Uses a life-history approach to examine the understandings of a group of minority teachers; their relationships with their students, colleagues, and administrators; teaching roles and assignments; and job satisfaction. Contributes to the literature on school improvement by focusing on race and culture of both the students and teachers. (DSK)

Explores embodiment, conversation, and anecdote as a way to interpret the teacher's experience of being evaluated. Builds on a phenomenological investigation of the way evaluators "look" at teachers during performance evaluations. Argues that different means of evaluating teachers, one's that do not objectify the teacher, are needed. (DSK)

Presents the results of a preliminary investigation into the innovative capacities of Dutch secondary schools. Defines "innovative capacity" based on a number of factors found in a review of the literature. Finds that transformational school leadership plays a particularly crucial role in the development of the innovative capacities of schools.…

Draws on evolutionary biology to provide implications for the case study method, to promote a better understanding of contingency, and to confirm the status of case study. Argues that contingency unites the details that make the case portray part of a greater category and that make it a unique instance. (DSK)

Examines the influence of traditional classroom features on learning in a mathematics classroom in the United Kingdom. Analyzes student interviews, lesson observations, and results of questionnaires to show how traditional forms of education can inhibit understanding, reify the divide between school and "real world," and suppress the transfer of…

Employs observations and interviews to explore ways four basketball teams used players' bodies to create a plural self, transforming individuals into interconnected, deindividualized members. Raises the possibility that for many athletes this temporarily realized plural self continues as a possible self and invites the development of certain…

Analyzes the judgment calls, changing research philosophy, and methodology of a researcher trained within a noninterventionist model as the individual moves into participatory research. Argues that the nature of doctoral research shapes the research experience and raises issues concerning power in academe and the way that research questions are…

Examines problems with representing poststructuralist research. Argues that researchers' positioning within major discourses governing education may have as much influence on what is seen in classrooms as does physical positioning. Challenges researchers to make explicit their underlying interests and agendas. Uses a study of gender-role…

Discusses the relationship of ideology, social theory, critical analysis, hegemony, and objectivity in the work of educational historians. Comments that the training of educational historians often neglects intensive ideological analysis of historical research. Argues that study of historiographical methodology and consciousness of its dimensions…

Examines the function of schooling as constituted in the interactional sequences of routine testing events. Demonstrates that classroom testing represents a critical activity through which the grouping of students is accomplished. Suggests that the differentiation of both homogeneous and heterogeneous school populations is a necessary by-product…

Presents findings from a case study of one fifth grade student's efforts to construct meaning in her science class during a unit on light. Contends that students' efforts to construct meaning may suggest instructional approaches that guide learners to consider and grasp scientific explanations while still valuing their own insights and abilities…

Reports on field study of school rituals in two U.S. southern private schools. Finds one school's rules and procedures promoted scientific analysis, abstract thinking, and individualism, whereas other saw itself as nurturing community, seeking organic and interdependent relationship with world. Concludes both schools engender commitment and belief…

Reports on an ethnographic study of primary level science classes in Kenya where English is the government-mandated language of instruction. Finds that important ideas were conveyed more easily when teachers did not adhere to the policy of English-only instruction. Concludes that the importance of sociolinguistics in instructional processes should…