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DOCUNE T RESUME ED 132 714 EA 009 009 AUTHOR Surges, Bill TITLE You Can Look It Up: Finding Educational Documents. INSTITUTION Institute for Responsive Education, Boston, Mass. SPONS AGENCY Hazen Foundation, New Haven, Conn. PUB DATE 76 NOTE 26p. AVAILABLE FROMInstitute for Responsive Education, 704 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02215 ($2.00, orders for $10,00 or less must be accompanied by payment or requisition) EDRS PRIcE MF-$0.83 Plus Postage. HC Not Available from EDRS. DESCRIPTORS Action Research; Elementary Secondary Education; *Research Methodology; Research Reviews (Publications); *Research Tools; *Resource Guides ABSTRACT This publication is intended to help people find the documents most suited to solving their researchable problems. It begins by discussing how to approach research and then outlines such sources of documentary evidence as current books, indexes, periodicals, bibliographies, and the ERIC system. (Author/IRT) Documents acquired by ERIC include many informal unpublished * materials not available from other sources. ERIC makes every effort * to obtain the best copy available. Nevertheless, items of marginal * * reproducibility are often encountered and this affects the quality * * .of the microfiche and hardcopy reproductions ERIC makes available * * via the ERIC Document Reproduction Service (EDRS). EDRS is not * responsible for the quality of the original document. Reproductions * * supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made-from the original! * Can U S OF PARTMENT OF HEALTH. EDUCATION & WELFARE Finding NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION TmiS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRO ExACTLY AS RECEIVED FROM T.E PEPSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGIN- ATING 1' POINTS Or VIEW OR OPINIONS Educational STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REERE. SENT QE ,C+AL NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF Documents EDUCATION POSITIONQPPOLICY tC. LI ILQ1L 'EWE C.E" ONLy PE EE,, D by bill burges -r A Project of the Institute for Responsive Education under a grant from the Edward Hazen Foundation,New Haven, Connecticut c 1976 by the Institu e for ResponsI 2 The INSTITUTE FOR RESPONSIVE EDUCATION isa non- profit, tax exempt organization created to study and assist citizen participation in educational decision making. It is housed in the Department of System Development and Adaptation, School of Education, at Boston University. I.R.E. STAFF Director Don Davies Associate Director Miriam Clasby Communication Barbara Prentice Research Associate Bill Bur9es Projects Assistant Louise Bonar R.E. BOARD CF DIRE_CTO_RS,19/6 Elizabeth Meyer Lorentz, Chair CarolR. Goldberg Citizen and volunteer in Vice President and General Institutional development Manager Supermarket Division Seymour Sarason, Vice Chair The Stop & Shop Companies, Inc. Professor of Psychology Yale University Mary Kohler Director, National Commission Luis Alvarez on Resources for Youth Director, Aspira of America W. C. Robinson Robert A. Dentler, Dean Distitution for Social and School of Education Policy Studies Boston University Yale University CONTENTS Int oduction: Informed Participation and Citizeo Action-Research A. Prescreening the Literature B. The Most Important Sources 1. CURRENT BOOKS 6 2. INDEXES 6 3. PERIODICALS 7 4. BIBLIOGRAPHIES 7 5. ERIC 8 6. NEWSPAPERS 8 7. GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS AND REPORTS 9 8. PUBLIC AND QUASI-PUBLIC RECORDS 11 9. AUDIO VISUAL MATERIALS 13 10. OTHER SOURCES 13 C. Advantages of Document Research 14 D. Make Documents Work for You 15 E. The Overcrowding Committee, A Citizen's Report 16 F. Reading List 20 4 INTRODUCTION INFORMED PARTICIPATION AND CITIZENACTION-RESEARCH "What?" Ano her udy? What we need is some action fora change." We've all heard this many times. Doing a study often seems to be the surest way to avoid takingaction. Politicians and government officials have longburied controversial issues in studies--studies that endup in yesterday's newspapers, writtenso that nobody will want to wade through them. We should not stop studying things. Or fail to get the facts before we act. But in the area of local public schools, we should ask, "Who should study what? Toward what end? Why? And how can we combine research with action to solve the problemswe uncover?" We are convinced that some of the most usefulre- search on community and education problemscan be done by the people most affected, the local residents. The community that will influence its schoolscan make them accountable. Professional educators or school board mtmbers who encouraoe citizens to becomeinvolved in fact-finding and making recommendations willdis- cover new channels for community involvement and im- proved community relations. It's no surprise that as