. Here, the author suggests that environmental educators and researchers must be careful not to adopt an uncritical…

This article elucidates criteria which might be helpful in evaluating praxis-related research. The authors explore both sides of the research and development (R & D) project. They examine different ways of understanding contributions to knowledge through research but more especially exploring ideas about contributions to changing praxis. Changing…

This proceedings contains 30 papers: "What Matters in Planning a Conference" (Ahmed et al.); "Faculty Motivations for Learning To Teach at a Distance with Instructional Technology" (Armstrong); "The Use of Literature in Qualitative Research" (Austin, Babchuk); "Reading Women's Lives" (Baker-Clark);…

This newsletter issue provides rehabilitation professionals with various information pieces concerning consumer leadership in supported employment of people with disabilities. First, a chart lists five questions concerning self advocacy and supported employment, and provides consumer responses to the questions. A second item describes…

Researchers working with the American Indian Rehabilitation Research and Training Center in Arizona have found that culture is important in social research, especially with indigenous people. Community-based participatory research is one approach that has yielded outcomes valuable to researchers and community members. However, ethical concerns…

New Zealand's 1989 Education Act has resulted in a range of educational reforms. These reforms have offered the Maori opportunities to bring about positive educational developments for their people. Devolution of educational responsibility from a regional to a local level provided some of the space quickly utilized by the Maori. The requirement…

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…