Research

Professor Howe’s scholarship has been historically concentrated in three major areas: educational ethics, social justice in education, and the philosophical dimensions of educational research. Each is ongoing and each informs his recent work in educational policy.

Educational Ethics
Professor Howe has worked in medical and nursing ethics, where he developed a general view that he also applies to education: professional ethics should be based on a model in which practitioners both help define the ethical problems to be addressed and participate in their solution. In 1992, he published the Ethics of Special Education (with Ofelia Miramontes), a book based largely on cases collected from practicing special educators and that incorporates the approach to professional ethics just described. He has also published several articles in educational ethics, the most recent of which is Ethics in Educational Research (with Michele Moses) in Review of Research in Education (1999).

Social Justice in Education
Professor Howe has an ongoing interest in the principle of equality of educational opportunity and its role in social justice. He has analyzed the concept of equal educational opportunity across a variety of educational policy issues, such as multicultural education, gender equity, testing and standards, separatism, and school choice. He has published a number articles in this general area in addition to a book, Understanding Equal Educational Opportunity: Social Justice, Democracy, and Schooling, in 1997.

The Philosophical Dimensions of Educational Research
Professor Howe also has an ongoing interest in the philosophical dimensions of educational research methodology. He has focused especial attention on the quantitative-qualitative and fact-value distinctions, the "two dogmas of educational research." He has written a number of articles on these topics, five of which have appeared in the Educational Researcher. His most recent book, Closing Methodological Divides: Toward Democratic Educational Research (2002), traces and extends this work. In a related vein, Professor Howe’s 1999 book, Values in Evaluation and Social Research (with Ernest House), articulates a conception of evaluation research that advocates fostering democratic deliberation in designing and conducting evaluations of educational and social policies.

Education Policy Research
Professor Howe’s fourth and newest area of scholarship is empirical research on educational policy. He has published several articles, in the Phi Delta Kappan and in Educational Leadership both with Margaret Eisenhart and Damian Betebenner), on an empirical study of Boulder, Colorado’s, school choice system. He also conducted a study of the role of the American College Testing (ACT) examination in Colorado’s standards-based accountability system (with Damian Betebenner). (For more information, see: education.colorado.edu/EPIC.)