This course provides students with an overview of the philosophical, practical, and ethical issues involved in designing and conducting qualitative research in education. Students will be introduced to the need to conceptualize qualitative research at multiple levels, including epistemology, theory, approach, and strategy. They will use this framework to examine four paradigms including objectivist, hermeneutic, emancipatory, and critical research, and to explore established qualitative approaches, including case study research, ethnographic research, action research, and discourse analytic research. The course will also focus on data collection and analysis, examining issues involved in each of the three overarching strategies of observation, interview, and document analysis. Throughout the course, questions concerning the nature of knowledge, truth, and language, as well as issues of power, responsibility and ethics will be foregrounded.