Educational Action Research

Vol. 17, No. 1, March 2009, 521

Action research for educational reform: remodelling action

research theories and practices in local contexts
Bridget Somekha and Ken Zeichnerb*
a
Educational and Social Research Institute, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester,
UK; bUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, USA

(Received 3 November 2008; final version received 19 November 2008)

Taylor and Francis Ltd
REAC_A_366910.sgm

Educational
10.1080/09650790802667402
0965-0792
Original
Taylor
102009
17
zeichner@facstaff.wisc.edu
KenZeichner
00000March
&Article
Francis
(print)/1747-5074
Action
2009 Research (online)

This paper explores how action research theories and practices are remodelled in
local contexts and used to support educational reform. From an analysis of 46
publications from the period 20002008, five variations in the globalized theory
and practice of action research are identified: action research in times of political
upheaval and transition; action research as a state-sponsored means of reforming
schooling; co-option of action research by Western governments and school
systems to control teachers; action research as a university-led reform movement;
and action research as locally-sponsored systemic reform sustained over time. A
common feature in these variations of action research is the importance each
demonstrates of working towards a resolution of the impetus for action with the
reflective process of inquiry and knowledge generation, to generate new practices.
The paper also offers a framework to enable the analysis of how action research
differs in local settings within and across national boundaries. The paper ends by
suggesting that the emerging variations of action research in many countries
during the period 20002008 can be construed as an example of Appadurais
globalization from below, in which teacher-action-researchers contribute
knowledge and learning from multiple local sites about the process of effective
educational reform.
Keywords: discursive power of action research; development of action research;
variations of action research; framework for analysis; globalization from below

Action research, as a proposition, has discursive power because it embodies a collision

of terms. In generating research knowledge and improving social action at the same
time, action research challenges the normative values of two distinct ways of being
that of the scholar and the activist. It has been our experience that, when embarking
on action research projects in K12 settings, there is often a suggestion that the term
research should be dropped; whereas in higher education settings we have come
across similar discomfort with the term action. This can be understood as the
discursive shaping of social action in a community by the regimes of truth that
control the values and behaviours of its members (Foucault 1972, 131). Working one
in the United Kingdom, the other in the USA, we have both consistently resisted these
pressures to call action research by another name, instead consciously using its discursive power. It is a characteristic of Western culture that physical work and mental
work are seen as the provinces of two different kinds of people.
*Corresponding author. E-mail:zeichner@facstaff.wisc.edu
ISSN 0965-0792 print/ISSN 1747-5074 online
2009 Educational Action Research
DOI: 10.1080/09650790802667402
http://www.informaworld.com

B. Somekh and K. Zeichner

The poet Yeats, caught between impulses to promote Irelands cultural identity
through both nationalist activism and the writing of poetry, symbolized the pattern
and tension of human existence in a metaphor of interpenetrating gyres or whirling
cones in which moving from the subjective/reflective to the objective/active could be
traumatic (Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold), but resolution between the two
by holding the tensions in unity of being was his ultimate ideal (Ellman 1960, 118,
231243; Yeats 1961, 210). Using a metaphor of interpenetrating reflexive spirals of
action and research, in this paper we will argue that it is precisely because action
research deliberately mixes discourses and thereby erodes the boundaries between
action and knowledge-generation that it is uniquely suited to generating and sustaining social transformation. Action research can make a unique contribution to educational reform because it challenges the bodymind divide that has fractured Western
conceptions of what it means to be human since the Enlightenment.
Action research in a globalized world
The boundary-crossing nature of action research also makes it a particularly wellsuited methodology for educational transformation in the twenty-first century. The
rapid changes experienced by every community in this time of globalization are the
product of what Appadurai calls a world of flows in which ideas and ideologies,
people and goods, images and messages, technologies and techniques are constantly
in motion, despite the appearance of stable structures and organizations in each country (Appadurai 2001, 57). Higher education has become a marketplace attracting
students internationally to study in the developed world, digital technologies import
ideas that transgress the boundaries of traditional culture, and politicians in a wide
range of countries import neo-liberal education policies in an effort to be seen to
succeed in international comparative tests. Thus, globalization has created a context
in which the oppressive practices of the imperial past can be replicated by the
economic hegemony of the market and the ideological assumptions of international
donor agencies (Dahlstrom 2008). Nevertheless, the world of flows also provides a
context for counter-hegemonic movements to flourish. Appadurai (2001, 1620) calls
for the creation of globalization from below by means of grassroots efforts and the
creation of new forms of dialogue between policy-makers, activists and academics;
and Rizvi builds upon Appadurais concept of the social imaginary to argue that in
all communities there is a collective sense of agency (2006, 195) that re-orders and
localizes ideas and policies that travel through time and space (2006, 200).
Action research was developed in Europe and the USA in the first half of the twentieth century and its take up in many countries can be seen as a product of the world
of flows; it is an idea an approach to educational reform that has travelled. But
action research brings with it a democratic imperative to challenge oppression and
nurture and sustain social justice. It is a methodology grounded in the values and
culture of its participant-researchers and hence it is flexible to local agency. In this
paper we focus upon different approaches to action research that have developed
across the world, and explore to what extent it can be seen as a means of realizing
Appadurais globalization from below.
Reflections on the origins and development of action research
Current action research practices can be seen to be shaped by its origins and early
development. In this section we reflect on the work of some of the leading figures in

