An overview of the many types of studies that fall into the qualitative design genre is provided. Strategies that qualitative researchers use to establish the authors' studies as credible and trustworthy are listed and defined. So that readers will recognize the important contribution qualitative studies have made in the field of special education, a range of well-known and lesser known examples of qualitative research are reviewed. The quality indicators that are important in conducting and evaluating qualitative research are identified. Finally, as an example of the evidence that can be produced using qualitative methods, the authors provide a summary of how 3 studies have provided important information that can be used to inform policy and practice.

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It is often by telling stories that educators, as well as the public at large, have come to understand the needs of persons with disabilities. In fact, it would not be unreasonable to say that the power of individual stories of persons with disabilities-and the struggles they have endured-undergirds the advocacy that continues to serve the field of special education so well in achieving the current level of rights those with disabilities enjoy. Story by story, or as Noddings and Witherell (1991) write, "working case by case, we can build impressive arguments that something is wrong, or that something works, or that something comes in infinite varieties" (p. 280), and in so doing, move people to action. Stories readily connect us to individuals whose life situations represent ethical or moral or political struggles about which we are enjoined to take a stand. Told well, according to Barone (1990), good stories "are located in that imaginary space where a seriously deficient here-andnow meets a desirable, but possible, future" (p. 311). In fact, it is often the stories that stay with us as the kernel of our commitments to action.In the world of educational research, it is typically through qualitative methodology that such stories are told. These stories are anchored in real, local meaning and experience and, over the last several decades, have earned an increas-439 Abstract: In recent years qualitative research has earned an increasingly legitimate place as a form of systematic inquiry in educational scholarship. Special education researchers who draw on qualitative methods have responded by using this research paradigm chiefly to document stories of individuals with disabilities. However, rarely have these studies been extended to consider the broader sociocultural contexts within which disability exists. A case is made in this article for broadening the view of qualitative research that governs its practice within special education in an effort to challenge both the nature of the stories we choose to tell about disability as well as the frameworks by which these stories are disciplined. Exceptional Children"

This article provides an analysis of how collaborative teacher education has developed in terms of practice, discourse, and the relationship between general and special education across three historical stages. It explores how collaborative teacher education between general and special education has been positioned over time in relationship to larger national reform efforts in teacher education. Approaching the history of collaborative teacher education developmentally from these three perspectives sheds light on how today’s emphasis on collaboration and multiple certifications intersects with what it means to teach in a diverse society and what it means to prepare teachers to meet the needs of every student.

Special education has supported the implementation and study of a variety of prereferral interventions as a means of reducing the number of inappropriate formal referrals, especially in the field of learning disabilities. Programs of preservice teacher education are beginning to reflect the practice of prereferral activity programmatically by including preparation for teaming and consultation roles. In this article, the assumptions associated with the most prominent categories of prereferral interventions being adopted—consultation and informal problem-solving teams—are examined. A critical analysis of the benefits and limitations of each approach is offered, and alternative conceptions of prereferral practice are then presented.