The SAGE Handbook of Educational Action Research

Susan E Noffke, Bridget Somekh, Susan E Noffke, Bridget Somekh

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9781446206874
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Research in Education

This handbook presents and critiques predominant and emergent traditions of Educational Action Research internationally. Now a prominent methodology, Educational Action Research is well suited to exploring, developing and sustaining change processes both in classrooms and whole organisations such as schools, Departments of Education, and many segments of universities.

The handbook contains theoretical and practical based chapters by highly respected scholars whose work has been seminal in building knowledge and expertise in the field. It also contains chapters exemplifying the work of prominent practitioner and community groups working outside universities.

The Editors provide an introduction and conclusion, as well as an opening chapter which charts the historical development of action research and provides an analysis of its underlying theories. The handbook is organized into four sections, each beginning with a short introduction:

-Action research methodology: diversity of rationales and practices

-Professional: Knowledge production, staff development, and the status of educators

-Personal: Self-awareness, development and identity

-Political: Popular knowledge, difference, and frameworks for change

This is a key resource for scholars and graduate students at doctors and masters levels, as well as school leaders and administrators.

Susan Noffke is Associate Professor of Curriculum & Instruction at the University of Illinois - Urbana/Champaign and co-editor with R.B. Stevenson of Educational Action Research (Teachers College Press, 1995). She taught at the primary school level for a decade, and has led masters and doctoral level courses in action research for the past 20 years. She continues to work with many collaborative projects with schools and school districts.

Bridget Somekh is Professor of Educational Research at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. She is a founder editor of the Educational Action Research journal and has been a co-ordinator of the Collaborative Action Research Network (CARN) for many years. She is co-editor of Research Methods in the Social Sciences (SAGE: 2005) and author of Action Research: a Methodology for Change and Development (Open University Press: 2006).

Table of contents

• COVER
• CONTENTS
• CONTRIBUTORS
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
• Introduction
• 1 Revisiting the Professional, Personal, and Political Dimensions of Action Research
• PART I Action Research Methodology: Diversity of Rationales and Practices
• 2 Building Educational Theory through Action Research
• 3 Teacher Research as Stance
• 4 Dialogic Inquiry as Collaborative Action Research
• 5 Action Research and the Personal Turn
• 6 Educational Action Research: A Critical Approach
• 7 Action Research for/as/mindful of Social Justice
• PART II Professional: Knowledge Production, Staff Development, and the Status of Educators
• Introduction to Part II
• 8 A School District-Based Action Research Program in the United States
• 9 Using Action Research to Support Students with Special Educational Needs
• 10 Renegotiating Knowledge Relationships in Schools
• 11 Lesson Study as Action Research
• 12 Practitioner Action Research and Educational Leadership
• 13 Educational Action Research as a Paradigm for Change
• 14 Practitioner Action Research: Building and Sustaining Success through Networked Learning Communities
• 15 Action Research and Educational Change: Teachers as Innovators
• 16 A School System Takes on Exhibitions through Teacher Action Research
• 17 Action Research, Professional Development and Systemic Reform
• 18 Sustaining the Next Generation of Teacher-Researchers to Work for Social Justice
• 19 Co-operative Change Management through Practitioner Inquiry
• PART III Personal: Self-Awareness, Development and Identity
• Introduction to Part III
• 20 Ethics and the ‘Personal’ in Action Research
• 21 Writing to Learn: A Process for the Curious
• 22 From Passionate Enquiry to Loving Detachment: One Researcher’s Methodological Journey
• 23 The Interconnections between Narrative Inquiry and Action Research
• 24 Capabilities, Flourishing and the Normative Purposes of Action Research
• 25 Demonstrating Quality in Educational Research for Social Accountability
• 26 Action Research and Pedagogy as Science of the Child’s Upbringing
• 27 Developing Relationships, Developing the Self: Buddhism and Action Research
• 28 Teaching and Cultural Difference: Exploring the Potential for a Psychoanalytically Informed Action Research
• 29 Complexity Theory and Action Research
• 30 Agency through Action Research: Constructing Active Identities from Theoretical Models and Metaphors
• 31 Existentialism and Action Research
• PART IV Political: Popular Knowledge, Difference, and Frameworks for Change
• Introduction to Part IV
• 32 Elbows Out, Arms Linked: Claiming Spaces for Feminisms and Gender Equity in Educational Action Research
• 33 Students’ Participation in School Change: Action Research on the Ground
• 34 Community Action and Agency in the Education of Urban Youth
• 35 Social-Political Theory in Working with Teachers for Social Justice Schooling
• 36 Rethinking Action Research: Commonsense and Relations of Freedom
• 37 Participatory Action Research in Latin American Education: A Road Map to a Different Part of the World
• 38 Teacher Development and Political Transformation: Reflections from the South African Experience
• 39 The Impact of Action Research in Spanish Schools in the Post- Franco Era
• 40 Popular Education and Action Research
• 41 Partnership Action Research for Social Justice: Politics, Challenges and Possibilities
• Conclusions
• Index