Educational Action Research

the development of action research in the twentieth century, drawing out key concepts
and practices to inform our analysis of contemporary work.
Kurt Lewin, who is often credited with inventing the term action research, was an
immigrant to the USA in the 1930s, a refugee fleeing from Hitlers fascism. He was
also a social psychologist interested in improving the social organization of groups
and communities (Lewin 1946). When he founded the Research Center for Group
Dynamics at MIT in 1945, and subsequently the journal Human Relations, jointly with
the Tavistock Institute in London, Lewin was setting out a radical new direction for
research in psychology. His vision of action research was as an alternative to the
norms of decontextualized research; instead of focusing on surveys and statistical
methods, action researchs purpose was to improve social formations by involving
participants in a cyclical process of fact finding, planning, exploratory action and
evaluation (Lewin 1948, 2026). In recent years the radical nature of Lewins early
contribution is often forgotten; he was a pioneer in a new form of social psychology
that focused on improving the lives of ordinary people. It is important, too, that he was
a psychologist; he was familiar with the work of Vygotsky in the Soviet Union before
he left Germany, 30 years before the latters work was discovered in the west
(Stetsenko 2008). Lewin, like Vygotsky, was interested in the capacity of human
beings to support each others learning.
Stephen Corey, the head of the Horace-Mann-Lincoln Institute of School Experimentation at Columbia University in the 1950s, was a leading voice for promoting
action research in education in the USA. He and his colleagues at the Institute collaborated extensively with school districts and teachers across the USA in conducting
studies of various school problems. Corey produced a number of papers and a book
on action research in education (for example, Corey 1953) that discussed what he
referred to as the method of cooperative action research and reported on various
studies conducted in US schools that were supported by the Institute. Corey was also
a leading voice in contrasting action research with conventional academic research,
such as in the following statement about the openness of the research process to the
changing conditions associated with an inquiry:
In a program of action research, it is impossible to know definitely in advance the
exact nature of the inquiry that will develop. If initial designs, important as they are
for action research, are treated with too much respect, the investigators may not be
sufficiently sensitive to their developing irrelevance to the ongoing situation. (Corey
1949, 519)

Lawrence Stenhouse was a historian whose educational work focused on the

development of curriculum that he saw as the key determinant of students learning in
school. For Stenhouse, curriculum incorporated what today is more usually called
pedagogy. It was both what the students learned (planned and unplanned) and the
classroom practices of teachers and students. Stenhouse developed a concept of the
process curriculum (sometimes called the enacted curriculum) (Stenhouse 1975).
He believed that curriculum development depended neither on specifying new courses
of study nor on specifying learning objectives, but on working with teachers as
researchers in joint exploration of the processes of teacherstudent interaction and
learning. In his work developing the humanities curriculum (in reality a curriculum for
moral education), Stenhouse cast students in the role of developers of their own moral
precepts and understandings through dialogue, with the teacher as a neutral chairperson and facilitator. For Stenhouse, teachers work was the central and most important

B. Somekh and K. Zeichner

driver of educational reform (Stenhouse 1985). He developed a vision of teachers

producing case studies of research in their own classrooms as contributions to a
growing library of knowledge resources to inform educational policy and practice
(Stenhouse 1978).
Wilf Carr and Stephen Kemmis made an important contribution to the development of action research theory and methodology by locating it within the framework of critical theory, in particular in relation to the work of Habermas (Carr and
Kemmis 1986). Lewins original drive to improve the lives of human beings was
given a much more explicit ideological impetus towards promoting social justice
and resisting oppression. Action research became a means of realizing the
Habermasian ideal of democratizing the power differentials in social groups and
institutions. Action researchers, working collaboratively, would be able to create
ideal speech situations in which communication between individuals would be
free and open, unconstrained by considerations of power and status. Carr and
Kemmiss book described a vision for the future rather than a current reality, and
they are on record more recently saying that some key aspects of their vision have
not been realized (Carr and Kemmis 2005). Nevertheless, although ideology
critique must now be seen in its historical context as fanciful in its reliance on the
core Enlightenment concept of rationalism, Carr and Kemmis belief in emanicipatory values has continued to provide action researchers with a radical vision of
possibility.
John Elliott, a colleague of Stenhouse, extended and transformed the concept of
the teacher-researcher. In two curriculum development projects the Ford Teaching
Project, which focused on science in the primary school, and TeacherPupil Interaction and the Quality of Learning, which focused on teaching within the constraints
of current assessment systems he developed notions of multi-level action research
(Elliott 1991). The purpose of the action research was to improve students education. Senior staff in a school carried out action research on their own roles as
managers facilitating the classroom action research of their colleagues. The teacherresearcher engaging in classroom action research was facilitated by a universitybased partner who carried out second-order action research into his or her own
practice as a facilitator. Elliotts contribution over 30 years has been in developing a
comprehensive theory of teacher professional knowledge and teacher professional
development/ learning through action research (Elliott 2007). He has drawn on
Gadamers philosophy to conceptualize action research as a hermeneutic process of
reflection to develop understanding and agency in social situations (Elliott 2007,
105108). Elliotts theory of teaching as a practical educational science draws on the
Aristotelian tradition of practical philosophy, in particular the concept of praxis that
he defines as moral action (Ethical values are realized in, rather than as a result
of, praxis) (2007, 107). His concern has been with improving education through
action research that develops the situational understanding and moral agency of
teachers.
A decade ago, in a historical review of the action research tradition, Noffke (1997)
characterized action research work as encompassing three dimensions: the professional, the personal and the political. Her analysis pulled out interesting differences in
the growing body of action research work and explored its developing trajectories.
Noffkes categories suggest differences in kind but not in value and importance, and
she recognizes and acknowledges the range and variety of achievements. Yet, she
emphasizes the overarching importance of the political:

