How Do We Explain Our Educational Influence
in Living Our Democratic Values?
Jack Whitehead, University of Bath
web-page http://www.actionresearch.net
Jean McNiff, University of Limerick
web-page http://www.jeanmcniff.com
A presentation to the AERA Annual Conference on
Demography and Democracy in the Era of Accountability, 13 April 2005, Montreal. Session
40.041 Action Research in Higher Education.
This presentation follows the original AERA
proposal in which we set out our objectives and purposes, our theoretical
frameworks, our modes of enquiry, our data sources, our conclusions and the
educational significance of our enquiry. The contents of our original proposal
are italicised in bold in the main text to enable readers to see that we are
doing what we said we would do – one of the values of authenticity we
subscribe to in our action research in higher education. Additional references
with author and date, follow the numbered references from the original
proposal.
Objectives and purposes
In this paper we set out how we hold
ourselves accountable for our educational influences in our local and global
contexts as we offer our action research stories of educational theorising. Our
accountability is grounded in a process of democratic evaluation (1). In this
paper we will show how clarifying our ontological values such as freedom,
truth, beauty and justice, transforms them into living epistemological
standards of judgement for a new scholarship of
teacher education (2). We explain our understanding of the generative
transformational nature of emergent processes of action research, both at the
practical level of the formation of social relationships and also at the
theoretical level of the formation of conceptual relationships, and the
relationship between the two. In our presentation, using linguistic and visual
representations, we show how we are able to explicate the meanings that are
embodied in the kinds of productive work and loving relationships (3) that
animate our lives, and by which we justify our local, national and global
influence as we aim to exercise our educative potentials for social
transformation.
In holding ourselves to account, in relation to
our values, understandings and educational influences, we work with a process
of democratic evaluation that accepts Bernstein's definition of the conditions
for an effective democracy:
"First of all, there are the conditions
for an effective democracy. I am not going to derive these from high-order
principles; I am just going to announce them. The first condition is that
people must feel that they have a stake in society. Stake may be a bad
metaphor, because by stake I mean that not only are people concerned to receive
something but that they are also concerned to give something. This notion of
stake has two aspects to it, the receiving and the giving. People must feel
that they have a stake in both senses of the term.
Second, people must have confidence that the
political arrangements they create will realise this stake, or give grounds if
they do not. In a sense it does not matter too much if this stake is not
realised, or only partly realised, providing there are good grounds for it not
being realised or only partly realised." (Bernstein, 2000, p. xx).
Following MacDonald (1976) we see a condition of democratic evaluation as being an informed
citizenry. We also believe that democratic evaluation can assist, at times that
have been characterised in terms of paradigm proliferation (Donmoyer,
1996), in determining the adequacy and explanatory power of educational
theories. We are thinking of educational theories such as our own that claim to
have the capacity to explain the educational influences of individuals in their
own learning, in the learning of others and in the education of social
formations. Like MacIntyre we value the
ideas of the adequacy and explanatory power in our search to make contributions
to educational knowledge.
"The rival claims to truth of
contending traditions of enquiry depend for their vindication upon the adequacy
and the explanatory power of the histories which the resources of each of those
traditions in conflict enable their adherents to write." (MacIntyre, 1988, p. 403)
Theoretical frameworks
In our paper we explain how, throughout
our lives of educational enquiry, our aim has been to reconceptualise the nature,
development and use of educational theory through the development and
legitimation of action research (4, 5). This has meant critiquing traditional
forms of social science theory that are grounded in propositional analysis and
engaging instead in generating transformational forms of education that are
grounded in real lives. It has involved our coming to appreciate the damaging
potentials (6) of traditional forms of propositional theory and learning how to
transform those potentials into life-affirming processes by incorporating the
insights from traditional theories into our own living theories (7).
The need to reconceptualise educational theory
emerged over twenty years ago from the recognition of a mistake in the view
that educational theory was constituted by disciplines of education, such as
the philosophy, psychology, sociology and history of education. This mistake
was recognised by Paul Hirst, one of the original proponents of the
'disciplines' approach when he said that much understanding of educational
theory will be developed:
".. in the context of immediate practical experience and will be
co-terminous with everyday understanding. In particular, many of its
operational principles, both explicit and implicit, will be of their nature
generalisations from practical experience and have as their justification the
results of individual activities and practices.
In many characterisations of educational
theory, my own included, principles justified in this way have until recently
been regarded as at best pragmatic maxims having a first crude and superficial
justification in practice that in any rationally developed theory would be
replaced by principles with more fundamental, theoretical justification. That
now seems to me to be a mistake. Rationally defensible practical principles, I
suggest, must of their nature stand up to such practical tests and without that
are necessarily inadequate."
