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International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education | 1997

Re-presenting the subject: Problems in personal narrative inquiry

Colleen Larson

In this paper the author explores the assumptions and practices of narrative inquiry by sitting on the other side of the microphone as a subject in a personal narrative project. Throughout this process of inquiry, she illuminates how Anne (the inquirer) and she (the subject) wove their differing assumptions about the purposes and processes of narrative inquiry into this study and explores how these differing assumptions impacted the stories that could be told as well as the meaning ultimately inscribed in her personal narrative. This paper raises critical questions about what it means to re-present anothers life story and calls into question accepted practices in qualitative inquiry projects.


Educational Administration Quarterly | 2000

Reconceptualizing Research and Scholarship in Educational Administration: Learning to Know, Knowing to Do, Doing to Learn

Carolyn Riehl; Colleen Larson; Paula M. Short; Ulrich C. Reitzug

In this article, the authors explore common and emerging conceptions of what consti-tutes knowledge in educational administration, how knowledge relates to practice, and how individuals in universities and schools can engage in a particular kind of knowledge work—research. The authors suggest that a fully articulated perspective on research in educational administration might characterize research as occupying a multidimen-sional space delineated along three dimensions: why the research is done, who conducts the research, and how the research is done. Productive, interesting, and generative research can be situated anywhere on these dimensions, and five principles can be used to guide various forms of research. The implication is that although currently the field of educational administration encompasses two communities of practice, we should strive toward becoming one community of scholars. The authors discuss how doctoral pro -grams might develop students for this community of scholars and provide a case example from one university.


Educational Administration Quarterly | 1997

Is the Land of Oz an Alien Nation? A Sociopolitical Study of School Community Conflict

Colleen Larson

This interpretive case study examines the political thinking underpinning the strategies and counterstrategies used by administrators and Black leaders engaged in a political struggle over the fate of seven Black youths who protested against unfair treatment in their suburban high school. Using the framework of political analysis developed by Bacharach and Mundell, this case study reveals the opposing logics of action, or underlying belief systems, that informed both administrative and community responses throughout this protest. This case study reveals that midlevel administrators acting out of an allegiance to, and belief in, orthodox images of administration face a paradox in diverse and changing school communities; the more these administrators aligned with images of effective administration as bureaucratic control, the more ineffective they became in interpreting and responding to a politically savvy interest group not subject to administrative authority.


Educational Administration Quarterly | 2009

Sinking, Like Quicksand:Expanding educational opportunity for young men of color

Noel S. Anderson; Colleen Larson

Purpose: The purpose of this interpretive case study is to examine the assumptions underpinning one Upward Bound program to understand how the program attempts to increase educational opportunity for poor urban youth and how this approach plays out in the lived experiences of three young men who participate in the program. Research Design: This study of an Upward Bound program was conducted at a large urban university in the Northeast. Based on the methodological framework of interpretive interactionism by Norman Denzin (1989), this interpretive case study was conducted over an entire academic year. Formal and informal interviews, observations, and document analysis were used to gather data to understand the phenomena being studied in-depth. The conceptual lenses of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum frame the analysis of this study, revealing the logic and limits of focusing on achievement alone to increase educational opportunity for impoverished youth. Findings: The director of “College Access Initiative” believes that this program can increase educational equity and opportunity for impoverished youth by: a) emphasizing an ethic of rugged individualism, b) insisting that the young men focus on the future, and c) immersing students in an intense academic and test preparation program. The findings of this study reveal that this academic approach to expanding educational opportunity for the young men was not sufficient for increasing their freedom to focus on academic achievement or to stay in the program. Conclusions: These findings suggest an urgent need for coordinating academic support programs with other social, economic, and human service agencies serving poor communities if we are to enhance real opportunities to achieve for impoverished youth.