Educational Action Research

[These three dimensions] all clearly deal with issues of power and control. In that sense,
the public sphere of professionalism and the domain of the personal are also particular
manifestations of the political. (Noffke 1997, 306)

Noffkes work is crucial in establishing the wide range of the action research territory.
She has continued to work with the power and complexities of the boundary-crossing
values of action research, but her analysis encompasses the work of some who prefer
to call their action research by another name. This inclusivity is maintained in the
Handbook of Educational Action Research she has recently edited with one of
the authors of this paper (Noffke and Somekh 2009). The Handbook illustrates how
the developing tradition of action research has flourished and diversified over the past
20 years. Notably, it has become more fully theorized, drawing on a much wider range
of contemporary thought and knowledge. The Handbook includes chapters, for example, on action research and capability theory (Walker 2009), Buddhism (Winter 2009),
psychoanalytic theory (Carson 2009), complexity theory (Sumara and Davis 2009)
and existentialism (Feldman 2009).
How is this paper positioned within the developing action research tradition?
In the analysis of current approaches to action research that we present later in this
paper, we inevitably draw on our own definitions of its nature and purposes. To clarify
any otherwise hidden assumptions, we now present a brief summary of our own
standpoints.
Ken Zeichner
I first became involved with action research as an elementary school teacher in the
USA in the 1970s both in terms of studying my own teaching and our staff collectively, studying our work as a school. Over the past 30 years or so, I have supported
action research by student-teachers in the pre-service teacher education programme in
which I work, action research by the elementary and secondary school teachers who
mentor and assess the work of our student-teachers, and the action research of the
graduate students who teach and supervise student-teachers in our teacher education
programmes and who are learning how to be teacher educators. Additionally, most of
all, much of my research during my career has involved study of my own practice as
a teacher educator and of the teacher education programmes for which I am responsible. In recent years, many of the action research studies of my doctoral students have
served as the dissertations they have submitted for their PhD thesis. My interest in
action research in different contexts has been stimulated by my extensive involvement
in discussions and practices concerning action research in a number of different parts
of the world ranging from 10 years of work in Namibia supporting the action research
of teacher educators and student-teachers to meetings with action researchers and
scholars of action research in places like Chile Brazil, Australia, Thailand and
Sweden.

Bridget Somekh
I started out as a teacher researcher working with John Elliott on action research
projects focused on curriculum development. My first experience was of the power of

10

B. Somekh and K. Zeichner

action research to transform my understanding of my work as a teacher; and of how it

