How do I assess the quality of the standards of judgement I use in validating my explanations of my educational influences in m

Living Educational Theory and Standards of Judgement: A contribution to the debate about assessing the quality of applied and practice-based educational research.

Jack Whitehead, Department of Education, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7 AY

17 JUNE 2005

Abstract

This paper is grounded in the assumption that individuals can create their own living educational theories as explanations for their educational influences in their own learning, in the learning of others and in the education of social formations. An evidence base of some twenty living theory theses that have been legitimated in the Academy is presented to support this assumption. The process of legitimation involves standards of judgement for assessing the quality of these applied and practice-based theses. The purpose of this paper is to explicate the unit of appraisal, standards of judgement and logics that can be used in the validation and legitimation of claims to educational knowledge that are made within a living theory perspective. The standards include embodied ontological, epistemological, methodological, socio-cultural and socio-historical values associated with educational influences in acting, being, enquiring, learning, knowing and pedagogising.

Introduction

I have two reasons for focusing on the quality of standards of judgement in explanations of educational influences in learning in enquiries of the kind, 'How do I improve what I am doing?' The first is intimately related to the significance I attach to consciousness in human existence. The second is that the future of educational research in the UK is highly dependent on the results of funding from the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise. This will need to assess the quality of applied and practice-based educational research with appropriate criteria:

'Where researchers in higher education have undertaken applied and practice-based research that they consider to have achieved due standards of excellence, they should be able to submit it to the RAE in the expectation that it will be assessed fairly, against appropriate criteria' RAE 2008 (Furlong & Oancea, 2005)

This paper is intended as a contribution to public awareness of these appropriate criteria. The way I have organised the paper is to begin with an explanation of why I value the conscious creation of what I term living educational theories. The explanation is grounded in the evidence-base of some 20 living theory theses that have been legitimated in the Academy over the past ten years. These theses are accessible on the web from the live urls below. This evidence-base of living theories leads me to focus on the nature of the standards of judgement that have been used to assess the quality of the explanations of educational influence in learning that constitute such theories. Ontological, epistemological, methodological and postcolonial standards of judgement are distinguished for assessing the quality of applied and practice-based educational research in terms of the generation of such theories.

What do I mean by living educational theories?

I work with the idea that the educational theories of individuals, and the educational theories embodied in a culture and communicated through family and peer relationships, schools and universities, are highly significant for the future of humanity. I use the idea of living educational theory to mean the explanations that individuals produce for their educational influences in their own learning, in the learning of others and in the education of social formations. We are social beings and our lives and learning are influenced by the social formations in which we live and work. In stressing the importance of the awareness of individuals I do not want to underemphasise the importance of relations with others in our learning. I want to emphasise the importance of our collective influences in the learning of social formations through the creation of living educational theories (Tian & Laidlaw, 2005)

I find this idea of living educational theory helpful in distinguishing these explanations from the explanations generated from studies of education within the conceptual frameworks and methods of validation of the philosophy, psychology, sociology, history, management, economic, politics and theology of education. This is a most important distinction in assessing the quality of the explanations that constitute living educational theories. I shall explore the significance of this distinction below in terms of the ontological, epistemological, methodological and postcolonial standards of judgement in explanations of educational influences in learning.

In my educational relationships my intention is to influence my own learning and the learning of others in creating living educational theories that fulfil criteria of originality of mind, critical judgement, extent and merit of the work and matter worthy of publication. These are criteria used by examiners in judging doctoral theses in the University of Bath. I use these to help me to assess the quality of the standards of judgement in my applied and practice-based research. I also work in my educational relationships with the intention of contributing to learning how to evolve a postcolonial social formation through the creation of living educational theories. I see this contribution in terms of helping to legitimate living standards of judgement in the Academy that express a loyalty to humanity. I shall clarify below my meaning of loyalty to humanity in terms of my own ontology, my theory of being, as I show how others have enabled me, in my supervision, to clarify for myself my own values of humanity as I recognise their own. As I do this I am aware of working with a sense of self that is consistent with that of Ramachandran:

What exactly do people mean when they speak of the self? Its defining characteristics are fourfold. First of all, continuity. You've a sense of time, a sense of past, a sense of future. There seems to be a thread running through your personality, through your mind. Second, closely related is the idea of unity or coherence of self. In spite of the diversity of sensory experiences, memories, beliefs and thoughts, you experience yourself as one person, as a unity.

So there's continuity, there's unity. And then there's the sense of embodiment or ownership - yourself as anchored to your body. And fourth is a sense of agency, what we call free will, your sense of being in charge of your own destiny. (Ramachandran, 2003)

Part of my own pedagogy is to assist others to bring their own values of humanity into the academy as living epistemological standards of judgement. As I do this I intend to communicate my understanding of methodological insights that have contributed to the fulfilment of these intentions and my understanding of socio-cultural and historical values in a postcolonial critical pedagogy (Murray 2005).

I am thinking of pedagogy as a sustained process whereby somebody acquires new forms and develops existing forms of conduct, knowledge, practice and criteria (Bernstein, 2000, p.78). I am thinking of my explicit pedagogy in the sense that my intention is highly visible (ibid, p.200).

Here is the evidence-base I use to support my analysis.

The evidence-base of living educational theories

Because each of the studies below has taken a minimum of 5 years of sustained, rigorous and systematic enquiry for their successful completion and has met the above standards of judgement, I want to focus attention on the significance of these contributions to educational knowledge, in relation to their contribution to understanding how to assess the quality of applied and practice-based educational research. If you are viewing this in your web-browser you can access the titles, abstracts and full contents from the urls accompanying each contribution below.

I am asking you to focus on the titles, abstracts and acknowledgements. In my supervision I always stress the importance of ensuring that the title communicates the question to which the thesis is an answer. Hence most of the titles include a practical question. I also stress the importance of ensuring that the abstract states clearly what the researcher believes the thesis is contributing to the educational knowledge base through the expression of originality of mind, critical judgement and extent and merit of the work. Each abstract has emerged from many hours of reflection on the nature of the originality of mind and critical judgement expressed in the thesis. Each abstract defines the unique contribution to educational knowledge being made by the practitioner-researcher. Each abstract describes the critical standards of judgement to which the researcher holds themselves to account in their thesis in giving a form to their lives through their enquiry.

My reason for focusing some attention on the acknowledgements is that they highlight significant others in the researcher's life and learning. These acknowledgements also connect with my own productive life in the sense that I think of my productive life in education as intimately connected to the creating, testing and communication of living educational theories. What I seek to do in my supervision is to support others in the generation of knowledge about their educational influences in learning to live values of humanity as fully as they can. I use my intuitive judgement and imagination in sensing and reflecting back to the other the values I experience as embodied in who they are and what they do. I seek to explore the implications of living these values as fully as they can for their knowledge-creation and the creation of their own forms of life. As I do this in my supervision of the research programmes I am also doing this for myself.

Hence I believe that the titles, abstracts and acknowledgements of the living theory theses would repay your close attention and could serve to motivate you to engage with the thesis as a whole. I have placed the full list in the Appendix. Because of the length of the list I have only selected 10 below to include at this point because they span a range of leadership and teaching roles. The list includes two head teachers - one from a Charter School in Alaska and one from a primary school in the UK, two deputy head teachers – both from secondary schools, five teachers -four from secondary schools and one from higher education, and a senior administrator from a large District School Board in Canada. As I look at the acknowledgements in these accounts I also feel the affirmation that Marx writes about in his early writings when he says that in producing something as a human being we are twice affirmed. We are affirmed in having produced something of value for ourselves and we are affirmed in the other's use of our product as it assists them in giving a form to their own lives. Following each title I have included a sentence or two from the Abstract that highlights for me the unique contribution of each individual to the knowledge-base of education and the flow of values that carry hope for the future of humanity.

Eames, K. (1995) How do I, as a teacher and educational action-researcher, describe and explain the nature of my professional knowledge? Ph.D. Thesis, University of Bath. Retrieved 19 February 2004 from http://www.actionresearch.net/kevin.shtml

The analyses I make of the resulting challenges to my thinking and practice show how educators in schools can work together, embodying a form of professional knowledge which draws on Thomism and other manifestations of dialectical rationality.

Evans, M. (1995) An action research enquiry into reflection in action as part of my role as a deputy headteacher. Ph.D. Thesis, Kingston University. Retrieved 19 February 2004 from http://www.actionresearch.net/moyra.shtml

Within a hierarchically organised institution, I learned to work with teachers collaboratively, enabling us all to participate in a dialogical learning community, in which we took control of our learning so that we owned our development, establishing value positions and supporting and nurturing each other through empathising with each other's experiences. We learnt to recognise, value and express our feelings about our action and our learning, using story to transform our understanding of a situation and to engage others in exploring new perspectives of it. In this thesis I show how teachers can effect changes which lead to improved professional practices, greater understanding of each other and increased motivation and how their school-based work was legitimated by the Academy in the form of Post Graduate Diplomas.

Laidlaw, M. (1996) How can I create my own living educational theory as I offer you an account of my educational development? Ph.D. thesis, University of Bath. Retrieved 19 February 2004 from http://www.actionresearch.net/moira2.shmtl

In this thesis I have tried to show what it means to me, a teacher-researcher, to bring, amongst others, an aesthetic standard of judgement to bear on my educative relationships with Undergraduate, Postgraduate, Higher Degree education students and classroom pupils in the action enquiry: 'How do I help my students and pupils to improve the quality of their learning?'

Holley, E. (1997) How do I as a teacher-researcher contribute to the development of a living educational theory through an exploration of my values in my professional practice? M.Phil., University of Bath. Retrieved 19 February 2004 from http://www.actionresearch.net/erica.shtml

With its focus on the development of the meanings of my educational values and educational knowledge in my professional practice I intend this thesis to show the integration of the educational processes of transforming myself by my own knowledge and the knowledge of others and of transforming my educational knowledge through action and reflection. I also intend the thesis to be a contribution to debates about the use of values as being living standards of judgment in educational research.