(Hirst,
1983, p. 18)
Our main criticism of constituting educational
theory as a propositional theory is that such theories abide by the
Aristotelean Law of Contradiction that eliminates from theory the possibility
that two mutual exclusive statements can be true simultaneously. In our
understanding of an educational theory it must have the capacity to explain our
educational influence in our own learning, in the learning of others or in the
education of a social formation. In our explanations of our educational
influences in our own learning, we recognise the significance of our existence
as living contradictions as we explore questions of the kind, 'how do I improve
what I am doing?' In understanding and explaining our learning as living
contradictions we feel the absurdity of attempting to explain this learning in
terms of any propositional theory that eliminates contradictions from the
explanation. In saying this we recognise the truth of power that is
sustaining the 2,500 year old cultural legacy of Aristotelean logic in the
Academy. We want to stress that we are not criticising the contributions that
propositional forms of theory can make to living educational theories. All our
publications show that we acknowledge the valuable insights we have gained from
such theories. What we are saying is that a valid educational theory must be
able to explain the educational influence of a learner in his or her own
learning and include the expression of the understanding
of experiencing oneself as a living contradiction.
In both our doctorates (McNiff, 1989,
Whitehead, 1999) we demonstrate how we have created our own living educational
theories as explanations of our educational influences in our own learning as
we explore the implications of asking, researching and answering questions of
the kind, 'how do I improve what I am doing?' In producing our explanations for
this learning, within our dialogical and dialectical enquiries we drew insights
from several propositional theories in such a way that our examiners could see
the necessary extent and merit of our work, as well as our originalities of
mind and critical judgement, to recommend the award of our doctorates.
Our focus on the development of living
educational theories has meant coming to understand the nature and development
of our own lives of enquiry (8) as we find ways of producing accounts of
practices that will inform the education of social formations (8, 9, 10, 11),
recognising the centrality of the explicit articulation of the validation
processes involved that enables practitioners to hold themselves accountable
for their work.
In developing our living educational theories
as explanations of our educational influences in the education of social
formations we draw ideas from two social theorists who have analysed social
formations. From Bourdieu we understand the idea of the power of the habitus in
analysing social formations:
"... social science makes greatest use
of the language of rules precisely in the cases where it is most totally
inadequate, that is, in analysing social formations in which, because of the
constancy of the objective conditions over time, rules have a particularly
small part to play in the determination of practices, which is largely
entrusted to the automatisms of the habitus."
(Bourdieu, p. 145, 1990)
For Bourdieu the habitus is embodied history.
It is internalized as a second nature and so forgotten as history and is the
active presence of the whole past of which it is the product. The habitus is
what gives practices their relative autonomy with respect to external
determinations of the immediate present. Bourdieu says that this autonomy
is that of the past, enacted and acting, which functioning as accumulated
capital, produces history on the basis of history and so ensures the permanence
in change which makes the individual agent a world within the world. The
habitus is a spontaneity without consciousness or will, opposed as much to the
mechanical necessity of things without history in mechanistic theories as it is
to the reflexive freedom of subjects 'without inertia' in rationalist theories.
(Bourdieu, p. 56, 1990)
The academic habitus we inhabit supports the
truth of power of Aristotlean Logic, or as Marcuse describes it, the logic of
domination (Marcuse, 1964, p. 105). When we write about our educational
influence in the education of social formations we are referring to our influence
in the pedagogisation of living educational theories in higher education.
We have drawn this idea of pedagogisation from Bernstein's analysis of the
importance of pedagogy in his work on pedagogy, symbolic control and identity:
Pedagogy is a sustained process whereby somebody(s)
acquires new forms or develops existing forms of conduct, knowledge, practice
and criteria from somebody(s) or something deemed to be an appropriate provider
and evaluator - appropriate either from the point of view of the acquirer or by
some other body(s) or both (Bernstein, p.78, 2000).
When Bernstein writes about pedagogy he refers
to pedagogic relations that shape pedagogic communications and their relevant
contexts. He distinguishes three basic forms of pedagogic relation: explicit, implicit and tacit. We focus on explicit
pedagogic relations where we have a purposeful intention to initiate, modify,
develop or change knowledge and where those in an educational relationship with
us define the relation as legitimate (p.200). By this we mean that the explicit
educational intention in our pedagogic relations is to support the generation
of testing of the living educational theories of other practitioner-researchers
as well as of each other.