enabled me to give my students more empowering and engaging experiences of learning (constructing knowledge). Since the late 1980s my action research work has
mainly been in the context of leading development projects; unlike Ken, I have never
worked as a teacher educator with pre-service students, and my partnerships with
practitioners have been on the basis of collaborating with them to undertake work for
a sponsor, in many cases for a government agency. I have also had the opportunity of
working as the adviser of a number of graduate students undertaking action research
studies for a masters or doctoral degree. Both these strands of work have taken place
in a range of different socio-cultural settings: K12 schools, university departments,
healthcare and social care facilities in the British National Health Service, public
services and private commercial organizations. Since 1990 I have also worked closely
with teachers and teacher educators whilst conducting action research workshops in a
number of countries, including South Africa, Venezuela and Singapore. I wanted to
write this chapter with Ken as soon as I realized we share an interest in the remodelling process that takes place when action research travels to different cultures and
countries, particularly from Western to Southern settings through the current
process of globalization (Somekh 2006, 3161).
A framework for analysing action research practices in local-within-global
contexts
The discussion of action research in the international literature that we present in the
next sections of the paper has been informed by the analytic framework Dimensions
of Variation in Action Research, developed by Ken in a paper presented at a conference we both recently attended in Taiwan (Zeichner 2007, 2008). There are eight
dimensions in this framework:
(1) The purposes for which action research is conducted. For example, Noffke
(1997) as referred to above outlined three different motivations for educators who
conduct action research. First there is the motivation to better understand and
improve ones practice and/or the contexts in which one works. Second is the
motivation to produce knowledge that will be useful to other educators. Finally,
consistent with the democratic impulse that was originally associated with action
research in the 1940s in the USA (Foshay 1994), there is the motivation to
contribute to greater equity and democracy. These categories are not mutually
exclusive. All educators who conduct action research are interested in improving
their own practice. In addition, some of these are also interested in sharing their
learning with others and/or in contribution to social reconstruction.
(2) The contextual conditions for action research. This dimension refers to the
conditions under which action research is conducted. For example, educators
conduct action research alone as individuals, as part of small collaborative
groups or in school faculty groups involving everyone in a particular school.
When research is done in the context of a group, the groups have varied
according to their size, the basis for their formation, and whether they have an
external facilitator or not.
(3) The philosophy toward teachers and their learning. This dimension refers to
how educators learning is viewed within an action research community. Some
communities replicate the hierarchical patterns of authority and the dim view

Educational Action Research

(4)

(5)

(6)

(7)

(8)

11

of teachers capabilities that permeate dominant forms of teacher professional

development, while others display a deep respect for teachers and their knowledge and reject typical authority patterns that limit teacher autonomy and
control.
Who sponsors the research? Here there have been many different sponsors of
research including educators themselves, school districts, teacher unions,
colleges and universities, private foundations and governments.
Incentives for doing action research. Here, beyond the intrinsic value of doing
action research, there have been a number of external incentives provided for
educators to conduct action research including paid time during the school day
to meet in action research groups, opportunities to participate in conferences
to present their research, access to university credits and to advances in
salaries that often go with increased coursework, and to advanced university
degrees.
Form of inquiry. There are a number of different conceptualizations of the
action research process that have been used by educators across the world (for
example, McNiff and Whitehead 2003, 13). For example, some action
research uses a version of the action research spiral and focuses on a single
research question while other action research focuses simultaneously on multiple research questions (Gallas 1998).
Relationship of action research to other research. Action research studies vary
in the way that they relate to other research. Troen et al. (1997) describe three
patterns that emerged when they examined teachers action research studies in
a particular research community in the Boston, MA area. Some teachers used
concepts, questions and ideas from other research as the starting point for their
own research; others used them as a resource, usually consulting them later on
in the process (McDonald 1986); and still others did not use them at all and
did not make an effort to conduct their action research to other academic or
school-based research.
Ways of representing action research to others. Educators have represented
what they learned in their action research to others in many different ways,
including informal presentations within their schools, oral presentations at
conferences, written research reports that are sometimes published, video and
website documentation of their research and the use of theatrical performance
techniques.

Carrying out the analysis on which this paper is based

This paper is based on an analysis of 46 publications dated between 2000 and 2008
that present action research carried out in a large number of countries. These included
34 papers published in this journal. This paper, therefore, reflects the diversity resulting from the aspiration of Educational Action Research to be culturally inclusive and
work against the grain of Western hegemony. Notes were made on each publication,
in columns, under the headings of the analytic framework outlined in the previous
section. The resulting table was then used to derive five variations of action research.
In the process of carrying out the analysis it became clear that the framework needed
to be expanded to take account of the impact of cultural differences. Each of the eight
dimensions of the framework could be applied to the articles in the form envisaged
by the notes in the previous section, but additional factors needed to be taken into

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B. Somekh and K. Zeichner

consideration. It was not a matter of adding new dimensions, but rather of stretching
the compass of each dimension to include factors relating to how the work of teachers
and schools was strongly shaped by the history, culture and politics of local education
systems.
The interpenetrating spirals of action and research
This section of the paper presents the five variations of action research that we
derived from our analysis. Our focus is on the remodelling of action research theories
and practices, in response to local cultures in the world of flows that Appadurai sees
as characteristic of globalization. This sometimes involves calling action research by
another name, while retaining its characteristic boundary-crossing between action and
research (e.g. critical practitioner inquiry in Namibia). Our metaphor of interpenetrating reflexive spirals of action research is drawn from the figure of interpenetrating
gyres that the poet Yeats saw, in Ellmans words (1960, 231), as the archetypal
pattern [] mirrored and remirrored by all life, by all movement of civilization or
mind or nature. It signifies the creative tension in holding these two (oppositional)
trajectories of action and research in balance and continuous motion. This is the overarching dynamic within which the variations are explored.