Loftus, J. (1999) An action enquiry into the marketing of an established first school in its transition to full primary status. Ph.D. thesis, Kingston University. Retrieved 19 February 2004 from http://www.actionresearch.net/loftus.shmtl

Claim Number One. This thesis contributes to the professional knowledge-base of education in a description and explanation of how a headteacher in a newly formed primary school has asked, researched and answered questions of the form 'How can I improve my own leadership and management?'.

Claim Number Two. This thesis makes an original contribution to knowledge in an analysis of the extent to which industrial marketing strategies were effective in the educational context of marketing a primary school.

Claim Number Three. This thesis is an original study of a headteacher in a primary school striving to live his values in his practice so as to maintain his integrity in the light of incessant changing education reforms.

Finnegan, J. (2000) How do I create my own educational theory in my educative relations as an action researcher and as a teacher? Ph.D. submission, University of Bath. Retrieved 19 February 2004 from http://www.actionresearch.net/fin.shtml

In helping to facilitate an expression of student voices in my teaching, as I seek to improve their learning, I enable my sixth form students and myself to engage in more democratic actions and more egalitarian power relations in the classroom, primarily through the elicitation/creation, greater enactment, and evaluation of teaching/learning communicative activities. In this, How can I help you to improve your learning? is a question worth asking my sixth form students.

My work also shows that I have become a more reflective practitioner as I dialogue with the writings of other educators whilst seeking to relate my values concerning democratic action and social justice to my classroom teaching.

Austin, T. (2001) Treasures in the Snow: What do I know and how do I know it through my educational inquiry into my practice of community? Ph.D. Thesis, University of Bath. Retrieved 19 February 2004 from http://www.actionresearch.net/austin.shtml

I demonstrate how a teacher researcher can create her own knowledge through a combining and recombining practice, personal creativity, intuition, theoretical frameworks, and critical judgement in various degrees at different times. Set in a narrative context, I present a living picture of helping to form and work with communities of students, parents, teachers, and teacher researchers which provides the life-situations in which I created my own knowledge and strive to identify and live out my values.

This thesis shows an alternative to traditional forms of criticism frequently

found in academic work related to the growth of knowledge. This alternative is a written representation of my values that I use as my living standards of practice and judgment in the self-study of my professional practice.

Bosher, M. (2001) How can I as an educator and Professional Development Manager working with teachers, support and enhance the learning and achievement of pupils in a whole school improvement process? Ph.D. University of Bath. Retrieved 19 February 2004 from http://www.actionresearch.net/bosher.shtml

The first claim is the manner in which the thesis has engaged in a personal learning process using insights from the paradigm of Action Research, and the fields of School Effectiveness and School Improvement. These are combined and grounded in my day-to-day professional life as an educator and provide a means of showing how my learning is integrated into a school improvement process. It also shows how my living educational theory develops.

Delong, J. (2002) How Can I Improve My Practice As A Superintendent of Schools and Create My Own Living Educational Theory? Ph.D. University of Bath. Retrieved 19 February 2004 from http://www.actionresearch.net/delong.shtml

The originality of the contribution of this thesis to the academic and professional knowledge-base of education is in the systematic way I transform my embodied educational values into educational standards of practice and judgement in the creation of my living educational theory. In the thesis I demonstrate how these values and standards can be used critically both to test the validity of my knowledge-claims and to be a powerful motivator in my living educational inquiry.

The values and standards are defined in terms of valuing the other in my professional practice, building a culture of inquiry, reflection and scholarship and creating knowledge.

Hartog, M. (2004) A Self Study Of A Higher Education Tutor: How Can I Improve My Practice? Ph.D. University of Bath. Retrieved 19 August 2004 from http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/hartog.shtml

My claim to originality is embodied in the aesthetics of my teaching and learning relationships, as I respond to the sources of humanity and educative needs of my students, as I listen to their stories and find an ethic of care in my teaching and learning relationships that contain them in good company and that returns them to their stories as more complete human beings.

Evidence is drawn from life-story work, narrative accounting, student assignments, audio and video taped sessions of teaching and learning situations, the latter of which include edited CD-R files. These clips offer a glimpse of my embodied claims to know what the creation of loving and life-affirming educative relations involves.

Having made publicly available, on the web, these living theories what is my purpose in explaining my educational influences in my own learning and in the learning of others as we created our own living educational theories? My purpose is focused on assessing quality in applied and practice-based educational research. By clarifying and communicating the methodological, ontological, epistemological, and pedagogical standards of judgement that can be used to evaluate the validity of these living educational theories I intend to show how these accounts can be judged in terms of their quality. In my experience, ontological standards are formed from embodied ontological values as the meaning of these are clarified in the course of their emergence in practice and in narrative. These ontological standards can then be used as epistemological standards in evaluating the validity of an explanation of educational influence. The ways in which this can be done is described below in terms of an action research methodology that includes both personal and social validation. The use of a pegaogical standard of judgement is advocated for judging living theory theses in terms of their educational influence in the evolution of postcolonial social formations. Judging educational influence involves the use of values-based evidence of enquiry learning.

I have ordered the sections below in terms of their chronological emphasis in my research with the following contents in relation to this chronology.

I began with a focus on my methodological concerns in my acting as I wanted to understand 'how' I could explore the implications of asking, researching and answering my question, 'How do I improve my practice?'.

The focus on 'I' moved me into questions of being and ontological concerns in the sense of who was this 'I' who was acting and enquiring.

The methodological and ontological concerns were closely related to my interests in enquiring and learning.

My epistemological interests deepened as I focused on the nature of my knowing with the unit of appraisal, standards of judgement and logics I could use to evaluate the validity of my contributions to educational knowledge.

My pedagogical interests developed as I emphasised the importance of understanding educational influences in one's own learning, in the learning of others and in the learning of social formations. This latter interest helped to extend my insights into the significance of socio-cultural and social-historical theories. I am thinking of their influence in enhancing the contribution of living educational theories in the evolution of postcolonial social formations.

Assessing the quality of educational influences in acting: methodological standards of judgement.

In assessing the quality of acting I am focusing on methodological standards of judgement because I associate these standards with methodological questions about 'how' we enquire into something as we are acting. I think of actions and acting as involving conscious behaviour in the sense that I am aware of what I am doing. While the different standards I use are all related, my early research focused on the 'how' in 'How do I improve my practice?' in the context of my educational relationships with my pupils.

In developing methodological standards for assessing the quality of applied and practice-based research I am aware of using insights from Lyotard, Marcuse, Ryle, Feyerabend and Dadds and Hart. Perhaps the most important of these is Lyotard's insight from his analysis of postmodernism and knowledge when he said:

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, 1984)

In exploring the implications of asking, researching and answering a question of the kind, 'How do I improve what I am doing?' an individual researcher is participating in the creation of their own form of life. They are formulating the rules or standards by which they account for how they are living as they enquire creatively and critically into how to live their values of humanity more fully in their practice.

Given the world as it is, with starvation, wars and poverty still widely experienced, I doubt if anyone would claim that the world's social formation could not be improved. I know that when I see evidence of starvation, war and poverty, I experience myself living contradictions because of the well-being, material goods and peace I experience in my social context. From the ground of such living contradictions and in the understanding that nobody 'knows' the future, there is the opportunity to exercise originality of mind and critical judgement to create possible futures in the imagination. In our actions we can project ourselves into the realisation of a chosen possibility. In judging the quality of acting it may seen strange to include an aesthetic judgement but I do so because of the role of aesthetics in seeing action as a work of art.

I am thinking of art in the sense of giving form to whatever medium one is working with. So, in the sense that one is forming one's life in acting to create the future, I see the creation of one's form of life as a work of art. In this perception I follow Marcuse's point about the inner logic of the work of art defying the rationality and sensibility of the dominant social institutions:

I shall submit the following thesis: the radical qualities of art, that is to say, its indictment of the established reality and its invocation of the beautiful image (schoner Schein) of liberation are grounded precisely in the dimensions where art transcends its social determination and emancipates itself from the given universe of discourse and behaviour while preserving its overwhelming presence. Thereby art creates the realm in which the subversion of experience proper to art becomes possible: the world formed by art is recognised as a reality which is suppressed and distorted in the given reality. This experience culminates in extreme situations (of love and death, guilt and failure, but also joy, happiness, and fulfilment) which explode the given reality in the name of a truth normally denied or even unheard. The inner logic of the work of art terminates in the emergence of another reason, another sensibility, which defy the rationality and sensibility incorporated in the dominant social institutions.

Under the law of the aesthetic form, the given reality is necessarily sublimated: the immediate content is stylized, the "data" are reshaped and reordered in accordance with the demands of the art form, which requires that even the representation of death and destruction invoke the need for hope – a need rooted in the new consciousness embodied in the work of art. (Marcuse, 1979, pp. 6-7)

In assessing the quality of acting I use Gilbert Ryle's (1949) insight that efficient practice precedes the theory of it. I also use his insight that methodologies presuppose the critical application of the methods of which they are the products. In assessing the quality of methodological standards of judgement I balance this idea of the critical application of methods with the insights of Dadds and Hart (2001) on methodological inventiveness:

" The importance of methodological inventiveness

Perhaps the most important new insight for both of us has been awareness that, for some practitioner researchers, creating their own unique way through their research may be as important as their self-chosen research focus. We had understood for many years that substantive choice was fundamental to the motivation and effectiveness of practitioner research (Dadds 1995); that what practitioners chose to research was important to their sense of engagement and purpose. But we had understood far less well that how practitioners chose to research, and their sense of control over this, could be equally important to their motivation, their sense of identity within the research and their research outcomes." (Dadds & Hart, p. 166, 2001)

"If our aim is to create conditions that facilitate methodological inventiveness, we need to ensure as far as possible that our pedagogical approaches match the message that we seek to communicate. More important than adhering to any specific methodological approach, be it that of traditional social science or traditional action research. may be the willingness and courage of practitioners – and those who support them – to create enquiry approaches that enable new, valid understandings to develop; understandings that empower practitioners to improve their work for the beneficiaries in their care. Practitioner research methodologies are with us to serve professional practices. So what genuinely matters are the purposes of practice which the research seeks to serve, and the integrity with which the practitioner researcher makes methodological choices about ways of achieving those purposes. No methodology is, or should, cast in stone, if we accept that professional intention should be informing research processes, not pre-set ideas about methods of techniques."(Dadds & Hart, p. 169, 2001)

This idea of methodological inventiveness emphasises the originality of mind and critical judgement of the practitioner-researcher as the educational enquiry moves on. Feyerabend in his work on Against Method stresses that the meanings of values such as freedom can only be understood in the course of their emergence in practice. He cautions against the application of a method that is not responsive to the changing circumstances of an enquiry.