In our recognition of the centrality of the
explicit articulation of the validation processes we use that enables
practitioners to hold themselves accountable for the educational influence in
their work, we are mindful of the influence of three ideas from the work of
Habermas on social validation, learning and justification in moral discourses.
In seeking to strengthen the validity of living
educational theories we agree with Habermas' point about the importance, for
social validity, of ensuring that the accounts are comprehensible, that
sufficient evidence is provided to justify the assertions, that the normative
background of the account is made explicit and that the accounts are authentic
in that the writer shows over time and in interaction that they are committed
to what they claim to be committed to (Habermas, 1976).
Like Habermas we focus on the importance of
learning in the creation of living educational theories. In his work on the
legitimation crisis he points to an autonomous inability not to learn as the
fundamental mechanism for social evolution.
'It is my conjecture that the fundamental
mechanism for social evolution in general is to be found in an automatic
inability not to learn. Not learning but not-learning is the phenomenon that calls for
explanation at the socio-cultural stage of development. Therein lies, if you
will, the rationality of man. Only against this background does the
over-powering irrationality of the history of the species become visible.' (emphasis in original) (Habermas,
p. 15, 1975)
He continues to stress the importance of
learning in his theory of communicative action where he points out that theory
generation:
"... must orient itself to the range of
learning processes that is opened up at a given time by a historically attained
level of learning. It must refrain from critically evaluating and normatively
ordering totalities, forms of life and cultures, and life-contexts and epochs
as a whole. And yet it can take up some of the intentions for which the
interdisciplinary research program of earlier critical theory remains
instructive.
Coming at the end of a complicated study of
the main features of a theory of communicative action, this suggestion cannot
count even as a "promissory note." It is less a promise than a
conjecture."
(Habermas, 1987, p. 383)
In our focus on living educational theories
that can explain educational influences in the education of social formations
we also bear in mind Habermas' idea that the
private autonomy of equally entitled citizens can be secured only insofar as
citizens actively exercise their civic autonomy:
"The dispute between the two received
paradigms - whether the autonomy of legal persons is better secured through
individual liberties for private competition or through publicly guaranteed
entitlements for clients of welfare bureaucracies - is superseded by a
proceduralist concept of law. According to this conception, the democratic
process must secure private and public autonomy at the same time: the
individual rights that are meant to guarantee to women the autonomy to pursue
their lives in the private sphere cannot even be adequately formulated unless
the affected persons themselves first articulate and justify in public debate
those aspects that are relevant to equal or unequal treatment in typical cases.
The private autonomy of equally entitled citizens can only be secured insofar
as citizens actively exercise their civic autonomy." (Habermas, 2002, p.264)
In producing accounts of educational influences
in learning we are mindful of the theoretical resource of Rorty where he writes
of narratives that connect the present with the past, on the one hand, and with
utopian futures, on the other. We agree with Rorty about what he calls the
contingency of language – the fact that there is no way to step outside
the various vocabularies we employ to find a metavocabulary which somehow takes
account of all possible vocabularies, all possible ways of judging and feeling
(Rorty, 1989, p. xvi). When Rorty advocates a general turn against theory and
toward narrative we understand him to be writing about propositional theories.
Rather than seeing our work as a turn against such theories we prefer to
embrace insights from propositional theories and to see our narratives, in
which we explain our educational influences in learning, as our living
educational theories.
Our own accounts of practice, including
this paper, contain the descriptions and explanations we offer for our
collaborative learning practices as we encourage other educators also to
produce descriptive and explanatory accounts of their practice. These accounts,
including our own, contain the personal I-theories of education (12) that make
clear the philosophical base of practitioners' work. We show how those theories
are generative and transformational in nature, and mirror the generative
transformational nature of the living practices of educators as they strive to
live their educational values in their practice.
We are thinking here of our doctoral theses
(McNiff, 1989; Whitehead, 1999) and the living theory theses flowing through
web-space from: http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/living.shtml
If you browse through the titles and abstracts
of these theses you will see accounts of personal I-theories of education that
have been awarded their doctorates of philosophy for the generation of original
contributions to educational knowledge. Each thesis clarifies the philosophical
base of the practitioner-researcher's educational enquiry in the explication of
the ontologies, epistemologies and methodologies at work in the enquiry. The
theories are generative in nature because they focus on the
practitioner-researcher as a knowledge-creator. The theses are transformatory
in two senses. In the first sense they are transformatory because the learning
involves learning to live values more fully in practice. In the second sense
they are transformatory in relation to the knowledge-base of the Academy
because they demonstrate the possibility of legitimating enquiries of the kind,
'How do I improve what I am doing?' Our doctorates also mirror the generative
transformational nature of our practices as educators as we analysed our
learning in explorations of the implications of asking, researching and
answering the above question. We believe that you will recognise this kind of
question as one that you are asking yourselves as you strive to live your
educational values in your practice. Our belief is open to your validation or
refutation. We will return to this point about validation in the section below
on data sources.