1. Action research in times of political upheaval and transition

The political nature of action research is very obvious when it is conducted in contexts
where there has been a radical change of government in the recent past. Major ideological reorientation in the publicly declared vision of a new political system brings
with it hopes for improvement that are nearly always unrealizable in the near future.
Action research, particularly when it draws upon critical and emancipatory values
(Carr and Kemmis 1986), provides a starting point for working to realize the vision.
In Namibia, action research work has been at the heart of educational reform since
independence in 1990. The focus of the work has been in building a new system of
teacher education that encourages teachers to engage critically with learning as professionals. As Mayumbelo and Nyambe explain:
Perhaps terms such as teacher empowerment are clichs in other countries. But in a
country like Namibia, where intellectual creativity and development were deliberately
stifled to suit a certain political ideology, they are powerful metaphors of liberation in
the widest sense of the word. (1999, 72)

An important feature of the work in Namibia has been its dual focus on empowering
teachers and building a local knowledge base.1 The theories and practices of action
research have been appropriated and incorporated in the national teacher education
programme for basic education (the BETD). Mayumbelo and Nyambe describe how
critical inquiry was adopted as the official strategy to educate teachers in all three
years of the Basic Education Teaching Diploma during the 1990s:
In year 3 students undertook their own action research study. Throughout the BETD,
students were taught to be reflective so that they become independent agents able to
respond to the vibrant and ever changing environments of their classrooms and society.
(Mayumbelo and Nyambe 1999, 77)

Educational Action Research

13

The publication of action research studies by teachers, student-teachers, teacher

educators and government staff involved in this early work was the first step in creating a local knowledge base for Namibian education (Zeichner and Dahlstrom 1999).
Dahlstrom gives an account of how the work in Namibia grew out of the Swedish
Development Agencys support for education in the Namibian refugee camps before
independence (Dahlstrom 1999). He describes how education was an important area
of ideological struggle (Dahlstrom 1999, 49). More recently the reform work in
teacher education in Namibia can be seen as an example of a locally-managed
counter-hegemonic movement to give control over educational policy and practice to
those at the grass-roots (Dahlstrom 2003). Critical practitioner inquiry is a form of
action research that emphasizes the need to adopt a critical stance to neo-liberal ideology and the dictates of international donor agencies and bodies such as the World
Bank. By writing case studies of their critical practitioner inquiry research, teacher
educators and teachers in Namibia have created a repository of local educational
knowledge that is used in teacher education courses, very much in the way envisaged
by Stenhouse. This work is a form of political action that claims teacher educators
and teachers preferential right of interpretation (whose voice counts) in Namibian
education (Dahlstrom 2003, 468).
The theme of empowering teachers in a reformed education system emerges
clearly in action research carried out in other countries that have experienced rapid
political change. In South Africa, Winkler (2001) focused on a higher degree course
designed to give teachers from the former Bantu education system qualifications
commensurate with their experience. The teachers came from impoverished areas
with poor job security, and it was challenging to decide whether educational theory
(from the Western traditions) would be of any value to them and how to teach it in
a way that would not devalue their own practical knowledge. Winklers action
research revealed the need to engage with teachers in theoretical work involving
both reflection and confrontation. She reached no easy answers.
In Russia, Michalova, Yusfin, and Polyakov (2002) describe the process of identity construction involved in preparing teachers from the former Soviet Union to work
in an education system reoriented to humanistic and democratic values. Teachers were
required to cater for the needs of the individual child instead of working with the
collective. Adopting the alien concept of individual self-determination was stressful
and challenging for teachers. Action research was introduced, in the context of a panEuropean teacher education project, to support teachers in learning to become innovators supporting children in the process of self-discovery, rather than transmitters of
certain knowledge and skills.
In Spain, Perez-Gomez et al. (2009) trace the development of action research from
the Pedagogy Renovation Movements that grew up in the time of Francos dictatorship. These were led by teachers who formed links with other social movements in an
attempt to liberate and transform schools, despite the constraints of the time. After the
death of the dictator, action research was introduced through workshops led by John
Elliott and the publication in Spanish of Carr and Kemmis book Becoming Critical.
It built upon these radical grassroots movements and played an important part in the
development of new education systems, nationally and in the autonomous regions.
The Carboneras Document, which set out policies for the reform of primary education
in Andalusia in 1987, established research as a teachers tool and gave teachers the
role of independent professionals who develop by carrying out research into their own
practice (Perez-Gomez et al. 2009).