You can review the evidence on how I use these ideas in distinguishing methodological standards in applied and practice based educational research in my doctoral thesis (Whitehead, 1999). In this thesis I demonstrated the need to move beyond a particular four fold classification of social science methodologies (Mitroff & Kilman 1978) in assessing the quality of acting in educational enquiries of the kind, 'How do I improve what I am doing?'

Mitroff and Kilman classified social science methodologies into the preferred logics and methods of enquiry of an analytic scientist, a conceptual theorists, a conceptual humanist and a particular humanist. In the course of analysing my own methodological inventiveness I demonstrated the need for a methodology of educational enquiry that could not be reduced to any of these social science methodologies.

The educational research methodology was developed as a response to the experience of a denial of ontological values in my practice. It involved:

the exercise of imagination in developing an action plan,
the projection of one's actions in the direction of the plan,
the gathering of data to make a judgement on the effectiveness of actions,
the evaluation of effectiveness and the production of a narrative of learning that explained one's educational influence in learning for submission to a validation group of peers (McNiff and Whitehead, 2005).

This action research methodology included the creative responses of the validating group to suggest ways of moving the enquiry forward. It included the application of Habermas' four criteria of social validation in reaching a shared understanding:

I shall develop the thesis that anyone acting communicatively must, in performing any speech action, raise universal validity claims and suppose that they can be vindicated (or redeemed). Insofar as he wants to participate in a process of reaching understanding, he cannot avoid raising the following – and indeed precisely the following – validity claims.....

The speaker must choose a comprehensible expression so that speaker and hearer can understand one another. The speaker must have the intention of communicating a true proposition (or a propositional content, the existential presuppositions of which are satisfied) so that the hearer can share the knowledge of the speaker. The speaker must want to express his intentions truthfully so that the hearer can believe the utterance of the speaker (can trust him). Finally, the speaker must choose an utterance that is right so that the hearer can accept the utterance and speaker and hearer can agree with one another in the utterance with respect to a recognized normative background. Moreover, communicative action can continue undisturbed only as long as participants suppose that the validity claims they reciprocally raise are justified. (Habermas, 1976, pp. 2-3)

In a dynamic relationship with the development of these methodological understandings my enquiries focus on questions of being, of 'who is the I in the enquiry', of questions of ontology.

Assessing quality in terms of being: ontological standards of judgement.

"The consideration of ontology, of one's being in and toward the world, should be a central feature of any discussion of the value of self-study research" (Bullough & Pinnegar, 2004 p. 319)

The self-study research being discussed by Bullough and Pinnegar is from researchers in the Self-study of Teacher Education Practices Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association. This group formed in 1992. The consideration of ontology, in the sense given by Bullough and Pinnegar has explicitly informed my self-study research from its inception (Whitehead, 1976) and the self-studies in living educational theories.

In my experience each individual is unique in their expression of their ontology. I make a distinction between the expression of ontological values and the application of ontological standards, though these are connected. In my experience the expression of ontological values is often accompanied, as Buddhists emphasise, by some pain and suffering. In understanding the meanings and purpose that individuals give to their lives I often find that this understanding develops over time as I listen to stories. I am thinking of stories about what concerns the individual and about what they are going to do to live their values more fully in contexts where they experience some tension because their values are not being lived as fully as they wish. For example, my understanding of Madeline Church's ontological values in her thesis below, developed as I understood her early experiences of bullying and her persistence in overcoming bullying and liberating herself from the destructive memories in living her own values more fully in her network of relationships. Judy McBride has also revealed her ontological values in relation to bullying, in her doctoral theses on, How do I, a teacher-researcher, contribute to knowledge of teacher learning and practice in teacher education as I explore my values through self-study? (McBride, 2004)

Understanding the ontological values that are expressed in stories involves an intuitive appreciation of what is giving meaning and purpose to the others' existence. Not all such stories involve pain, suffering or struggle. For example, in Lisa Percy's (2004) account 'In loco parentis, should teachers be parents too?', of an educational enquiry with her students, Lisa connects her own ontological values to those of her loving parents.

From such stories, it is possible to recognise the ontological values which are giving meaning and purpose to the other's life. This is a necessary step in clarifying the meanings of these values in the course of their emergence in practice and narrative so that they can then be applied as ontological standards of judgement in assessing applied and practice-based research.

Here is how I think of my own ontological values and apply them as ontological standards.

At the heart of my ontology is something whose source I do not understand. It is a mystery to me yet fundamental to the hope I feel in living. I am referring to a life affirming energy I am aware of flowing through me. I identify this energy with Bataille's (1987, p.11) description of assenting to life up to the point of death. I also associate this with Tillich's (1962, p. 168) expression of the state of being grasped by the power of being itself, and with a sense of the energy recognised in Chinese culture as Qi. I am not attaching any religious meanings to my experience of this life-affirming energy.

Valuing embodied knowledge is an ontological quality I express in my life and my educational relationships. I mean this in the same sense that Husserl (1931, p.12) writes about knowledge in the transcendental sphere. So replacing his words 'transcendental sphere' by embodied knowledge, I believe that:

"....we have an infinitude of embodied knowledge previous to all deduction, knowledge whose mediated connexions (those of intentional implication) have nothing to do with deduction, and being entirely intuitive prove refractory to every methodologically devised scheme of constructive symbolism"

Enquiry learning is another ontological quality that characterises my theory of being. I ask questions and learn as I explore the implications of answering them. Asking, researching and answering questions of the kind, 'How do I improve what I am doing?' has been a characteristic of my way of being. I have been influenced in this commitment to enquiry in learning by Collingwood's insight:

Whether a given proposition is true or false, significant or meaningless, depends on what question it was meant to answer; and any one who wishes to know whether a given proposition is true or false, significant or meaningless, must first find out what question it was meant to answer (Collingwood, 1991, p. 39)

So, I think my ontological standards of judgement in assessing the quality of my practice-based research can be understood as:

* the expression of a flow of life-affirming energy,

* the expression of valuing myself and the other and our embodied knowledges,

* a commitment to enquiry learning in exploring the implications of asking questions of the kind, 'how do I improve what I am doing?' in contexts where the individual is seeking to live their values more fully.

I bring the above values into my educational relationships but, as Buber advocates, I attempt to hold them in suspension in my recognition of the other in their educational enquiries:

"If this educator should ever believe that for the sake of education he has to practise selection and arrangement, then he will be guided by another criterion than that of inclination, however legitimate this may be in its own sphere; he will be guided by the recognition of values which is in his glance as an educator. But even then his selection remains suspended, under constant correction by the special humility of the educator for whom the life and particular being of all his pupils is the decisive factor to which his 'hierarchical' recognition is subordinated." (Buber, p. 122, 1947)

Bearing this in mind helps me to be aware of the dangers of imposing my own values and understandings on my students. For example, what I mean by this is that, while for me the source of life-affirming energy is a mystery, my students have connected to this energy in a range of spiritual relationships with their God(s), or with their Buddhist, or Humanist faiths and values of humanity. They have expressed their ontological values in their own voices and in their own language rather than mine, which is as it should be.

While feeling confident in the validity of my assertion that the expression and representation of ontological values are necessary in the creation of living educational theories, I recognise the danger that I might be imposing my ontological values as standards of judgement on others. The evidence that this is not the case is in the living theory theses. The practitioner-researcher may have experienced my actions as impositional, but, in each thesis, they have demonstrated an originality of mind and exercise of critical judgement that has enabled them to speak in their own voices as their stories reveal the meanings of their embodied ontological values in their explanations for their educational influences in their own learning. In assessing the validity of these explanations, as claims to knowledge I recognised my need to understand the question to which the thesis provided an answer. I needed to understand the nature of the enquiry.

Assessing the quality of educational influences in enquiring

I have already drawn attention to the importance of Collingwood's insight that to understand the significance of a proposition it is important to understand the question it was meant to answer. In my experience of much educational research it is usual for the question to be formed at the beginning of an investigation and to remain stable through the research. In assessing the quality of applied and practice-based educational research I evaluate the quality of the formation and re-formation of the questions as the enquiry proceeds. I explain to those I teach, tutor and supervise that the question one has answered in the course of the enquiry is often the last thing that the researcher understands. In the majority of the living theory theses above, the researcher formulates the question that the thesis has answered at the end of the writing. The Abstract is usually the penultimate piece of writing as the researcher summarises what the thesis has accomplished in terms of the question asked and the originality of mind, critical judgement and extent and merit of the work in the thesis.

In judging the quality of the enquiring, I look for evidence that the understanding of the significance of the question has deepened in the course of evaluating the effectiveness of the actions. I am thinking here of evidence of enquiring into the extension of the cognitive range and concern of the researcher in integrating insights from the ideas of others into the enquiry. In judging the quality of the enquiring I also look for extensions in the evidence of enquiring into explanations of educational influence in learning from the individual's learning, into enquiring into evidence of influence in the learning of others and into enquiring into evidence of influence in the learning of social formations. This emphasis on learning and in particular enquiry learning was a focus on my earliest research (Whitehead, 1972, 1976).