Our accounts of practice, in which we
foreground the need to make clear the evidence base of our validity claims,
show the transformational processes involved in realising our educational
values as real life relationships, and how those real life relationships then
transform into the living manifestations of our ontological commitments. As we
produce our accounts of practice, we show how those ontological commitments
transform into the epistemological standards we use in our accounts of practice
to judge the validity of our claims to educational knowledge.
The transformation processes we have in mind
here involve an action research process in which we feel a tension and express
our concerns when we are not living our values as fully as we think we could
do. As we experience this tension our imaginations work to create an action
plan that we believe will move us towards the full realisation
of our values. We act on this and gather data that we believe will enable us to
make a judgement about the effectiveness of our actions in relation to our
values. We evaluate our actions and modify our concerns, ideas and actions in
the light of the evaluation. We produce an account of our educational
influences in learning which we submit to social validation and continue with
our enquiries into improving our practice.
In this process of explaining our educational
influences in learning, we clarify the meanings of our values as these emerge
in the practice of our enquiry. This clarification involves language. The
process of clarification transforms our experience of our embodied values into
the living and communicable epistemological standards of judgement we use to
evaluate the validity of our explanations of our educational influence.
If you would like more details of this process the following presentation to
the British Educational Research Association is flowing through web-space:
Whitehead, J. & McNiff, J. (2004)
Ontological, epistemological and methodological commitments in practitioner-research.
Paper presented at the BERA 04 Symposium 17 Sept. in Manchester on: "Have
We Created A New Epistemology For The New Scholarship Of Educational Enquiry
Through Practitioner Research? Developing Sustainable Global Educational Networks
Of Communication" Retrieved on 31 March 2005 from Education-line at http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/00003800.htm
In our educational enquiries we seek to remain
open to the possibilities that life itself permits and our living educational
theories recognise this openness in our resistance to explaining our
educational influences in learning from within a logic of domination that
creates a closed system of thought within a propositional theory. Here is what
we said about our modes of enquiry in our original proposal:
Modes of enquiry
We work as professional educators across
a range of demographic and professional constituencies in England and across
the globe. Our modes of enquiry are informed by a living theory approach to
action research in which we ask, research and answer questions of the kind,
'How are we improving our practices?' in the contexts our workplaces. These
contexts influence our modes of enquiry as we encounter the different power
relations that sustain different views as to what counts as evidence and
knowledge in educational enquiries (13).
Examples of this can be seen in Whitehead's
analyses of the growth of his educational knowledge. In his 1993 text (http://www.bath.ac.uk/%7Eedsajw/bk93/geki.htm ) Whitehead explains how context influenced his mode
of enquiry. He analyses his encounters with power relations that threatened his
employment as an educational researcher and imposed the disciplinary truth of
power in rejecting doctoral submissions with the explicit denial of any right
to question the judgements of examiners. He explained how such experiences
moved his mode of enquiry into the theoretical writings of Habermas, Foucault,
Bernstein and MacIntyre in his search for understanding of the truth of power.
In his 2004 multi-media presentation of the
growth of his educational knowledge (http://www.arexpeditions.montana.edu/articleviewer.php?AID=80 ) Whitehead includes a multi-media, visual narrative
of a performance text to communicate his passions for living justice, academic
freedom, integrity and freedom in his work. This can be accessed from the
AERA Action Research SIG Newsletter of March 2005 at:
http://coe.westga.edu/arsig/PDFs/ARNewsletter_V5_I2.pdf
and is connected to our claims to be contribution to a new knowledge-base for
education.
In our mode of enquiry of a living
theory approach to action research we have supervised practitioners in
workplace settings around the world. We have analysed our educational influence
in their higher degree enquiries as they investigate their practice and ask
questions of the form, 'How do I improve my practice here?' (9). This work,
spanning some three decades, has resulted in the development of a new knowledge
base (14, 15) that has grown in educational importance. This
knowledge-base comprises both the published accounts of practitioners, in the
form of their masters and doctoral dissertations and theses that show how those
practitioners can justifiably claim to have improved the quality of learning
experience for themselves and others (16) in the growth and use of educational
knowledge.