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B. Somekh and K. Zeichner

2. Action research as a state-sponsored means of reforming schooling

During the second half of the 1990s there was a move in several countries in East Asia
to introduce policies that formally adopted action research as a strategy for school
reform. This can be seen as a response to a perceived need to encourage greater
creativity and entrepreneurship in the workforce at a time of growing economic global
competition. In Singapore, the Governments vision for Thinking School, Learning
Nation, introduced in 1997, was strongly influenced by De Bonos work on the
development of creative thinking skills. Here again, the professional development of
teachers was seen as the key to reform. According to Salleh, the mission of the
Teachers Network established in 1998 was to build a fraternity of reflective teachers
and to encourage teacher-initiated development through sharing, collaboration and
reflection leading to self-mastery, excellent practice and fulfilment (2006, 514). By
2000, the Teachers Network had introduced learning circles in which groups of teachers worked collaboratively to identify problems in their practice and develop strategies
for improvement. Learning circles can be seen as a form of action research remodelled
to fit the needs of local culture. From 2003 a number of other forms of action research
were initiated in projects, action research in-service courses were provided for teachers, and groups of schools collaborated in running action research symposia (Salleh
2006, 515). Teachers action research was officially endorsed and encouraged by the
Center for Research and Pedagogical Practice established in 2002.
Salleh provides a very detailed account of the process of remodelling that has
taken place as action research has adapted to Singaporean culture. He describes how
initially it encountered two structural constraints: the first the culture of taking
directive and initiative from the top, which made it difficult for teachers to develop
professional agency; the second the culture of productive efficiency, which made it
difficult for teachers to take risks or acknowledge that making mistakes could be a
productive learning experience. These two constraints, related to dominant cultural
dispositions in the country, in Sallehs view have had a detrimental impact on the
nature of action research practised by teachers in Singapore. Yet, in drawing conclusions, he points out several positive developments observable in what might be
called the second wave of reform activity. The first of these is the new policy initiative for experimentation in schools, and its slogan bottom up initiative, top down
support. The second is the emphasis by policy-makers on communication with
teachers, and the importance of listening and negotiating with teachers. The third
development is the development of deeper understanding of the process of action
research emerging from the Teachers Networks evaluation of their learning circles
programme. He draws on Bourdieus concept of misrecognition to point to the
contradictory principles and practices between action research and Singaporean
culture; and seems to suggest that the remodelling process, which is a main focus of
our interest in this paper, is likely to produce a new form of action research that
retains the creative tension of balancing research and action while better suiting the
culture of Singapore.
It is interesting that the kind of collaborative inquiry conducted by a group of
teachers in learning circles in Singapore bears strong similarities to the Japanese
approach of lesson study (see the paper in the present issue by Lewis). In its original
form in Japan, lesson study was practiced very widely in the education system, with
groups of teachers undertaking them as a form of self-review in their fifth and tenth
years of teaching (Lewis, Perry, and Friedkin 2009, qx). Elliott and Tsai (2008)

Educational Action Research

15

suggest that lesson study constitutes a practical appropriation of certain aspects of

Confucian thought for the purpose of improving teaching and learning. They argue
that action research and lesson study become a focal point for the meeting of Eastern
and Western thought through commonalities in their underpinning epistemologies in
the philosophy of Confucius and Dewey; both making explicit links between knowledge and reflection on the one hand and action for the benefit of the common good on
the other. A further remodelling of action research/lesson study has taken place in
Hong Kong where the government has introduced Learning Study to support teacher
professional development and curriculum reform. Learning Study incorporates
Western phenomengraphic methods for researching the variations in learners perceptions of concepts, and Elliott and Tsai believe that its appeal to Hong Kong teachers
lies in its reson[nance] with conceptions of learning that are deeply embedded in
Confucian culture (Elliott and Tsai 2008).
3. Co-option of action research by Western governments and school systems
to control teachers
In recent years, the influence of neo-liberal and neo-conservative policies on state
school systems in many parts of the world (Apple 2001; Ball 2004) has created a situation where there has been an increased focus on treating teachers as technicians or
educational clerks rather than as reflective professionals. Teachers ability to exercise
their judgement in their classrooms and to maintain control of the direction of their
professional development has been eroded (for example, Robertson 2008; Smyth
2000) in the face of these policies, such as No Child Left Behind in the USA (Kozol
2005). School-sponsored action research in these times has sometimes been used to
serve the purposes of the reforms in very narrow ways (i.e. only aiming at higher standardized test scores) rather than to support teachers ownership of the action research
process and their exploration of issues of concern to them beyond raising test scores.
In some cases, teachers have been asked to do action research to examine the effectiveness of mandated instructional methods and/or curriculum. There are several cases
in the literature of efforts in the USA of what is called school wide action research,
where all staff in a school are required to conduct action research and where the action
researchers have felt that they have not had ownership of the research process. Not
surprisingly, teachers have often reacted negatively to these disingenuous attempts at
empowerment and have defined them as unwanted forms of control from school
administrators (see Zeichner 2003).
4. Action research as a university-led reform movement
Universities in many countries are working in partnership with schools and governments to use action research as a strategy for educational reform. Often this is through
innovative projects involving schooluniversity partnerships; often it is through the
work of graduate students who carry out action research in their own school as part of
higher degree study. Looking at this work across many countries, it is clear that its
nature changes to fit local cultures, just as does the work in Africa and the East Asia
described above. But here our focus is on the politics of university-led action research
partnerships. Universities have the benefit of standing outside the hierarchy of the
education system for schools; so they have status within the system but not the power
to lead its reform. They intervene, sometimes very powerfully, from the sidelines. We