Assessing the quality of educational influences in learning

Assessing the quality of educational influences in learning is closely related to assessing the quality of the enquiry. In judging the quality of learning I include evidence that shows an extension of cognitive range and concern. I am thinking here of cognitive range in terms of a greater understanding by the individual of the values and understanding that motivate them to do what they do. I am thinking of a greater understanding and use of the range of methodological approaches and skills that are already available for the enquiry or have been developed in the course of the enquiry. I am thinking of a greater understanding of the ideas of others that can help to explain socio-cultural and socio-historical influences in learning. I am thinking of a developing understanding of a living theory of responsive practice (Naidoo, 2005) that shows how the voices and understandings of others are influencing responses to the learning of others.

In my early enquiries into the nature of explanations of educational influence in learning I focused on methodological, epistemological and ontological issues. This was to the exclusion of a recognition of the significance of relationships, between power and knowledge in socio-cultural and socio-historical insights, in explanations of educational influence. I was moved to include these insights and extend my cognitive range and concern through reflecting on my experience of a disciplinary hearing in the University in 1987. This resulted in the Secretary and Registrar writing to inform me that my activities and writings were a challenge to the present and proper organisation of the University and not consistent with the duties the University wished me to pursue in teaching and research. The desire to develop an appropriate response to this exercise of disciplinary power, which I experienced as an attempt to constrain my academic freedom, led me to integrate into my understandings, socio-historical and socio-cultural insights from the ideas of Habermas on the legitimation crisis in the Academy, of Foucault on Power/Knowledge, of Said on Culture and Imperialism and of Lyotard on intellectual terrorism:

"Countless scientists have seen their 'move' ignored or repressed, sometimes for decades, because it too abruptly destabilized the accepted positions, not only in the university and scientific hierarchy, but also in the problematic. The stronger the 'move' the more likely it is to be denied the minimum consensus, precisely because it changes the rules of the game upon which the consensus has been based. But when the institution of knowledge functions in this manner, it is acting like an ordinary power center whose behaviour is governed by a principle of homeostasis.

Such behaviour is terrorist.... By terror I mean the efficiency gained by eliminating, or threatening to eliminate a player from the language game one shares with him. He is silenced or consents, not because he has been refuted, but because his ability to participate has been threatened (there are many ways to prevent someone from playing). The decision makers' arrogance, which in principle has no equivalent in the sciences, consists of the exercise of terror. It says: "Adapt your aspirations to our ends – or else". (Lyotard, p. 64. 1984)

I mentioned earlier the power of stories in revealing ontological values. Here is one of mine that might help to communicate the importance I give below to assessing living educational theories in terms of their contribution to the evolution of postcolonial social formations with the help of socio-cultural and socio-historical insights.

When I was born on the 29^th August 1944, the world was at war. The racist doctrine that contributed to war had been set out by Adolf Hitler in 1933 with the kind of vitriolic rhetoric that characterised the more recent genocide in Rwanda in 1994:

With satanic joy in his face, the black-haired Jewish youth lurks in wait for the unsuspecting girl whom he defiles with his blood, thus stealing her from her people. With every means he tries to destroy the racial foundations of the people he has set out to subjugate. Just as he himself systematically ruins women and girls, he does not shrink back from pulling down the blood barriers for others, even on a large scale. It was and it is Jews who bring the Negroes into the Rhineland, always with the same secret thought and clear aim of ruining the hated white race by the necessarily resulting bastardization, throwing it down from its cultural and political height, and himself rising to be its master. (Adolf Hitler, My Struggle. The Jewish Virtual Library http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/kampf.html )

My Father gave me a copy of the book Victory in Europe when I was six, I can still recall the power of my comprehension in relation to values of humanity in seeing pictures of corpses piled high at Auschwitz. I understood at the age of 6 that human beings could kill each other because of differences in the way they looked. I comprehended nothing of the ideology that motivated genocide, but I understood from the pictures that the people to be killed had been demonised partially because of perceived physical differences. The inhumanity of this human capacity to violate what I recognise as values of humanity has remained with me as I work to enhance the flow of values that carry hope for the future of humanity.

The issue of preserving 'favoured races' formed a focus for one of the most influential texts of the 19^th Century by Charles Darwin 'On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life' (1859)

So, when I think of assessing the quality of educational influences in learning I recognise that I am making choices about which values carry hope for the future of humanity from a historical perspective of which values appear to carry hope and which do not. My claims about which values carry this hope are open to question from different socio-cultural perspectives and I can immediately see that my choices about these values can come into conflict with the choices of others. Because I see the educational relationships of educators with their students as value-laden, I make choices about which values of humanity I use in characterising learning as educational. I recognise the historical truth that some socio-cultural formations have placed the above racist and other colonising views at the heart of what is called education in that culture. However, I rule out, of what I recognise as educational, such claims because they violate my understandings of which values carry hope for the future of humanity. They violate what I understand as a good social order (McNiff, Whitehead & Laidlaw, 1992). The values I associate with a good social order are the living and developing explanatory principles in living theories and I identify these values as postcolonial values that are significant in learning how to evolve a postcolonial social formation. I will consider the significance of these ideas in relation to the pedagogisation of knowledge after I have considered the assessment of quality in terms of knowledge. The following epistemological standards of judgement that include logics are most significant in judging the validity of contributions to knowledge that are made from a living educational theory perspective.

Assessing quality in terms of knowing: epistemological standards of judgement

The reason I value epistemology is because of its connection with rationality and knowledge.

I take an epistemology to be a theory of knowledge that can answer questions about the unit of appraisal, the standards of judgement and logics that are used in evaluating the trustworthiness or validity of claim to knowledge. I will say why each of these is significant in the creation and testing of living educational theories before considering each one in more detail.

The unit of appraisal is significant because it defines what is being judged. In judging living educational theories the unit of appraisal is an explanation given by an individual of their educational influence in their learning. Standards of judgement are significant because they are used to evaluate the validity of a knowledge claim. In judging the validity of an explanation generated as a living educational theory the standards of judgement emerge in a living form from the enquiry itself. They include ontological standards of judgement. These are formed and communicated in a process of clarifying the meanings of embodied values as these emerge from the practice of enquiry. At the heart of an epistemology is logic in the sense of the form that reason takes in understanding the real as rational (Marcuse, 1966). When Schon (1995) advocated the development of a new epistemology for the new scholarship he was clear in his belief that an epistemology of practice would emerge from action research. He believed that the problem of introducing and legitimizing in the university the kinds of action research associated with the new scholarship is one not only of the institution but of the scholars themselves (Schon, 1995, p.33). Schon died before he could develop this epistemology or define its unit of appraisal, its standards of judgement or its logic.

The unit of appraisal is an individual's explanation of their educational influence in learning

"As Bakhtin explains "I" do not fit into theory - neither in the psychology of consciousness, not the history of some science, nor in the chronological ordering of my day, not in my scholarly duties...... these problems derive from the fundamental error of "rationalist" philosophy... The fatal flaw is the denial of responsibility - which is to say, the crisis is at base an ethical one. It can be overcome only by an understanding of the act as a category into which cognition enters but which is radically singular and "responsible". (Morson and Emerson, 1989, R p. 13.)

Much of what I do in education is grounded in such an understanding of the acting 'I' as radically singular and responsible. My actions are also grounded in the assumption that much of what matters for the future of humanity is in the educational influences in learning, of individuals and social formations. The are grounded in the assumption that understanding theories of the reproduction of social formations are significant in their conscious development and transformation. I accept the point made by Kilpatrick in 1951 in the first issue of Educational Theory that educational theory is form of dialogue that has profound implications for the future of humanity. Hence my commitment to the creation and testing of living educational theories in which individuals explain their educational influences in enquiries of the kind, 'How do I improve what I am doing?' that are moved on through a desire to live values of humanity more fully in practice.

Within this unit of appraisal I am including explanations of educational influence in one's own learning, in the learning of others and in the learning of social formations. As part of this influence I include understandings of socio-cultural and socio-historical theories that explain the processes through which social formations reproduce themselves and hence influence the range of opportunities that individuals can project themselves into in creating their own forms of life.

Living standards

Implied within the creation of a living educational theory are explanatory principles that are themselves living (Laidlaw, 1996). Having stressed the importance of ontological values in self-study practice based research in the sense that these are the values that give meaning and purpose to human existence, these values are explanatory principles in accounts of educational influences in learning. For example, if I am feeling my freedom is being unjustly constrained, I can enquire into what I am doing about this constraint. I can enquiry into my educational influence in my learning from these actions, in terms of my values of freedom and justice. If I feel that my democratic values are being violated I can enquire into what I am doing about this and explain what I do to live my democratic values more fully. I can explain my educational influences in my learning as I do this in relation to these values.

I shall describe in more detail, in the section below on assessing quality of methodological standards, how ontological values, that are embodied in an individual's form of life, can form living epistemological standards of judgement. This involves a systematic process of clarifying their meanings in the course of their emergence in practice. These living standards include making engaged and appreciative responses to the ideas of others in the course of extending one's cognitive range and concern (Peters 1966) in the growth of one's educational knowledge.

Because of the importance of epistemology in judging claims to knowledge I shall define the unit of appraisal, inclusional standards of judgement and the inclusional logic that characterise living educational theories. The significance of inclusional logic is that it can hold together two logics that are viewed as mutually exclusive from within their own assumptions. I am thinking here of the propositional logic that structures most theories in the Academy through the elimination of contradiction (Popper, 1963) and dialectical logic (Ilyenkov, 1977) with its nucleus of contradiction.

Using Three Logics

I am aware of using propositional, dialectical and inclusional logics (Rayner 2005a) in living educational theory. Historically, propositional and dialectical logic have been seen to be discrete and mutually exclusive. However, in the inclusional logic of living educational theory they can be connected. To understand this connection the following outline may help to explain why propositional and dialectical logics are thought to be incompatible yet can be connected within an inclusional logic.

Popper (1963) focused on the issue of contradiction to describe the differences that have led to dialectical and propositional logics being understood as incompatible.

In answering his question, 'What is Dialectic?', Popper (1963) rejected dialectical claims to knowledge as, 'without the slightest foundation. Indeed, they are based on nothing better than a loose and woolly way of speaking' (Popper, 1963, p.316).

