Empowerment evaluation is the use of evaluation concepts and techniques to foster self-determination, focusing on helping people help themselves. This collaborative evaluation approach requires both qualitative and quantitative methodologies. It is a multifaceted approach that can be applied to evaluation in any area. (SLD)

Summarizes a qualitative study investigating notions of what is shared and contested at one urban Canadian elementary school. Some value orientations manifested by teachers were compatible with the prevailing school culture; others were clearly in conflict with it. Findings provide insight into school culture's dynamics and complexities. (48…

Explores 194 principals' role perceptions, expressed in guided interviews conducted by educational-administration graduate students. Principals described planning procedures as collaborative and said priorities were shaped by school or student results on objective success indicators. Ensuring school safety, good teaching, and effective community…

Discusses issues of intimacy in qualitative research raised by Harry Wolcott's Brad trilogy in connection with Reba Page's use of the trilogy to teach about validity in interpretive research methods. Focuses on intimacy in research, relational reflexivity, power in relationships, relational ethics, evolutionary understandings of relationships, and…

A literature review and telephone interviews with exemplar university staff informants identified benchmarks to assess the degree of reform at four doctoral-granting Midwestern universities. Data analysis revealed three themes: political, professional, and curricular. Universities' efforts ranged from unreformed and transitional to progressive and…

Examines the educational choices that young people and parents from different class backgrounds make at transition points within the system that the Rational Action Theory offers. Observes that the choices parents and their children make augment and amplify social-class differentiation. Explores two explanations for this phenomenon: "rational…

Reports on the use of qualitative methods to investigate instructor attitudes towards project-based computing in second-language study. Analysis of transcripts of semistructured interviews resulted in a six-part framework that aims to characterize attitudes in the tertiary setting. (Author/VWL)

Explores a self-reflexive effort to engage teachers, administrators, and community leaders in qualitative inquiry within a multicultural feminist framework. In graduate courses emphasizing feminist pedagogy and research in urban settings, students conducted research projects designed to transform existing social inequities in their lived…

Describes an ethnographic study of a selected group of faculty end-users; the purpose of this qualitative assessment was to triangulate on several phenomena under investigation to better understand the impacts of the Integrated Information Center (IIC) at the University of Minnesota on end-user work behaviors. (Author/JAK)

Examined the nature of culture change that occurred at an alternative continuation high school for at-risk students (n=116) and changes in student attitudes over 2 years. Quantitative and qualitative data show the effectiveness of the school's Team Learning Projects model and the school's restructuring program. (SLD)

Examines the educational narratives of eight reentry black women in higher education to determine what common experiences shaped their academic lives. Results include the indication that participants entered higher education to better their lives and possibly the lives of their children, regardless of past school failures and lack of family…

Describes focus-group activities designed to generate information for use in decision making about core and elective courses in a library and information science (LIS) curriculum. Discusses how focus-group activity fits with LIS program review. Also includes questions asked and responses; and feeding opinions into a decision apparatus. (AEF)

This qualitative exploratory study investigated what teachers and second graders learned when student questions were the nucleus of literature discussions. Data showed that students were eager to pose questions that addressed what they needed and wanted to understand about literature and life and that teachers have a tendency to impose their own…

This article discusses the use of qualitative research to document stories of individuals with disabilities. A case is made for broadening the view of qualitative research in an effort to challenge both the nature of the stories as well the frameworks by which these stories are disciplined. (Contains references.) (Author/CR)

The growing importance of multiple-income strategies in the changing rural Appalachian economy is discussed via a case study of a network of female home-based machine-knitters. Social networks are an important part of the knitters' recruitment and training process, promote leadership development, and help overcome some of women's economic…