Sari Knopp Biklen

“Are You Retarded?” “No, I'm Catholic”: Qualitative Methods in the Study of People with Severe Handicaps

Qualitative research methods generally depend heavily on good communication between researcher and informant. When qualitative methodologists study informants with severe retardation whose use of language may be limited, what do they do? If the researchers plan to study the world of the informant, then traditional participant observation guidelines are useful. But when the researcher wants to interview the informant, some modifications need to be made. The authors suggest several guidelines to follow.

Experiencing second-wave feminism in the USA

How has feminism mattered in the lives of particular academic feminists? Three scholars in education whose careers developed during the era of second-wave feminism describe how their personal and political stances were affected by theories, methodological advances, the milieus of academia as well as legal, and political events in the USA. The article relies on three narratives, a popular feminist form, to suggest how discourses of second-wave feminism imbued the work of these women.