Popper demonstrates, using two laws of inference, that if a theory contains a contradiction, then it entails everything, and therefore, indeed, nothing. He says that a theory which adds to every information which it asserts also the negation of this information can give us no information at all. A Theory which involves a contradiction is therefore entirely useless as a theory (p.317).

Logical inference proceeds according to certain rules of inference. It is valid if the rule of inference to which it appeals is valid; and a rule of inference is valid if, and only if, it can never lead from true premises to a false conclusion; or, in other words, if it unfailingly transmits the truth of the premises (provided that they are all true) to the conclusion.

This logic is consistent with the following view of theory:

" 'Theory' would seem to have the following features. It refers to a set of propositions which are stated with sufficient generality yet precision that they explain the behaviour of a range of phenomena and predict which would happen in the future. An understanding of these propositions includes an understanding of what would refute them." (Pring, 2000. pp. 124-125).

According to Marcuse's (1966) analysis in his One Dimensional Man, this form of rationality is masking the dialectical nature of reality with its nucleus of contradiction. The Russian logician Eward Ilyenkov (1977), in his analysis of dialectical logic, agrees that contradiction is the nucleus of dialectics and recognises the problem that this poses for dialectical theorising when he asks, 'If an object exists as a living contradiction what must the thought be (ie statement about the object) that expresses it?' Ilyenkov believed that to reveal the essential nature of dialectical logic it was necessary to 'Write Logic'. At the end of his impressive writing Ilyenkov is still left with his question about how to express in statements the existence of a living contradiction.

To conclude this particular section on three logics I will draw on Alan Rayner's insights on inclusionality and assert what is needed to move into an inclusional logic of living educational theories. I will then go into some details to introduce a particular perspective on inclusionality, inclusional standards of judgement and a living logic of inclusionality.

Alan Rayner introduced me to his ideas of inclusionality (and dynamic boundaries) during 2002:

'Inclusional modes of communication that enable source and receiver literally to correspond with one another, to engage reciprocally in a truly co-creative mutually transformative dialogue....... Learning becomes a process of recreative self-discovery, facilitated by educators whose role is to provide guidance and an awareness of knowledge rather than to instil more of the same..... Governance emerges 'self-integratively' from the expression and complex dynamic relationship of many viewpoints rather than the hegemonic imposition of one'. (Rayner, 2002)

Moving into an inclusional logic from a propositional or dialectical perspective requires a relationally dynamic awareness of space and boundaries that are connective, reflexive and co-creative (Rayner 2005a).

Rayner is exploring the implications of these ideas in the curriculum of his Life, Environment and People course with his undergraduate students at the University of Bath (Rayner 2004).

Meanings of Inclusionality

Alan Rayner

When I use Alan Rayner's definition of inclusionality, I am aware that my understanding of the meaning took several months to comprehend. It involved several conversations with Rayner and I video-taped the most significant of these that marked an extension and transformation in my understanding. In Rayner's view of inclusionality holding openness is highly significant. This is how he expresses holding openness through his art:

Rayner's communication in the video below marks this extension of my cognitive range and concern and my comprehension of his definition of inclusionality.

http://www.jackwhitehead.com/rayner1sor.mov (36.89MB)

His ideas on holding openness, inclusionality and the complex self can be accessed in his article on 'Why I Need My Space - I'd Rather Be a Channel Than a Node' at:

http://www.datadiwan.de/SciMedNet/Leadarts/Rayner_space.htm

Expressing and representing inclusionality

I am using the following 45 second video-clips to communicate my experience and meaning of inclusionality. The clip is from a gathering on the 18/12/02 in the Department of Education of the University of Bath, to celebrate the graduation of Jackie Delong with her doctoral degree. Jackie is the person in the right hand corner. At the beginning of this video-clip Peter Mellett is setting the scene for a piece of music by Django Reinhardt and Stefane Grappelli, playing Minor Swing. He is asking the group to listen attentively to the moment after the final note when both men express themselves in a way that Peter believes is a shared affirmation of having created something that satisfies them both. Margarida Dolan, the person in the foreground with her back to the camera, asks the question, 'But how will I know if this is the final note if I haven't heard the piece before?' In the seconds that follow there is flow of energy in the laughter and expression of pleasure from individuals in the group that opens channels of communication across self-boundaries in sharing the pleasure. I characterise this energy as a life-affirming energy that is consistent with Bataille's idea of assenting to life up to the point of death.

The flow of pleasure through the laughter is co-created in the sense that Margarida responds to Peter and we all share in the laughter of a group who gathered together to celebrate Jackie Delong's accomplishment of her doctoral thesis.

http://www.jackwhitehead.com/pmjd181202400.mov (11.63 MB)

I believe that Delong's expression of inclusionality in the video-clip is closely related to her explanation of how she contributed to the creation of a culture of enquiry in the Grand Erie District School Board in Ontario. Jackie and I are agreed that people need to experience this quality of inclusionality, flowing in Jackie's relationships, to comprehend her educational influence. I am thinking of her influence in the learning of a social formation as it developed a culture of enquiry to support a living theory approach to action research in the professional development of teachers.

Having shown you my meaning of inclusionality through ostensive definition, I now want to communicate inclusionality as a living standard of judgement in the creation and testing of living educational theories before moving on to consider a living logic of inclusionality that can hold together both propositional and dialectical logics.

Inclusional standards

My introduction to propositional standards of judgement in educational theory came through my studies of the philosophy of education between 1968-70 with a team of philosophers led by Richard Peters at the Institute of Education of the University of London. The standards were expressed as propositions and focused on the ethical principles of justice, freedom, consideration of interests, respect for persons and worthwhile activities with a commitment to the procedural principle of democracy. The study and justification for these standards of judgement came through the application of a Kantian form of transcendental deduction to the question 'What ought I to do?' Following a transcendental deduction means that if you are given a proposition x and can demonstrate the a proposition y is necessarily included in x, then there are good reasons for accepting y. Using this form of reasoning Peters would show that if a person was seriously committed to asking questions of the form 'What ought I to do?' then implicit within this question was a commitment to the ethical principles of freedom, justice, respect for persons, worthwhile activities and consideration of interests. I still value my learning on this course in the philosophy of education as one of the most educative experiences of my life in education. Yet I came to reject in 1971 the view of educational theory, known as the 'disciplines' approach for the same reason that one of the originators of the approach, Paul Hirst, acknowledged in 1983 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)

This rejection of this assumption in the disciplines approach and my embrace of personal knowledge helped me to recognise the significance of Feyerabend's insight in Against Method that the meaning of an embodied value such as freedom could only be understood in the course of its emergence through practice. Hence the development of my insight that the meanings of educational standards of judgement could be clarified from the ground of experiencing the denial of values in living contradictions. The clarification of such meanings and their formation into epistemological standards of judgement required the development of the action research methodology described below. In my 1993 book on the growth of educational knowledge I explain much of educational influence in my early learning at the University of Bath in terms of the motivating power of academic freedom in the experience of living contradictions.

Moira Laidlaw's major educational influence in my own learning was in showing me that it was not simply a matter of clarifying the meanings of embodied values and forming standards of judgement. It was important to understand that the standards themselves were living. Laidlaw shows this process of clarifying the meanings of embodied values and forming living standards of judgement in:

Laidlaw, M. (1996) How can I create my own living educational theory as I offer you an account of my educational development? Ph.D. thesis, University of Bath. Retrieved 19 February 2004 from http://www.actionresearch.net/moira2.shmtl

The next educational transformation in my understanding of standards of judgement came as I integrated an understanding of inclusionality into my pedagogisation of living theories in my educational relationships as I supervised the doctoral research programmes of Hartog, Church and Naidoo. The living theories of these researchers show how insights from propositional and dialectical theorising can be integrated within their explanations. I now want to consider the living logic of inclusionality that supports this integration and can characterise the rationalities of living educational theories.

A living logic of inclusionality

With propositional and dialectical logics it has been possible to communicate my meanings on pages of text through words alone. To communicate my meanings of an inclusional logic with its dynamic awareness of space and boundaries requires ostensive definitions. By this I mean that I must show you living relationships and my inclusional explanations for my educational influences in learning in these relationships, in order to communicate. The advances and availability of digital technologies mean that I can show you a visual narrative in order to communicate my meanings of inclusional logic. I can bring visual and audio media into my account. My reason for explaining the transformations in awareness that can connect propositional and dialectical theories within inclusional theory can be understood by looking at the list of doctoral and masters accounts above. In the form of the list, they appear to be discrete entities. Each thesis has been judged, in terms of its expression of originality of mind and critical judgement, its extent and merit and its matter worthy of publication. Each thesis has communicated a substantial contribution to educational knowledge within a propositional form. Each thesis also contains a dynamic dialectic of relational enquiries through which individuals explain their educational influences in their own learning. Until 2004 the regulations governing the submission of theses to the University of Bath did not include permission to submit e-media.

The regulations changed in 2004 to permit the submission of e-media. Mary Hartog's (2004) inclusion of a visual narrative of her relationships with her students is the first living theory thesis to focus attention, through a moving image of her educational relationships, on the possibility of legitimating inclusional standards of judgement for living educational theories in the Academy. To communicate my meaning of inclusionality, inclusional logic and an inclusional standard of judgement I need to use ostensive definitions of my meanings. By this I mean that I shall point to the phenomena whose meaning, logic and standards I am seeking to communicate with the help of the words I use.

A living logic of inclusionality can be used to characterise the creation and testing of living educational theories. This logic can be understood as the form that reason is taking in understanding the rationality of the learning and forms of life of the practitioner-researchers whose work is accessible from the live urls in the list above. The most recent addition to the collection of these resources is by Madeline Church:

Church, M. (2004) Creating an uncompromised place to belong: Why do I find myself in networks? Retrieved 24 May 2005 from http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/church.shtml

and Madeline's Abstract explains how the narrative of her explanation of her educational influences in her own learning unfolds in the course of her enquiry into her experience of living contradiction. What is important to recognise in a living theory doctoral theses is that the explanations of learning from living contradictions have emerged from at least five years of sustained, rigorous and systematic enquiry.