Examples of the living theory dissertations and
theses we have supervised can be seen in the action research theses section of:
http://www.jeanmcniff.com/ at http://www.jeanmcniff.com/reports.html
and at: http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/living.shtml
Examples of our analyses of our educational
influences can be seen in:
McNiff, J., McNamara, G. & Leonard, D.
(2000) Action Research in Ireland Dorset, September Books.
and in:
Whitehead, J. (1993) The Growth of Educational
Knowledge, Bournemouth; Hyde Publications. Retrieved on 31 March 2005 from http://www.bath.ac.uk/%7Eedsajw/bk93/geki.htm
Our modes of enquiry into our
educational influence include a discourse analysis that demonstrates the
growing educational influence of this knowledge-base both at the practical
level of supporting the continuing professional development of practitioners,
and at the theoretical level of influencing what counts as educational theory
and who counts as a knowing
educator.
We are thinking here of a discourse analysis
that focuses on the inclusion of 'I' as a living contradiction in educational
enquiries of the kind, 'How do I improve what I am doing?' We are thinking of
the use of the term 'living educational theories' refer
to the explanations of educational influences in learning that are produced in
such enquiries. We are thinking of the use of action-reflection cycles in the
clarification of the meanings of embodied values and their transformation into
living epistemological standards of judgement. We are also thinking of the
inclusion of the idea of educating social formations in the creation of living
educational theories.
One of the most impressive examples of the
originality of mind and critical judgement of a living educational theorist, in
demonstrating an educational influence in the education of a social formation,
can be seen on Margaret Farren's website at http://webpages.dcu.ie/~farrenm/.Clicking
on the Educators section at http://webpages.dcu.ie/~farrenm/currentwork.html brings you to the Dissertations section at http://webpages.dcu.ie/~farrenm/dissertations.html where you will find examples of living educational
theory theses, supervised by Farren and legitimated by Dublin City
University. Those colleagues who wish to see such accounts of educational
influence in learning, legitimated in their own Universities, may find
inspiration as we do, from this demonstration of what is possible on Margaret
Farren's web-site. In demonstrating her own originality of mind, Farren
also shows our educational influence and in turn influences our own learning
with her idea of the significance of development our pedagogies of the unique.
We will show how our modes of enquiry
themselves are in transition, as we extend attention from a focus on supporting
practitioners in the production of their educational accounts. Our focus moves
to an understanding of how the dissemination of our findings can act as a form
of social transformation that includes the interconnecting and branching
networks of communication of the internet. We now turn to the data sources we
will draw on in testing the validity of our claims to know the educational
influence of our action research.
One of the great benefits of Information and
Communication Technologies is that they permit access to data sources that are
flowing through web-space and can be accessed by anyone, anywhere who has
access to the web. If you view this presentation in a web-browser you should be
able to access each of the data sources below by clicking on:
http://www.jeanmcniff.com/reports.html
and
http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/living.shtml
Data sources
Our data sources are the results of our
supervisions to successful completion over the last ten years of some 18
doctoral theses and 70 masters dissertations from the range of demographic
contexts below.
These data sources include the successful
completions of the following educational enquiries:
How can I improve my practice as a
teacher in the area of assessment through the use of portfolios? – this
data source is from an Irish context.
The art of an educational enquirer. – this data source
is from Singapore.
How can I improve my teaching of pupils
with specific learning difficulties in the area of language? – this data
source is from an Irish context.
How can I help to enable sustainable
educational development in our Action Research Centre at Guyuan Teachers
College? – this data source is from a Chinese context.
How can I help the primary school
children I teach to develop their self-esteem? – this data source is from
an Irish context.
A Self Study Of A Higher Education Tutor:
How Can I Improve My Practice? – this data source is from the context of
a UK University.
How Can I Improve My Practice As A Superintendent
of Schools and Create My Own Living Educational Theory? - this data
source includes the development of a culture of enquiry within a large district
school board in North America.
The Making of an International Educator with Spiritual Values. - this data source includes an analysis of educational influence in Western Samoa, Fiji, Mauritius, Singapore, Hong Kong and the UK.
Our data sources also include our
self-study action research accounts of our educational influences and
relationships in our enquiries:
How do we develop relationships
that can be understood as free, truthful, and just?
How do we develop democratic
relationships?
How do we inform the education of wider
social formations by showing the educative potentials of personal relationships?
How do we show the educative power of the
propensity for community?'