public schools have in- creased their expenditures, they have also facedin- creasing demands for accountability from the clients they serve and the constituents who "pay the freight." But.for many reasons school board members and school officials are less able or willing to be responsiveto the people they serve or represent. Highly centralized districts, for example, mean more constituents foreach representative. The average school board member now represents twenty times more people than s/he did in 1900. When people are demanding accountability, and officials are less able to respond, the result isoften public suspicion, lack of support, and misunderstandlng. Citizen participation in education can help alle- viate these problems by making parents,students, and community members equal partners in educational .deci- sion making. In this sense, citizen participation means informed involvement in which the people power of acommunity or an entire, city is marshaledto solve the community's problems.. 1.R.E. The Institute for Responsive Education ( .R.E.) has been working to help publicofficials and community groupsincrease their ability to work together toward common goals of better education. I.R.E. recently completed a year-long field projecton "Citizen Action- Research," funded by the Hazen Foundation of NewHaven, Connecticut. Citizen Action-Research isa process designed to increase positive citizen participationthrough ity learning. Fact-finding and follow-up, whenicommun-t is done by the people who themselves mustact, can be a powerful form of citizen action,a new style of commun- ity politics. The work includes programs at the local, state, and national levels. In acitizen action-research program citizens be- come involved in defining the issues, getting the facts, determining what needs to_be done, anddoing it. They draw m local resources wherever possibleto help ac- complish their goals. The politics of alienation, frustration, and confrontationare replaced by the politics of planning together and acting together. We are not naive enough to think that adversarial si uations and conflicts willnever come up, even in this process. But neither can we ignore the evidence that in the absence of positive steps by publicoffi- cials and community groups, the result isat best dis- trust, apathy or nonsupport,_and at worst,open hostil- ity. Citizen action-research offers one goodway to build a climate, structure, and set ofprograms for cooperative problem solving by public officials and lay people. I.R.E.'s first action-research publicationwas Parker Palmer's Action--Research: A New St 11 of Poli- tics in Education, which outlined eight tec niquesfo citizen fac -finding. One of the mbst important ways that citizens can get the facts is by_using documents. How to use them most efficiently is the topic of this report, You CAn LooK It 4p...Other publications in I.R.E.'s7A711-(7=1Tisearch seriesare listed on the back cover. 6 YOU CAN LOOK IT UP The late Casey Stengel of baseball fame, after winding up an intricate story or incredible anecdote, would often catch an unbelieving gleam in his listener's eyes. Noting that look, "Professor" Stengel would counter with a reassuring, "You could look it up." Somewhere, Casey was sure, the information to substan- tiate his argument could be found in writing. His tale could be substantiated, his knowledge validated. Citizens conducting an action research project may face similar problems. You'll often want to rely on written materials to substantiate your proposals for change. And in answering questions about the schools, documents are a great source of data. You too, can look it up. Books, articles, public documents, court decrees, laws,_meeting_minutes, newspapers, and other print media are useful sources of background information, in- formed opinion, and ideas for change. Whatever your researchable problem or issue, someone has probably done prior research on the questions you are asking. Finding that research as efficiently as possible will help you immeasurably. -- prescreening the literarure Many people have the idea that research isa logi- cal, predictable process. Unfortunately, that's not always the case. Life would be dull in the absence of little surprises and unusual twists. So would re- searching your problem. Plodding through reams of materials--however rationallyis neither efficient nor exciting. What can be both enjoyable and effective is to zero in on people and reference tools that help you find the answers to your questions. That way, you'll be able to chase down promising leads and avoid--to some extent--unproduotive outlays of time and effort. Sure, therea always a certain degree of "muddling through" in document research, just as in any other project. You. O.an Look it Up will help you find switch- boards to -0 Ug you in_o -t0 documents most suited to solving your researchable problem. 7 4