In this article we present and discuss experiences developed through a dialogue conference which we organised as part of a three-year participatory action research project related to primary education and agricultural education in Tanzania. We explore how dialogue conference as a research method can fill a gap between traditional ways of mutual…

This paper describes how administrator preparation programs can help future education leaders to value, understand, and use the democratic strategy of deliberative dialogue and action. The purpose of the strategy is to engage in a new way with teachers, parents, and other stakeholders about problems in their local public schools. Follow-up…

Three Rural Education Conferences sponsored during 1977 by the National Institute of Education proposed to find ways to strengthen the capacity of people at the local level to identify and solve their own education problems. The first conference focused on the nature of rural communities and the political, social, economic, and geographic…

A discussion of recent trends in state educational reform stresses the importance of addressing two challenges: teaching all students higher order thinking and developing more systematic, coherent policies. The article describes the challenges, examines how state policies in the 1980s addressed them and how districts responded, and suggests future…