Our data sources include the linguistic
and visual representations of these enquiries.
When we say that our modes of enquiry are
themselves living and in transition we have in mind our developing perspectives
on inclusionality and collaborative living educational theories. Drawing
insights from Rayner's (2005) work on inclusionality we are developing our
inclusional enquiries from an awareness of space and boundaries that are connective,
reflexive and co-creative. The inclusion of space in our awareness, especially
the connective potential of web-space, can be seen to be influencing our modes
of enquiry in this presentation. Through the inclusion of web-space we are able
to connect to each other in ways that were not possible some twenty years ago.
The connections made to the work of Margaret Farren above will serve to make
this point. This inclusion of web-space in our enquiries includes boundaries
that are connective, reflexive and co-creative. These are shown in the
resources flowing through the interconnecting and branching networks of
communication of web-space. Our creative and critical responses to the learning
opportunities opened up by the technology continue to support our educational
influences in our learning and to enable our
modes of enquiry to be sustained, living and in transition
We are also drawing insights from the work of
Tian (2005) and Tian and Laidlaw (2005) together with their colleagues on the
development of collaborative living educational theories at China's
Experimental Centre for Educational Action Research in Foreign Languages
Teaching hosted by Guyuan Teachers' College, where we are both visiting
professors.
We hope that you will feel the educational
influence of an inclusional awareness in your own learning as you access the
living theory accounts at:
http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/moira.shtml
You will be able to access the photograph from
the 30th September 2004 of the China Friendship awards with Wen Jiaboa, Premier
of the State Council that shows the recognition of Moira Laidlaw's contribution
to education in China. The images of the award and accreditation as visiting
professor, together with Dean Tian's introduction to the first Annual
International Conference of the Centre, serve to reinforce our own inclusional
awareness. We believe that reading the accounts of teacher-researchers in China
who are producing their own narratives with Chinese characteristics will do
much to enhance the flow of values that may characterise our common humanity.
As you browse down the list of accounts you may also find inspiration from
reading Laidlaw's accounts of her own learning as a teacher at Oldfield Girls
School in Bath as well as her accounts of her learning with her colleagues at
the Centre.
Peggy Leong's research as a teacher and manager
in the Academy of Best Learning in Education (ABLE) in the Institute of
Technical Education in Singapore (http://www.ite.edu.sg/~able/)
may also inspire you. Leong's living educational theory dissertation on
the 'Art of an Educational Inquirer' is a delightful analysis of an individual
seeking to sustain her sense of integrity in moving between the cultures of
Singapore and the UK (http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/peggy.shtml
). You can access the recent thinking of Leong and her colleagues at http://edt.ite.edu.sg/ite_conf/index.htm
The most impressive action research we have
seen in promoting the development of a culture of inquiry is that of Jackie
Delong and her colleagues, including Cheryl Black and Heather Knill-Griesser,
in the Grand Erie District School Board in Ontario. Cheryl and Jackie have
received awards from the Ontario Educational Research Council for their
leadership in action research. The evidence of their educational influences in
their own learning can be seen in their masters and doctoral degrees. The
evidence of their educational influences in the learning of colleagues can be
seen in four volumes of Passion in Professional Practice (Delong, Black &
Knill-Griesser, 2003; 2004). All of this evidence can be accessed in the
sections on 'passion' and 'dissertations' at
http://www.actionresearch.ca/
.
We hope that our conclusions and thoughts below
on the educational significance of our educational enquiries so far will serve,
alongside this presentation, to stimulate a communication with you that will
help to enhance the flow of values that carry hope for the future of humanity
and our own.
Conclusions
We believe that our lifelong research
processes demonstrate ever-emergent property in the form of the ongoing
realisation of an infinite capacity for learning, which in itself has infinite
capacity for educative influence across multiple contexts. Our evidence shows
how the practical development of individual awareness can transform into
community activism (16); and how the theoretical development of one concept,
for example 'women's ways of knowing', can transform into a new system of ideas
(11). It also shows the interpenetrating nature of the relationship between
practice and theory: how practice can act as the grounds for the creation of
new theory, which can then feed back into practice in modified forms, which
themselves have to be tested in relation to appropriate epistemological
standards of judgement which, in our understanding, take the form of a
practical realisation of educational values. Using the mode of enquiry of
methodological inventiveness (17) we have analysed the development of an
educational research methodology and epistemology that are grounded in our
ontological commitments. This mode of enquiry includes our use of multimedia
technologies in the creation of visual narratives of our educational
relationships and influences.