My inquiry sits within the reflective paradigm. I start from an understanding that knowing myself better will enhance my capacity for good action in the world. Through questioning myself and writing myself on to the page, I trace how I resist community formations, while simultaneously wanting to be in community with others. This paradox has its roots in my multiple experiences of being bullied, and finds transformation in my stubborn refusal to retreat into disconnection.

I notice the way bullying is part of my fabric. I trace my resistance to these experiences in my embodied experience of connecting to others, through a form of shape-changing. I see how question-forming is both an expression of my own bullying tendencies, and an intention to overcome them. Through my connection to others and my curiosity, I form a networked community in which I can work in the world as a network coordinator, action-researcher, activist and evaluator.

I show how my approach to this work is rooted in the values of compassion, love, and fairness, and inspired by art. I hold myself to account in relation to these values, as living standards by which I judge myself and my action in the world. This finds expression in research that helps us to design more appropriate criteria for the evaluation of international social change networks. Through this process I inquire with others into the nature of networks, and their potential for supporting us in lightly-held communities which liberate us to be dynamic, diverse and creative individuals working together for common purpose. I tentatively conclude that networks have the potential to increase my and our capacity for love.

Through this research I am developing new ways of knowing about what we are doing as reflective practitioners, and by what standards we can invite others to judge our work. I am, through my practice, making space for us to flourish, as individuals and communities. In this way I use the energy released by my response to bullying in the service of transformation.

From this clarification of assessing quality in epistemological standards of judgement I now want to turn to pedagogical standards of judgement in the creation of a good social order through applied and practice-based educational research. These pedagogical standards include the meanings of the above ontological and epistemological standards. The meanings of these standards emerge in the course of the practice of enquiry and their form is influenced by the methodological approach through which their meaning is comprehended.

In inclusionality, as expressed by Rayner, there is a key distinction between practices based on the imposition of prescriptive standards as fixed frames of reference, incapable of facilitating learning as a co-creative, evolutionary process because they are always targeted to a particular 'end' or 'outcome'; and truly evolutionary practices whereby 'living standards of judgement' emerge as part of the process of forming dynamic boundaries like river banks. In other words, the link between 'living theory' and inclusionality lies in the 'dynamic boundaries' of 'living standards of judgement' that emerge in educational influences in learning. And, of course, to be dynamic, boundaries must include the space that makes them fluid, receptive and responsive to continual contextual transformation (Rayner, 2005b). One contextual transformation that concerns me is related to the idea of evolving social formations through pedagogising living educational theories.

Assessing the quality of educational influences in pedagogising living educational theories

I think it bears repeating that I am working with Bernstein's idea of an explicit pedagogy:

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, 2000, p.78).

In pedagogising living educational theories what I have in mind is their educational influence in learning as individuals create their own form of life, and contribute to the learning of others and to the evolution of social formations. In assessing the quality of the pedagogisation of living educational theories I focus on the evidence in their explanation of their educational influences in learning. As the individual creates their own living theory I judge its form or coherence in terms of its logics. I focus on the continuity of the explanation that shows a sense of learning from past experience with an understanding of the present that is connected with an intention to create a future in which values of humanity are lived more fully than the present. I focus on the meanings of the embodied values that are used as explanatory principles and the educational influence that can be attributed to one's own agency in learning. To avoid any impression that this implies that I am working with a sense of self that is radically singular and, while responsible, is not affected by social and environmental influences I work with Rayner's idea of the 'complex self'.

The 'Complex Self' represents a fully contextualized understanding of 'self-identity', which reciprocally couples distinct but not discrete inner (local) and outer (non-local) spatial aspects through an intermediary domain or 'dynamic self boundary'. (Rayner 2003)

In this contextualised understanding of self-identity there is a reciprocal coupling of inner with outer through a dynamic self-boundary. I have found the most convincing evidence on assessing the quality of educational influences in pedagogising living educational theories in Margaret Farren's (2005a & b) web-space at Dublin City University. Farren provides the evidence of living theory theses she has supervised and seen legitimated by Dublin City University. See has also explained her own educational influences in the learning of her students with her ideas of a pedagogy of the unique and web of betweenness (Farren, 2005b):

Within the embrace of folk culture, the web of belonging supplied similar secret psychic and spiritual shelter to the individual. This is one of the deepest poverties in our times. That whole 'web of 'betweenness' seems to be unravelling. It is rarely acknowledged any more, but that does not mean that it has ceased to exist. The 'web of betweenness' is still there but in order to become a presence again, it needs to be invoked. As in the rainforest. A dazzling diversity of life-forms complement and sustain each other. There is secret oxygen with which we unknowingly sustain one another. True community is not produced. It is invoked and awakened. True community is an ideal where the full identities of awakened and realized individuals challenge and complement each other. In this sense individuality and originality enrich self and others. (Donohue, 2003, pp. 132-133)

Because of the importance of the evolution of social formations for the future of humanity I now want to focus on the dynamic boundaries of the living standards of judgement in the conscious evolution of society through living educational theories. I am thinking here of the standards that can be used to assess the quality of applied and practice based educational research that is consciously focused on educational influences in the learning and evolution of social formations.

For five years, opposing armies, fought for the control of territory. After the initial move to colonise several European countries armies fought back to resist the colonization. History can be understood in terms of such colonizations and resistances to colonization. In judging the educational influences of the pedagogisation of living educational theories in the evolution of social formations I am influenced by the postcolonial critical pedagogy of Yaqub Paul Murray (2005) in his question to me:

Where is the evidence of the critical engagement with the ideas of critical race theorists, critical non-racial theorists and post-colonial theorists in the formation of the identities and practices of individuals you are working with? Where is the evidence of your influence in respect of alerting them to enhancing the quality of their work by making themselves familiar with these epistemologies? (Why should you/they when they can get their PhDs/do their AR writing without making reference to their critical knowledge?) (Murray, 2003 e-mail correspondence)

His question continues to motivate my enquiries. Yaqub Paul Murray has also been most influential in extending my understanding of colonialism and postcolonial theorising from my earlier engagements with the work of Edward Said. He introduced me to the idea that a postcolonial critical pedagogy could be characterised by an ethics and politics that raised awareness of the concept of 'whiteness'. He was influential in raising my understanding of 'whiteness' as power relations that sustained white supremacy and white privilege.

Assessing the educational influence of pedagogising living educational theories with a postcolonial critical pedagogy.

In assessing the quality of my applied and practice-based research I include evidence of the educational influence of my postcolonial critical pedagogy in my own learning. There is no evidence at present of the educational influence of my use of this pedagogy in the learning of others and in the learning of social formations. This is because its educational influence is the most recent growth in my learning. Erroneous ideas of racial supremacy continue to fuel conflicts around the world. The world still suffers from legacies and practices of colonialism. Hence, to me it seems vital, for the future of humanity, to learn how to enhance the flow of values and understandings that will contribute to the evolution of postcolonial social formations. In this process it will be necessary to abolish whiteness where whiteness is understood as power relations that sustain white supremacy and white privilege. In this process of abolishing or dismantling whiteness the expression of 'treason to whiteness as loyality to humanity', may be significant.

I know that the idea of being a 'race-traitor' and of expressing 'treason to whiteness' is likely to carry an emotional charge of differing intensity, for most readers. Yet, I embrace the practice of expressing 'treason to whiteness' as a way of showing solidarity with those who are experiencing the abuses of colonial practices based on racial characteristics of colour. In embracing the idea and practice of expressing 'treason to whiteness' I am agreeing with Noel Ignatiev's (1997) view that the point is not to interpret whiteness but to abolish it. I am also agreeing with Major Cox's (1997) view that it is time to dismantle whiteness. In particular I identify with the idea that treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity (Ignatiev, 1997).

As with all the insights I bring into my pedagogy, I begin with a self-study of my educational influences in my own learning as I develop my postcolonial insights. The first step in the development of my postcolonial critical pedagogy was to problematise the concept of 'whiteness' in my own cognition (Murray & Whitehead, 2000).

Some five years later I have extended my cognitive range and concern, from this initial problematisation of 'whiteness', into the recognition of the importance of the pre-colonial and inclusional values of Ubuntu in the evolution of a postcolonial social formation (Whitehead, 2004).

In his analysis of Ubuntu: an African Assessment of the Religious Other, Louw writes:

The decolonization of Africa, of which the dismantling of apartheid in South Africa is the most recent example, has led to a greater recognition of the wide variety of religions practising on its soil. When confronted with this plurality, and the corresponding plurality of claims to truth or credibility, believers often resort to absolutism. The absolutist evaluates the religious other in view of criteria which violate the self-understanding of the latter. The religious other is thus being colonized by a hegemony (i.e., an enforced homogeneity) of norms and values. This paper deals with an assessment of the faith of others which transcends absolutism without resorting to relativism. More specifically, it aims to show that an African philosophy and way of life called 'Ubuntu' (humanness) significantly overlaps with such a 'decolonized' assessment of the religious other, and that this assessment can therefore also be explained, motivated or underscored with reference to the concept of Ubuntu. (Louw, 1998)

In my understanding of Ubuntu, a central idea concerns human relationships in which the individual recognises that 'I am because we are', in the sense of a recognition of and a commitment to community. This quality of relationship can be expressed as 'we~i' relationship (Murray, 2005). Without wishing to violate this idea of relationship, my own commitment to the recognition of the other in saying 'you', is largely because of the influence of the ideas of Martin Buber (1956) about 'I-You' relationships. I-You relationship leads me to stress the importance of not violating the other in my use of 'we' by checking from the ground of my 'I-You' relationships that I have the permission of the other to write 'we'. In stressing the importance of human relationships in the pedagogisation of living educational theories I do not want to underestimate the importance of material conditions in establishing the opportunities for the exercise of choice in creating our own living educational theories. Poverty, for example, is still a major global problem and as Halsey and others have emphasised 'No sophisticated theory of education can ignore its contribution to economic development' (Halsey, Lauder, Brown, & Wells, 1997, p. 156)

Assessing the educational influence of pedagogising living educational theories with an economic theory of human capability.