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B. Somekh and K. Zeichner

begin by looking at two contrasting examples of university post-graduate courses,

aimed at teacher professional development and system reform, and sustained over a
long period of time: the first in a stable political system and the second in a system
where political struggle took precedence in the universitys mission over its formal
role in education.
In the first example, Altrichter and Posch (2009) describe the development over
25 years of a professional development programme for teachers at the University of
Klagenfurt in Austria. Teachers enrol in the course for a period of two years, with
three one-week seminars of intensive teaching and five regional meetings. They
undertake action research studies in their own schools, focusing on their own professional challenges and planning and implementing a development project in their own
classrooms. They present their on-going work to the interdisciplinary professional
community made up of course leaders from subject disciplines in the university and
course participants. A significant feature of the course is the good relationship developed between the university and the Ministry of Education over many years, resulting
in the course being officially recognized by both. More than 300 case studies produced
by course participants have been completed and published online, providing a
substantial body of professional knowledge, with cultural resonances for teachers in
German-speaking countries. Other courses have been developed to extend this work,
including the PROFIL course that focuses on Professionality in Teaching. For this
course, participants engage in action research with a focus on both classroom and
school development. Case studies produced by course participants provide evidence
of impact at the school level.
In the second example, Robinson and Meerkotter (2003) describe a Masters in
Education programme at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa that
began in 1987 with an overtly political mission to support teachers engaged in emancipatory action research within the Bantu education system under apartheid; and went
through a process of transformation as the politics of the education system underwent
radical change after the African National Congress won the election in 1993. The
masters programme has always had a political commitment to developing teachers
ability to play a central role as agents for democratic change in South Africas educational institutions (Robinson and Meerkotter 2003, 449). A major focus of its work
has been to raise awareness of the conflict between teachers political activities to
support the development of democracy and the authoritarian culture of schools and
to combat this schizophrenic duality. The course started out by serving a community
in which school students had engaged over many years in political activities, including
strikes (so that they missed out on schooling), and the university was itself a powerful
ideological battlefield (Robinson and Meerkotter 2003, 452). Robinson and Meerkotter present some of the action research studies published by masters students, including their own studies produced while themselves students. They emphasize the overtly
political nature of this action research, which they recognize to have been different
from action research in other societies with stable political systems. In this sense their
work is very similar to the work of Dahlstrom and teacher educators in Namibia
discussed earlier in this paper. They emphasize that even after the radical shift to a
democratic political system the university continued to have a responsibility to
prepare teachers to resist oppression:
Emancipatory action research [] encourages a critical review of the changes in the
education system, linked to a vision of social justice. Critical review and progressive

Educational Action Research

17

vision-building remain, we believe, the responsibility of all those involved in education

and it is for this reason that we remain committed to the principles of emancipatory
action research in South Africa. (Robinson and Meerkotter 2003, 464)

Other studies provide evidence of the role of the university in leading action
research with the motive of radically changing the educational experiences of students
and their teachers in political systems where conflict is endemic. This can lead to the
university-based researchers finding themselves caught between the power of the state
(in the form of the education system) and the struggles of an oppressed people: as the
study in Israel by Karnieli (2000) shows, the most careful and sensitive efforts to
combat oppression may be met by complex and confusing resistance strategies,
because ultimately the university does not have the power to change the underlying
conflicts embedded in the culture of the oppressed. In another case in the Middle East,
where the university researchers had the backing of an international agency, the
United Nations Relief and Works Agency, Al-Quran et al. (2001) were able to
establish a collaborative project that was effective in initiating fundamental, albeit
small-scale, curriculum development. The project involved four teams of pre-service
teachers, researchers, and staff of a cooperating school, who worked to develop new
units for sixth-grade geology that focused on local Palestinian geology rather than the
geology of Jordan (the legacy of previous occupation), and cast teachers in the role of
knowledge professionals planning curriculum as a team effort through curriculum
inquiry cycles [to improve] both the teaching and learning process (Al-Quran et al.
2001, 396). However, here too, the impact was necessarily limited by the short time
frame and limited jurisdiction of the university.
In rapidly changing education systems in the East Asia, comparable culturally to
those already described in Singapore and Hong Kong, two further studies show the
importance of university-led research in curriculum development through action
research remodelled to fit local needs. For example, Sahasewiyon (2004), as part of
her doctoral study at Chulongkorn University in Bangkok, worked in rural Thailand
with 27 elementary teachers to develop local curricula to complement the national
curriculum. This work was well placed strategically as it fitted new policies for local
curriculum set out in the 1998 Education Act. This helped to secure the participation
of teachers and enabled Sahasewiyon to feed recommendations back to policymakers. Local remodelling of action research was evident in the development of a
unique form of action research with main cycles and branching subcycles that
emerged spontaneously from the working methods of the Thai teachers. Like AlQuran et al., Sahasewiyons action research drew on the tradition of curriculum
action research from Stenhouse and Elliott.
Another study by Li-Peidong and Laidlaw (2006) in China focuses on the development of teaching to fit the new curriculum for the teaching of English at university
level. The context of this work was Chinas Experimental Centre for Action Research
in Foreign Language Teaching in Ningxia Teachers University in North-West China.
Current Chinese education policy requires native English-speaking teachers to work
alongside Chinese teachers of English, and Li-Peidong and Laidlaw focus on the
process of cultural accommodation and remodelling of action research values and
processes that became a core focus for their partnership. Sites of inter-cultural learning
included the tensions between the individualism of Laidlaws tradition of Living
Educational Theory action research and the emphasis on collectivism innate in
Chinese culture, drawing on the philosophy of Confucius. As with Sallehs (2006)

