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Over the past three decades the issue of domestic violence in heterosexual relationships has been at the forefront of feminist activism and scholarship in the western world. Until recently there has been a reticence to explore women's violence, including violence in lesbian relationships. In this article I outline research undertaken in Australia on domestic violence in lesbian relationships, which involved interviews with 21 lesbians who identified as survivors of domestic violence. I summarize the findings of the research in order to demonstrate how the heterogeneity of lesbians' experiences poses challenges to practitioners and policy makers in health and human services to develop policy and practice that can take into account, and respond to, the different needs and interests of lesbians.

• Summary: This article identifies important challenges facing social work supervision as a result of the social, political and economic changes that have characterized the last two decades in most Western countries. In response a re-positioning of the critical tradition in the scholarship and practice of social work has been proffered by several authors (for example, Allan et al., 2003; Dominelli, 2002) as a means of addressing and counteracting the more negative challenges facing social work emanating from these changes. We argue that this critical re-positioning can also be applied to similar challenges facing practice supervision. • Findings: As the social work landscape has to contend with a more conservative and fiscally restrictive environment, so too has practice supervision become more focused on efficiency, accountability and worker performance often at the expense of professional and practice development. In addition, current research has identified a crisis in the probity of practice supervision where many practitioners cite disillusionment and despair, as well as lack of opportunity to stop and critically reflect on practice situations as another challenge in this changed climate. • Application: As a significant site of practice, a critically informed supervision praxis has the potential to emerge as a site for modelling social change strategies associated with the critical social work tradition.

Beginning and well-seasoned researchers alike face significant challenges in understanding the complexities of research designs arising from both within and across methodological paradigms, and in applying them in ways that maximise impact on knowledge, practice, and policy. This volume engages educational and social researchers in a scholarly debate offering some crucial re-interpretations of established research methodologies in light of contemporary conditions and critical introduction to some contemporary research approaches yet to gain general recognition. This book is a contemporary vademecum for researchers, practitioners and graduate students on research methodologies and designs for educational and social change in today's world. The chapters chart and analyse the conceptual and practical complexities of a variety research designs for contemporary educational and social work research. This anthology, taken overall, provides readers with the knowledge and understanding needed not only to design technically sound and coherent research studies, but also to develop methodologically innovative research projects that cross the boundaries between different methodological traditions to the benefit of scholarship, policy, and practice. The chapters cover nine research approaches: - Design-based research - Action research - Ethnomethodological research - Negotiated ethnography - Arts-informed research - Historical analysis and postcolonial scholarship - Policy analysis - Comparative research - Quantitative modelling of correlational and multi-level data The book provides a critical discussion of epistemological questions and methodological frontiers: - Knowledge and epistemology in scholarship, practice and policy - Digital knowledge and digital research - Emerging methodological challenges for educational research - Challenges and futures for social work and social policy research methods - Methodology and the knowledge industry