Power and Method demonstrates that political activism can and should be infused into the research process. Contesting the traditional assumptions that have dominated thinking about the nature and meaning of research--validity, objectivity and the researcher/"subject" relationship--the volume showcases alternative methods, enabling scholars to make a difference in the lives of classed, gendered and raced "subjects" and grapple honestly and openly with the way power is woven into the research process. Committed to the notion that the challenge to redefine the research process faces not only educational researchers, Power and Method includes contributions from scholars in the allied social sciences and the humanities. Responses from researchers working women's studies, anthropology, sociology and literature conclude each section and highlight common and alternative perspectives on the central themes that run throughout the volume.

INTRODUCTION The Shifting Terrain of Methodological Debates SECTION ONE: PERSPECTIVES ON POWER AND METHOD Feminist, Dis-stance and Other Stances: Negotiations of Power Inside Feminist Research, Fertile Obsession: Validity After Poststructuralism, (Response) When Method Becomes Power, Gay and Lesbian, Queer Relations With Educational Research, On Method and Hope, (Response) Red Ribbons at the Cracker Barrel, Cultural, The Power to Know One Thing Is Never the Power to Know all Things: Methodological Notes on Two Studies of Black American Teachers, Witchcraft and Blessings, Science and Rationality: Discourses of Power and Silence in Collaborative Work with Navajo Schools, (Response) Empowering the Culturally Diversified Sociological Voice, SECTION TWO: POWER AND METHOD IN CONTEXT, Relationships Within Qualitative Research, Alternative Methodologies and the Research Context, Distance and Relation Reconsidered: Tensions in the Ethnographic Text, (Response) Expanding Our Notions of "Critical Qualitative Methodology": Bringing Race, Class, and Gender into the Discussion SECTION THREE: POWER AND METHOD REVISITED Extending Power and Specifying Method Within the Discourse of Activist Research