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B. Somekh and K. Zeichner

study discussed earlier, the process of remodelling of action research to incorporate

the strengths of both cultures is a focal point of the paper.
5. Action research as locally-sponsored systemic reform sustained over time
In some cases, action research has been organized by teachers themselves as a local
and teacher-directed form of professional development for individuals and has then
been incorporated into reform efforts on a broader scale within school districts. For
example, the Classroom Action Research Program of the Madison Wisconsin Metropolitan School District in the USA (for example, Caro-Bruce et al. 2007, in press) began
in 1990 as a small-scale effort involving a few teachers to conduct research around issue
of minority student achievement, and later grew into an important part of the school
districts professional development offerings that became connected to district-wide
reform initiatives such as improving the learning experiences of the rapidly growing
numbers of new English learners and of students with disabilities. Despite the effects
of national and local policies on deprofesionalizing teaching referred to above, and
continuing budget cuts, this professional development programme has remained in
place because of the strong support for it by local teachers.
Conclusions
In this paper we have described five variations in the ways in which the global practice of action research has been localized in many part of the world. These variations
are indicative rather than definitive in the sense that others will surely be identified.
They include the role of action research in promoting greater social justice during
times of political upheaval and transition (in Namibia, South Africa, Russia and
Spain); its use by governments to promote school reform and teacher development
(Singapore, Japan, and Hong Kong) or by school systems to promote the use of particular practices that contribute to the further deskilling of teachers (USA); the influence
of universities in organizing and supporting local action research communities
(Austria, South Africa, Palestine, Thailand and China); and the emergence of action
research as a result of the grassroots efforts of teachers to improve their own practices
(USA).
A common feature in these variations of action research is the importance each
demonstrates of working towards a resolution of the impetus for action with the reflective process of inquiry and knowledge generation, to generate new practices. W.B.
Yeats metaphor of interpenetrating gyres or whirling cones that must be held in
balance to achieve the ideal of unity of being was derived in part from the ancient
Chinese symbol of the Yin-Yang. Our analysis of articles about action research in East
Asia shows that it is too simple to suggest that this inherent tension in action research
is a problem only in the West. However, the importance of the metaphor lies in
recognizing that action research aspires to bring about change and improvement
through accepting the tension of working in both realms of human experience simultaneously. By sharing knowledge and experiences of action research not just
between East and West, but between action researchers in many countries and cultures
it is possible to contribute to the world of flows knowledge and learning from
multiple local sites about the process of effective educational reform.
In this paper, we have also offered a framework to enable the analysis of how
action research differs in local settings within and across national boundaries. This

Educational Action Research

19

framework directs attention to the purposes for which the research is being conducted,
the contexts in which it is conducted, the philosophy toward teachers and their learning that guides the research, who initiated or sponsors the research, what incentives if
any, are provided to the researchers, the forms of inquiry used by action researchers,
the relationship of the action research conducted to other research and how what is
learned in the research is represented to others. In employing the framework to analyse
publications from many countries we found that we needed to stretch the compass
of each dimension acknowledging the political purposes of action research, its
shaping by epistemological traditions, and the need for action researchers to position
themselves strategically to have local impact. Like all models, the power of the framework lies in its simplicity and infinite flexibility.
Although we have identified several individuals who have been instrumental in the
development of action research as a global practice in education, we have found clear
evidence of the adaptation of dominant models of action research to suit different
purposes in a wide variety of cultural and political contexts including some cases
where action research has challenged the neo-liberal and neo-conservative forces
that circulated the globe and have influenced all sectors of most societies including
education. We suggest that the emerging variations of action research in many
countries during the period 20008 can be construed as an example of Appadurais
globalization from below. Action research can be seen as a potent methodology for
educational reform precisely because its core principle of combining action with
research inevitably challenges the routines of the status quo. It gives the teachers, who
carry it out, a means to develop agency to bring about change; and the changes they
introduce are locally appropriate within the globalized world they inhabit.
Note
1. The emphases described below have recently been moderated somewhat by the recent entry

of the World Bank into the Namibian education arena (Zeichner and Ndimande 2008).

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