This volume provides an overview of the tensions, dilemmas, issues, and possibilities that characterize educational research. The contributions of more than 20 researchers examine the state of educational research, its future directions, and some of the major trends that have affected the field. The contributions are: (1) "An Auspicious Moment for Educational Research" (Ellen Condliffe Lagemann); (2) "Research and the Purposes of Education" (David K. Cohen and Carol A. Barnes); (3) "Poles Apart: Reconciling the Dichotomies in Education Research" (Theodore R. Mitchell and Analee Haro); (4) "Needed: Thoughtful Research for Thoughtful Schools" (Deborah W. Meier); (5) "Sociology and the Study of Education: Continuity, Discontinuity, and the Individualist Turn" (Charles E. Bidwell); (6) "From Society to School and Back Again: Questions about Learning in and for a World of Complex Organizations" (Elisabeth S. Clemens); (7) "Understanding Educational Processes in an Era of Globalization: The View from Anthropology and Cultural Studies" (Kathleen Hall); (8) "Professing Educational Scholarship" (Lee S. Shulman); (9) "The Core, the Canon, and the Development of Research Skills: Issues in the Preparation of Education Researchers" (Alan H. Schoenfeld); (10) "Discipline and Disciplines in Education Research: Elusive Goals?" (Shirley Brice Heath); (11) "Culture and Commitment: Challenges for the Future Training of Education Researchers" (Vanessa Siddle Walker); (12) "Preparing Education Researchers To Practice Education Research" (Anna Neumann, Aaron M. Pallas, and Penelope L. Peterson); (13) "The Changing Infrastructure of Education Research" (Allan Collins); (14) "Research, Reform, and Aims in Education: Modes of Action in Search of Each Other" (James G. Greeno, Ray McDermott, Karen A. Cole, Randi A. Engle, Shelley Goldman, Jennifer Knudsen, Beatrice Lauman, and Charlotte Linde); (15) "New Media Communications Forums for Improving Education Research and Practice" (Roy D. Pea); (16) "Multiples of Evidence, Time, and Perspective: Revising the Study of Teaching and Learning" (Deborah Loewenberg Ball and Magdalene Lampert), and (17) "Postscript: Some Reflections on Education Research" (Jerome Bruner). Each chapter contains references. (SLD)