Educational significance
We believe that the educational significance
of our work lies in our capacity to clarify the processes we engage in as we
explicate the meanings of our lives in educational relation with others. This
clarification takes into account issues of power in rethinking domination and
resistance (18). We believe that this capacity itself has generative
transformational potential to influence the education of individuals and their
social formations through the creation of cultures of enquiry (19). By
explicating the processes involved we are able to demonstrate to others that
these processes are available to all, so that they also can access the meanings
they and others give to their lives. The narratives they can then produce, as
they account for their practical enquiries, contain further transformative
potential for the generation of new theories of education and social
transformation (20, 21, 22, 23). We are claiming that the significance of our
work lies in our capacity to explicate the ever-emergent processes of practical
and theoretical enquiry that enable the realisation of values that can
contribute to human wellbeing through social transformation.
The only point we would add to our original
proposal about issues of power in rethinking domination and resistance is in
relation to the debate between Caughlan (2005) and Schutz (2005) in Educational
Researcher. We agree with Caughlan that it is important to cut through the
mystification of control to enable people to resist their own domination. We
agree that we need to be accurate and specific about how and when domination
occurs. We also agree with Schutz about the importance of showing that for
particular purposes, in particular contexts, relatively simple descriptions of
how power operates may illuminate crucial aspects of how oppression operates in
the modern world, insights that may actually be obscured by the more nuanced
analyses that postmodernists often insist on (Schutz, p. 18, 2005). We also
value the postmodern insight that emphasises the role of each individual's
creative engagement in formulating the rules by which they live:
A postmodern artist or writer is in the
position of a philosopher: the text he writes, the work he produces are not in
principle governed by pre-established rules, and they cannot be judged
according to a determining judgement, by applying familiar categories to the
text or to the work. Those rules and categories are what the work of art itself
is looking for. The artist and the writer, then, are working without rules in
order to formulate the rules of what will have been done. (Lyotard, p. 81, 1986)
We believe that the validation and legitimation
of new living standards of judgement that can flow between cultural boundaries
are of educational significance for the AERA Action Research SIG's desire to
support the establishment of action research cultures across the world. We are
thinking of this significance in terms of the creation of cultures of
educational enquiry. We are thinking of cultures of educational enquiry that
can validate and legitimate accounts of each others' learning. We are thinking
of enquiries in which we hold
ourselves to account for living our democratic values as fully as we can as we
explore questions of the kind, 'How do we explain our educational influence in
living our democratic values?'
References
1.
Macdonald, B. (1976) 'Evaluation and the control of education', in R.
Tawney (Ed.) (1976) Curriculum Evaluation Today: Trends and Implications.
London, Macmillan.
2.
Bullough, R. & Pinnegar, S. (2004) Thinking about the thinking
about self-study: An Analysis of Eight Chapters, in Loughran, J. J., Hamilton,
M. L. LaBoskey, V. K, Russell, T. International Handbook of Self-Study of
Teaching and Teacher-Education Practices. Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic
Publishers.
3.
Fromm, E. (1960) Fear of Freedom. London, Routledge
4. Mills, G. (2002)
Action Research: A guide for teacher researchers. Pearson Education.
5.
McNiff, J., Lomax, P. & Whitehead, J. (2004) You and Your Action
Research Project. London; RoutledgeFalmer.
6. Polanyi, M.
(1958) Personal Knowledge. London, Routledge & Kegan Paul.
7.
McNiff, J. and J. Whitehead (2002) Action Research; Principles and
Practice (second edition). London, RoutledgeFalmer.
8.
Punia, R. (2004) My CV is My Curriculum: The Making of an
International Educator with Spiritual Values. Ed. D. Thesis, University of
Bath. Retrieved 21 July 2004 from http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/punia.shtml
9.
Whitehead, J. (1989) 'Creating a living educational theory from questions
of the kind, "How do I improve my practice?"'. Cambridge Journal of
Education 19(1): pp 41–52
10. Glenn, M (2004) 'How have I
generated new knowledge?' Working paper, Limerick, University of Limerick.
11. Hartog, M. (2004) A
Self Study Of A Higher Education Tutor: How Can I Improve My Practice? Ph.D.
Thesis, University of Bath. Retrieved 21 July 2004 from http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/hartog.shtml
12. Chomksy, N. (2000) New
Horizons in the Study of Language and Mind. Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press.
13. Whitehead, J. (2004) What counts as evidence in
self-studies of teacher education practices, in Loughran, J. J., Hamilton, M.