With its huge population and emphasis on economic development, China offers a significant context for assessing the educational influence of pedagogising of living educational theories with an economic theory of human capability. My interest in assessing this educational influence is because of my connection as a visiting professor in China's Experimental Centre for Educational Action Research in Foreign Languages Teaching (CECEARFLT). The centre is hosted at Guyuan Teachers' College.

Wen Jiabao (2004) in his capacity as Premier of the State Council, at a reception celebrating the 55^th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, described China as a developing country with 1.3 billion people which will remain in the primary stage of socialism for a long time. He believes that China must follow the path of independently building socialism with Chinese characteristics under the firm leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, basing itself on its own national conditions and getting along with the trends of development in the world (p.2). He says that the Communist Party of China is a Marxist party that has weathered numerous tests and kept abreast with the times. Enhancing and improving the leadership of the Party is the fundamental guarantee for a successful building of socialism with Chinese characteristics (p.6):

We must always take economic development as our central task and try to solve the problems we face through development. We need to come up with new ideas on development (p.3)....We must open still wider to the outside world, adapt better to the changing world of economic globalization and technological revolution, and draw on all the useful achievements of human civilizations. A country, or a people, will make progress only when it is an open one (p.4)....We must promote cultural development. Our culture is the symbol of our national spirit. Its power is deeply rooted in our national vitality, creativity and togetherness. We must grasp the trend of advanced culture, vigorously carry forward and promote the national spirit, develop education, science and technology, enhance the moral and ethical building of the population, add new splendor to the Chinese culture, and inspire our people with a powerful motivation and intellectual support as they march into the future. (p. 5).....We must carry out the fight against corruption in a more intensive manner and severely punish those guilty of corruption. We must address both the symptoms and the root causes of corruption, and take a comprehensive approach to prevent the problem from happening (pp.5-6).....We must consolidate and expand the unity of all our ethnic groups. .... We must strengthen our ethnic unity (p.6)

Because of the economic, political, cultural and educational differences between the workplaces of the University of Bath and Guyuan Teachers' College I want to clarify some of my assumptions and biases – the ones I am aware of, and on which I think rests the validity of ideas in this paper. I am aware that an understanding of the significance of the following ideas may only appeal to those readers who have a background in ideas from dialectical materialist thinking and who see the significance of the interconnecting relationships in educational enquiries that are exploring the influence of action research in the internationalisation of educational development. I am hoping that I communicate below both the scholarly significance of ideas from propositional theories for my own educational development and for their connection to my present enquiry.

My Economic, Political, Cultural, Educational and Theoretical Assumptions and Biases

In my visit to CECEARFLT in October 2004, I felt that I was invited to participate in an inclusive culture of community of the kind that Habermas describes in terms of an inclusive community and communicative action:

But how can the transition to a post-traditional morality as such be justified? Traditionally established obligations rooted in communicative action do not of themselves reach beyond the limits of the family, the tribe, the city, or the nation. However, the reflexive form of communicative action behaves differently: argumentation of its very nature points beyond all particular forms of life..... the practice of deliberation is extended to an inclusive community that does not in principle exclude any subject capable of speech and action who can make relevant contributions. ......The bottom line is that the participants have all already entered into the cooperative enterprise of rational discourse. (Habermas 2002, pp 40-41)

I felt that I was being invited to share in a process of learning in Guyuan, from our research, in a way that is consistent with Habermas' points about the importance, for the evolution of society and the development of an inclusive community, of focusing on learning processes. I also feel that the inclusional values I experienced at Guyuan resonate strongly with the powerful conclusion to Skidmore's text on inclusion as he analyses the dynamics of school improvement:

Marx's dictum that, in a truly democratic society, 'the free development of each is the condition of the free development of all' (Marx and Engels 1848/1965: 105) could serve as a useful guiding principle for the struggle to create a unified system of comprehensive education, reminding us that the end of education is not to reduce human difference but to allow individuality to flower. However, the socio-cultural theory of mind suggests that a dialectical inversion of Marx's formation is also necessary. The work of Vygotsky and his followers suggests that the growth of the individual personality depends on our experience of meaningful social interaction with others as participants in a common culture. From this point of view, institutionalized patterns of selection between schools, and of differentiation within them, impoverish and distort the individual development of every student, for they diminish our understanding of human difference. Participation in a diverse learning community is a prerequisite for the growth of each individual's subjectivity in all its richness; the combined development of all is the condition for the full development of each. (Skidmore, 2003, p. 127)

So, in terms of my cultural assumptions and biases I think that it will be possible, with colleagues at Guyuan, to develop an inclusive approach to the internationalisation of educational development through the development of a collaborative and communicative living theory approach to educational action research.

But what of the apparent differences in politics and economics between China and the UK and my assumptions and biases on these matters. China is led by a Communist Party – an avowedly Marxist Party - the social order within which I work at the University of Bath is held within Britain's social economy with its emphasise on the market economics of capitalist social formations in most of the present leadership of a Labour Government. The way I make relational sense of these differences is with the help of Amartya Sen's economic theory of human capability. I see that Sen's theory of human capability extends economic theories of human capital and could be a valid response to the need for new ideas on development highlighted by Wen Jiabao (2004, p3).

The writings of Sen (1999), winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economic Science, have helped me to understand his economic theory of human capability. He distinguishes this theory from theories of human capital. As he says, in contemporary economic analysis the emphasis has, to a considerable extent, shifted from seeing capital accumulation in primarily physical terms to viewing it as a process in which the productive quality of human beings is integrally involved. He gives the example that, through education, learning, and skill formation, people can become much more productive over time, and this contributes greatly to the process of economic expansion. Given that the English Language is increasingly being used as the international language associated with economic globalisation, there is a clear connection between this economic movement and the present emphasis being given on learning English in the implementation of China's New Curriculum. The emphasis on learning English in CECEARFLT has similar connections to the economy.

In Sen's economic theory, as a person becomes more efficient in commodity production, through education, then this is clearly an enhancement of human capital. This can add to the value of production in the economy and also to the income of the person who has been educated. In distinguishing his theory of human capability from a theory of human capital he points out that with the same level of income, a person may benefit from education, in reading, communicating, arguing, in being able to choose in a more informed way, in being taken more seriously by others and so on. Hence, says Sen, the benefits of education, exceed its role as human capital in commodity production. His broader human capability perspective notes and values these additional roles as well. In Sen's view the two perspectives are, thus, closely related but distinct.

For Sen there is a crucial valuational difference between the human capital focus and the concentration on human capabilities. It is a difference he relates to the distinction between means and ends. He says that the acknowledgment of the role of human qualities in promoting and sustaining economic growth ‑ momentous as it is ‑ tells us nothing about why economic growth is sought in the first place. He believes that by focusing on the expansion of human freedom to live the kind of lives that people have reason to value, then the role of economic growth in expanding these opportunities has to be integrated into that more foundational understanding of the process of development as the expansion of human capability to lead more worthwhile and more free lives.

He says that this distinction has a significant practical bearing on public policy:

"While economic prosperity helps people to have wider options and to lead more fulfilling lives, so do more education, better health care, finer medical attention, and other factors that causally influence the effective freedoms that people actually enjoy. These "social developments" must directly count as "developmental," since they help us to lead longer, freer and more fruitful lives, in addition to the role they have in promoting productivity or economic growth or individual incomes. The use of the concept of "human capital," which concentrates only on one part of the picture (an important part, related to broadening the account of "productive resources"), is certainly an enriching move. But it does need supplementation. This is because human beings are not merely means of production, but also the end of the exercise" (pp. 295-296)

Sen believes that despite the usefulness of the concept of human capital, it is important to see human beings in a broader perspective by going beyond the notion of human capital, after acknowledging its relevance and reach. He stresses that the broadening that is needed is additional and inclusive, rather than, in any sense, an alternative to the "human capital" perspective.

In looking for a fuller understanding of the role of human capabilities, Sen says that we have to take note of:

i) their direct relevance to the well‑being and freedom of people;

ii) their indirect role through influencing social change; and

iii) their indirect role through influencing economic production. (Sen, 1999, p. 296)

He believes that the relevance of the capability perspective incorporates each of these contributions and says that in contrast, in the standard literature human capital is seen primarily in terms of the third of the three roles. Even with their clear overlap of coverage he claims there is a strong need to go well beyond that rather limited and circumscribed role of human capital in understanding development as freedom.

The economic assumptions and biases in my living theory approach to educational action research are consistent with Sen's economic theory of human capability. I am thinking here of the distinction he draws between theories of human capital and a theory of human capability and the need to go well beyond a theory of human capital in understanding development as freedom.

With the inclusion of Sen's economic theory of human capability in the pedagogising of living educational theories I have demonstrated the possibility of assessing the educational influence of pedagogising living educational theories with an economic theory of human capability.

The final point I wish to make about the pedagogisation of living educational theories in the evolution of social formation concerns the Indian School of Microfinance and its Director, Namrata Sharma. Here are the details circulated by the School with information about the appointment of the Director:

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Most of you know, Sewa Bank and FWWB have promoted The Indian School of Microfinance (The School). The aim of the school is to strengthen the microfinance sector by playing an active role in building the capacity of institutions and individuals working to provide financial services to women. The School is Chaired by Shri Elaben and has Ms Ranjana Kumar, Chairperson NABARD, Ms Nancy Barry, President WWB, Ms Mary Coyle, Director Coady Institute and both of us as Trustees. So far we have concentrated on initiating our training and research activities. This year we will focus in offering a series of training with a special focus on financial literacy. We would therefore like to request all of you to join with us in making The School a unique capacity building organization in the sector.

Here we would also like to inform you that we have hired a Director for the school. Both of us would therefore like to introduce you to Ms Namrata Sharma. Most of you may already know Namrata who has shown her commitment to the sector in different ways. Just before joining us Namrata worked as a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Bath, UK with Dr Susan Johnson for a year in conducting a research looking mainly at the informal financial systems in Kenya. Namrata is also the founding Managing Director of the Centre for Micro Finance (CMF) in Nepal. We welcome her to the team and also want to inform you that she will be contacting you for various initiatives of collaboration to strengthen The School. We are both confident you will support us in this initiative.

