This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Lee, V. E. Articles by Johnson, D. J. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

The Difficulty of Identifying Rare Samples to Study: The Case of High Schools Divided Into Schools-Within-Schools

University of Michigan

This note has two purposes: (1) to describe a process used to identify a rare sample of U.S. public secondary schools, those that are completely divided into smaller subunits that we call "schools-within-schools" (SWS); and (2) to provide descriptive information about the schools of that kind that we identified in our national search in Fall 1998. The procedures that we used to locate "full-model" SWS high schools in the United States involved snowball sampling and telephone interviews, in which we used a two-stage screening strategy. Although we searched extensively, we located a modest number (n = 55) of full-model public SWS high schools. Beyond spelling out our methodology for locating this unusual sample, we provide descriptive information about the schools along several dimensions: their regional location, the type of communities in which they are located, the size of their school districts, how many students they serve, their racial or ethnic compositions, and the themes on the basis of which their subunits are organized. We offer tentative conclusions about the SWS reform based on our research.

Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Vol. 23, No. 4, 365-379 (2001)
DOI: 10.3102/01623737023004365


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				K. Leithwood and D. Jantzi A Review of Empirical Evidence About School Size Effects: A Policy Perspective Review of Educational Research, March 1, 2009; 79(1): 464 - 490. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]