L., LaBoskey, V. K. & Russell, T. (2004) International Handbook of
Self-Study of Teaching and Teacher Education Practices. Dordrecht; Kluwer
14. Hiebert, J.,
Gallimore, R, & Stigler, W. (2002) 'A knowledge base for the teaching
profession: What would it look like and how can we get one?', Educational
Researcher, Vol. 31, No. 5, pp. 3-15.
15. Snow, C. E. (2001) 'Knowing What We Know: Children,
Teachers, Researchers', Educational Researcher, Vol. 30, No.7, pp. 3-9).
16. Laidlaw, M. (2004) 'How can
I help to enable sustainable educational development in our Action Research
Centre at Guyuan Teachers College?' Retrieved 21 July 2004 from http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw//moira/ml120704.htm
17. Dadds, M. & Hart, S.
(2001) Doing Practitioner Research Differently, p. 166. London;
RoutledgeFalmer.
18. Schutz, A. (2004)
'Rethinking Domination and Resistance: Challenging Postmodernism', Educational
Researcher Vol. 33, No. 1, pp. 15–23.
19. Whitehead, J. & Delong,
J. (2003) 'Knowledge-creation in educational leadership and administration
through teacher research', in A. Clarke & G. Erickson (eds) (2003) Teacher
Inquiry: Living the research in everyday practice. London; RoutledgeFalmer.
20. Masters Units for
Educational Enquiry. Retrieved on 23 July 2004 from http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/mastermod.shtml
21. Living Theory Theses.
Retrieved on 23 July 2004 from http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/living.shtml
22. Action Research in China at
Guyuan. Retrieved on 23 July 2004 from http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/moira.shtml
23. Action Research with
Professor Jean McNiff. Retrieved on 23 July 2004 from http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/mcniff.html
Additional References
Bernstein, B. (2000) Pedagogy, Symbolic Control
and Identity: Theory, Research, Critique. Lanham, Boulder, NewYork, Oxford;
Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Caughlan, S. (2005) Considering Pastoral Power:
A commentary on Aaron Schutz's "Rethinking Domination and Resistance:
Challenging Postmodernism" Educational Researcher, Vol. 34, No. 2, pp.
14-16.
Delong, J. Black, C. & Knill-Griesser, H.
(2004) Passion in Professional Practice IV. Brantford; Grand Erie District
School Board.
Delong, J., Black, C. & Knill-Griesser, H.
(2003) Passion in Professional Practice III. Brantford; Grand Erie District
School Board.
Donmoyer, R. (1996) Educational Research in an
Era of Paradigm Proliferation: What's a Journal Editor to Do? Educational
Researcher, Vol.
25, No.2, pp. 19-25
Habermas, J. (1975) Legitimation Crisis. London; Beacon.
Habermas, J. (1976) Communication and the Evolution of
Society.
Habermas, J. (1987) The Theory of Communicative
Action Volume Two: The Critique of Functionalist Reason. Oxford; Polity.
Habermas, J. (2002) The Inclusion of the Other:
Studies in Political Theory, Oxford; Polity.
Hirst, P. (Ed.) (1983) Educational Theory and
its Foundation Disciplines. London; RKP
Lyotard, F. (1986) The Postmodern Condition: A
report on Knowledge. Manchester; Manchester University Press.
MacIntyre,A. (1988) Whose Justice? Which
Rationality? London; Duckworth.
McNiff, J. (1989) An Explanation for an
Individual's Educational Development through the Dialectic of Action Research.
Ph.D. Thesis, University of Bath.
Rorty, R. (1989) Contingency, Irony and
Solidarity. Cambridge; Cambridge University Press.
Schutz. A. (2005) Theory Illuminates (and
Conceals): A Response to the Critique by Samantha Caughlan. Educational
Researcher, Vol. 34, No. 2, pp. 17-19.
Tian, F., (2005), 'How can I help my colleagues
to become more collaborative in their work in order to promote educational
sustainability?' in (ed.) Tian, F., & Laidlaw, M., (2005), 'Action
Research and the New Curriculum in China: Case Studies and Reports in the
Teaching of English,' Beijing Foreign Languages Research Press, Beijing (in
press)
Tian, F., & Laidlaw, M., (Ed.)
(2005), 'Action Research and the New Curriculum in China: Case Studies and
Reports in the Teaching of English,' Beijing Foreign Languages Research Press,
Beijing (in press)
Whitehead, J. (1999) How do I improve my
practice? Creating a discipline of education through educational enquiry. Ph.D.
Thesis, University of Bath. Retrieved 28 March 2005 from http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/jack.shtml