International Journal of Leadership in Education | 2000

Commentary: Creating scholarly practice through communities of inquiry

Colleen Larson

When I was asked to comment on a collection of articles coalescing around the idea of ‘escapes from high theory’, the word ‘escape’ took me back to an experience I had while living in Chicago. I was sitting in my car, stuck in the middle of several lanes of traffic that had no perceptible beginning or end in either direction. It was summer, and the tollways were, predictably, under construction. As I sat tapping the steering wheel in sync with a song on the radio, a bumper sticker on the car in front of me caught my eye: ‘Escape to Wisconsin’. The absolute impossibility of escape at that moment made me smile. I imagined that visions of ‘escape’ were on the minds of every driver in cars ahead, behind, and beside me. No doubt, we shared fantasies of escaping the noise, fumes, and frustration of not being able to continue our respective journeys. The bumper sticker was especially compelling for me because I was, in fact, on my way to Wisconsin. I was escaping, albeit slowly, the cement, the lines, the noise, and the press of human flesh characteristic of urban centres. I was eager to watch the sun rise over the lake, walk through cool limestone caves, drive on narrow, curvy, and deeply wooded drives, and listen to the rhythmic hooting of owls in the still of night. But as I looked at the frantic people with cell phones all around me, I knew that there were probably drivers who did not share my yearning for the seclusion and quietude of the northern woods. I knew people like Woody Allen who perspired with anxiety and loss each time they left the city. For these urban dwellers, travelling unfettered on a dark, unlit road to the music of wildlife in the northern woods would not be an escape, but rather a fate far worse than sitting stone still on a congested tollway. So despite sharing a mutual desire to escape on that hot summer afternoon, my fellow travellers and I did not necessarily share a vision of where we wanted to go. Reading these articles on ‘escapes from high theory’, I realized that finding an escape that we can all agree upon may be no less challenging than finding a path toward a clearing in a traffic jam on a major toll way; everybody wants out, but we do not all want to escape in the same direction, and we all fear different things. In this special issue, we


Archive | 2014

Transforming (Un)Just Institutions: A Reflection on Methodology

Colleen Larson

Over the past 15 years, I have explored several pathways for understanding issues of equity, opportunity, and social justice in education, particularly in schools serving economically impoverished children and their families. What role can social justice research play in shedding needed light on the real obstacles that limit the opportunities and life chances of economically poor children and youth? In this chapter, I discuss how my own answer to this question has changed over the years and show how my preferred methodological lenses have shaped how I frame (as well as how I have reframed) social justice issues in my research projects. In recognizing that issues of opportunity, freedom, and choice are central to social justice research, I suggest that the capability approach with its emphasis on child well-being provides a valuable framework for helping social justice researchers to more fully flesh out what we mean by social justice and how it can be studied in field-based research. By revisiting studies that I have done as well as by portraying the work of my students and colleagues, I show how capability theory aids researchers in exploring questions and areas of social justice that are often overlooked in field-based projects and ought to garner greater attention in educational research, policy, and practice.


Yearbook of The National Society for The Study of Education | 2005

Leadership for social justice

Colleen Larson; Khaula Murtadha


Archive | 2000

The Color of Bureaucracy: The Politics of Equity in Multicultural School Communities

Colleen Larson; Carlos J. Ovando


New Directions for Program Evaluation | 1988

Business Perspectives on Internal/External Evaluation.

Oliver W. Cummings; Jeri R. Nowakowski; Thomas A. Schwandt; Kimball C. Kleist; Colleen Larson; Tara D. Knott


Scholar-Practitioner Quarterly | 2010

Responsibility and Accountability in Educational Leadership: Keeping Democracy and Social Justice Central to Reform.

Colleen Larson

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Carolyn Riehl

University of North Carolina at Greensboro

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Jeri R. Nowakowski

Northern Illinois University

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Paula M. Short

Pennsylvania State University

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Thomas A. Schwandt

University of Illinois at Chicago

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Ulrich C. Reitzug

University of North Carolina at Greensboro

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