This is a case study of Benchmark School, which educates 6-to 15-year-olds with a history of school failure. Grounded theory methodology was employed to generate a theory about how the school promotes achievement. Many elements potentially promoting academic achievement were identified, including ones informed by psychological theory and research (e.g., evidence-based literacy instructional practices, strategies instruction, conceptually focused content instruction, many mechanisms to motivate students) but also, selective admissions, human resources (i.e., well-trained teachers, supportive parents, skilled counselors), small class size, and a supportive physical context. The theory that emerges is that many elements must be articulated to remediate struggling elementary students, although some are more important than others.
Feminist researchers are acutely aware of the difficulties facing researchers as they try to bridge social locational differences between interviewer and interviewee. What we call reciprocal peer interviewing offers a significant opportunity for interviewees to speak in their own voice and exercise control over the interview process. This paper reports on the application of this method to a study of women's contributions to provisioning within a low-income community. It involves women interviewing each other in dyads after both underwent a brief training session. The celebratory dinner that proceeded the interview session had complementary effects but is not integral to the method. Comparable in some ways to focus group interviews, this method provided space for women to co-construct their experiences in response to the research questions. The qualities of the text produced through this dialogical form of active interviewing are illustrated and evaluated. Also examined are issues of interpretation and representation.
One of the central lessons taken from the work of Michael Lipsky on street level bureaucracies is that street level bureaucrats make policy. Two resulting broad public policy concerns are the impact of street level decision making on public policy and the impact on citizens’ access to public services. This article reports on a study of the views of Ontario Works’ case managers on the nature of bureaucratic discretion in the setting of a highly rule bound provincial income assistance programme in Canada. The focus of this article is on case managers’ interaction with contradictory and complex policy directives. An argument is developed that in such a restrictive policy setting, meeting the goals of unswerving policy implementation and citizen access to public services may work at cross purposes.
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