As China's Experimental Centre for Educational Action Research in Foreign Languages Teaching has embraced the development and pedagogisation of living educational theories (Tian & Laidlaw, 2005), it may be that the development of such theories in the Indian School of Microfinance could assist the School to enhance its contribution to the well-being of participants in its programmes as it makes its contribution to the evolution of social formations in this Indian context.

Conclusion

In assessing quality in applied and practice-based research I have focused on ontological, epistemological, methodological and pedagogical standards of judgement. These understandings have emerged from some 32 years of practice-based educational enquiry and supervision of applied and practice-based research. They can be related to the four dimensions proposed by Furlong and Oancea but do not fit easily, without a distorting and limiting reductionism, within the dimensions as a framework within which to discuss criteria of quality. I am thinking here of the dimensions of Epistemic, Technological, Capacity Development and value for people, and Economic. I recognise the meanings of each of these dimensions, but with originality placed in the economic dimension I am doubtful of the value of engaging in a discussion that is structured by this Framework. Because of this doubt I am drawn to emphasise the importance of MacIntyre's conclusion at the end of his analysis of Whose Justice? Which Rationality? when he wrote:

The rival claims to truth of contending traditions of enquiry depend for their vindication upon the adequacy and explanatory power of the histories which the resources of each of those traditions in conflict enable their adherents to write. (MacIntyre, 1988, p. 403)

In assessing the quality of applied and practice-based educational research, as distinct from other forms of research, I have provided an evidence-base of judgements from living educational theories. An explanation has been given as to why the explanatory power of these theories is significant in enhancing the flow of values that carry hope for the future of humanity through educational enquiries of the kind, 'How do I improve what I am doing?' Attention has been focused on the meanings of ontological, epistemological, methodological and pedagogic standards of judgement that can be used to assess the quality and validity of claims to educational knowledge from within a living theory perspective. These standards are being proposed as appropriate for assessing the quality of applied and practice-based educational research.

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Appendix

Hughes, J. (1996) Action planning and assessment in guidance contexts: how can I understand and support these processes while working with colleagues in further education colleges and career service provision in Avon. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Bath. Supervised by Paul Denley. Retrieved 19 February 2004 from http://www.actionresearch.net/jacqui.shtml

The thesis presents an action enquiry approach to improving understanding of action planning and assessment in guidance within further education colleges and career service in Avon. Within the thesis I integrate the elements within my enquiry to provide an original holistic representation of my search for understanding of, and my learning about, these issues and about my own educational development. Within this synthesis, I also offer a new understanding of the theoretical origins of action planning and the ways in which these can influence practice. In addition I proffer a new 'process' model which incorporates assessment in guidance within the action planning cycle.

D'Arcy, P. (1998) The Whole Story..... Ph.D. Thesis, University of Bath. Retrieved 19 February 2004 from http://www.actionresearch.net/pat.shtml

I offer this thesis, therefore as an original contribution to the nature of engaged and appreciative responses made by teachers as well as by pupils in the field of story writing and story reading.

I offer it as an original contribution to the educational value of such responses as a form of interpretive assessment in the context of classroom teaching and external examining.

I also offer it as an original contribution to educational knowledge - the process of coming to know - as I have sought to construct my developing perceptions as a living educational theory.

Whitehead, J. (1999) How do I improve my practice? Creating a discipline of education through educational enquiry. Ph.D. University of Bath. Retrieved 19 February 2004 from http://www.actionresearch.net/jack.shtml

This thesis shows how living educational standards of originality of mind and critical judgement in educational enquiries has created a discipline of education..... My living educational theory continues to develop in the enquiry , How do I live my values more fully in my practice?. I explain my present practice in terms of an evaluation of my past learning, in terms of my present experiences of spiritual, aesthetic and ethical contradictions in my educative relations and in terms of my proposals for living my values more fully in the future.

Cunningham, B. (1999) How do I come to know my spirituality as I create my own living educational theory? Ph.D. Thesis, University of Bath. Retrieved 19 February 2004 from http://www.actionresearch.net/ben.shtml

I show how my living engagement with my God is enabling me to author my life and is part of the interweaving of my values in my educative relationships with others.

I show the meaning of my values as I explain my educative relationships in terms of how I dialectically engage the intrapersonal with the interpersonal.

I show how a dialectic of both care and challenge that is sensitive to difference, is enabling me to create my own living educational theory which is a form of improvisatory self-realisation.

I show how my leadership comes into being in my words and actions as I exercise my ethic of responsibility towards others.

Adler-Collins, J. (2000) A Scholarship of Enquiry, M.A. dissertation, University of Bath. Retrieved 19 February 2004 from http://www.actionresearch.net/jekan.shtml

My story represents a journey of several inter-woven strands of my "I", those of soldier, nurse, Buddhist priest, teacher and researcher. This journey is held up to critical examination and reflection over a 5 year period of completing a Masters Degree in Education.... The telling of this story is set within the changing shape and form of education policy and politics within academia, as it responds to the challenges presented by the new forms of knowledge represented by the evolving forms of new technology.

I demonstrate how a teacher researcher can create her own knowledge through

a combining and recombining practice, personal creativity, intuition, theoretical

frameworks, and critical judgement in various degrees at different times. Set in a narrative context, I present a living picture of helping to form and work

with communities of students, parents, teachers, and teacher researchers which provides the life-situations in which I created my own knowledge and strive to identify and live out my values.

This thesis shows an alternative to traditional forms of criticism frequently

Mead, G. (2001) Unlatching the Gate: Realising the Scholarship of my Living Inquiry. Ph.D. University of Bath. Retrieved 19 February 2004 from http://www.actionresearch.net/mead.shtml

As the thesis draws to a close, eschewing the notion of a generalisable theory in favour of one that is situated and particular, I also identify six underlying principles that inform my continuing life of inquiry:

*trusting the primacy of my own lived experience as the bedrock of inquiry, whilst remaining open to the world of ideas and to what others have to offer.

*valuing the originality of mind and critical judgement inherent in my own forms of sense-making and knowledge creation and the wide variety of forms of representation that they generate

*exercising my will to meaning to move me towards what brings a sense of significance and purpose to my life and to clarify my vocation as a healer and educator

*making an existential choice of optimism, of doing my best, of striving to make things better or to make the best of any given situation for myself and with others

*refusing to subsume my life of inquiry within any prescribed form, "following my bliss" to find my own path as a unique and eccentric human being

*communicating and accounting to others for my life of inquiry as an individual claiming originality and exercising my judgement responsibly with universal intent.

The values and standards are defined in terms of valuing the other in my professional practice, building a culture of inquiry, reflection and scholarship and creating knowledge.

Scholes-Rhodes, J. (2002) From the Inside Out: Learning to presence my aesthetic and spiritual being through the emergent form of a creative art of inquiry. Ph.D. University of Bath. Retrieved 19 February 2004 from http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/rhodes.shtml

I hold my changing sense of the world clearly at the centre of my learning, my sense of spiritual and aesthetic belonging expressed as a sense of 'exquisite connectivity'. I develop a notion of 'live' and 'life' meanings as I begin to explore my understanding of its emergent possibilities, holding a fragile sense of a connected world side by side with the generative capacity of my dialogic voice.

I create an intricate patterning of personal stories and dialogic inquiry process, forming a sense of coherence from the juxtaposition of emotional images with the clarity of a reflective and cognitive dialogue.

Roberts, P. (2003) Emerging Selves in Practice: How do I and others create my practice and how does my practice shape me and influence others? Ph.D. University of Bath. Retrieved 19 August 2004 from http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/roberts.shtml

This thesis outlines a notion of selves as relational, multiple, embodied and imaginal, in contrast to the more dominant Cartesian framework in which selves have been conceived of and enacted as separate, singular, disembodied and literal. It shows how my practice as a management educator on a two year part-time postgraduate programme in People and Organisational Development and as an organisational change consultant in different contexts attempts, over time, to realise such a relational view of the way unique, contextualised, embodied selves emerge as I engage in and write about my practice with others......

Tracking my unique form of relational emergent practice, as it has evolved over the six years of this thesis, using the method of writing accounts of my work and sharing these with people I have been working with in cycles of action and reflection (what I call in short 'showing my work to others'), will demonstrate the originality of this work as well as its contribution to both 'living life as inquiry' and to a 'living educational theory'.

Punia, R. (2004) My CV is My Curriculum: The Making of an International Educator with Spiritual Values. Ed.D. University of Bath. Retrieved 19 August 2004 from http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/punia.shtml

This autobiographical self-study presents my living educational theory of lifelong learning as an international educator with spiritual values including belief in cosmic unity, continuous professional development for personal and social development of life in general. The landscape of knowledge includes India, UK, Singapore, Hong Kong, Fiji, Samoa and Mauritius in several roles including a lecturer, teacher trainer, change agent in curriculum, staff, school development, a training technologist in corporate learning and a student in the University of Bath.

Hartog, M. (2004) A Self Study Of A Higher Education Tutor: How Can I Improve My Practice? Ph.D. University of Bath. Retrieved 19 August 2004 from http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/hartog.shtml

Church, M. (2004) Creating an uncompromised place to belong: Why do I find myself in networks? Retrieved 24 May 2005 from http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/church.shtml

(I would have liked to place the following three research degrees on the web as these were most significant in helping me to work through some of initial original ideas in my own research. Unfortunately they were produced without the aid of the e-media necessary to place the accounts on the web. The texts are however in the library of the University of Bath:

Foster, D. (1982) Explanations for teachers' attempts to improve the process of education for their pupils. M.Ed, (research), University of Bath.

Gurney, M. (1988) An action enquiry into ways of developing and improving personal and social education. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Bath.

McNiff, J. (1989) An explanation for an individual's educational development through the dialectic of action research. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Bath. )