My main criticism of the book is that it is at times too mildly worded. Reading some of the outrageous examples of contempt or discrimination towards women I felt my anger deflated by the use of words such as "unfortunate" or "silly." Further, specific actions academic women and men can take to change the universities are not proposed. The chapter on recommendations only "suggest[s] how conditions generally could be improved." These improvements will not happen unless feminists on campus and in women's organizations at large organize themselves in strong pressure groups, support each other in their challenges, develop feminist agendas in their trade unions and, overall, become a voice that can no longer be dismissed.

Whereas Dagg and Thompson are generally critical of Faculty Associations that seem often too eager to represent their male members even when their behaviour is not ethical, it should be emphasised that it is the duty of a union to represent and defend all of its members. Women faculty members should challenge their union to do just that, to be an effective tool in the fight for more equitable terms of employment, academic freedom, unbiased hiring, tenure and promotion procedures, and the provision of services such as adequate child care centres. Faculty Associations have a major role to play in the education of their own members and the eradication of all forms of sexism from university grounds. They should also organise the academic staff who are in nontenurable positions and bargain for equal pay, benefits, and better working conditions for them. This is the only common sense approach to the divisions engineered by university administrations among teaching staff.

I must point out that the title of the book is misleading. Dagg and Thompson are not talking about "Canadian Universities." I could find only one reference to one of the Quebec francophone universities. The status of women in Quebec universities should elicit more interest than that, and they might have found a few things that women in the rest of Canada's universities could learn from. There are also too few illustrations from the Atlantic Provinces.

Overall, MisEducation is easy to read and packed with facts, but these facts are selectively chosen and not accumulated in. an overwhelming fashion. Dagg and Thompson must be commended for the courage it took to put all these facts together and publish the book in spite of the documented persecution of feminist academics who exercise their academic freedom in the midst of a very hostile environment. Academic women and men must stand up together to effect much needed changes in the universities.

Michèle Pujol is an economist living in Winnipeg. She is active in the development of Women's Studies in Manitoba and is presently researching the status of women in the province's universities and colleges.

Doing Participatory Research:
A Feminist Approach

REVIEW BY RETA OWENS

by Patricia Maguire
The Centre for International Education School of Education, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Massachusetts, 1987

I highly recommend Patricia Maguire's book, Doing Participatory Research: A Feminist Approach. A doctoral thesis that has been developed into a book manuscript, the study provides researchers, adult educators, and activists with a conceptual framework for conducting feminist participatory research. Patricia Maguire defines participatory research as a three-part process of knowledge creation that combines investigation, education, and action. Participatory research "aims to develop critical consciousness, to improve the lives of those involved in research process, and to transform fundamental societal structures and relationships" (p.4). The need for a conceptual framework to guide feminist participatory research grew out of an emerging awareness by Maguire during her graduate study program that women and gender issues were marginalized from research theory and practice, including participatory research. She therefore developed a planning and evaluation tool "to help create participatory research projects more likely to recognize and meet women's emancipatory needs"(p.128).