Accessing participatory research impact and legacy: developing the evidence base for participatory approaches in health research

Action research has been characterised as systematic enquiry into practice, undertaken by those involved, with the aim changing and improving that practice: an approach designed to have impact. Whilst much has been written about the process and practice of ‘researching’, historically ‘impact’ has been somewhat taken for granted. In recent years, however, the impact of all forms of research has become the focus of interest with many funding bodies now demanding that researchers not only articulate the prospective impact of their work, but what kinds of evidence will be proffered to demonstrate that impact. This has raised questions for action researchers, not about whether their work has an impact, but what form that impact takes, how it is recognised and by whom. This paper focuses on difficulties researchers find in both articulating the impact of participatory research and demonstrating links between such forms of research and impact. We draw on discussions about the notion of impact with authors that have self-reported and published their work as participatory. These discussions revealed that not only were there difficulties in clarifying the participatory dimension of their research but that whilst authors were able to discuss particular impacts of their work, articulating and evidencing that impact was often absent from their published papers. This paper offers insights into some of issues and barriers those who undertake participatory research face in explicating, for the external audience (and indeed sometimes for ourselves), the impact of this action-based form of enquiry.     

Action research as a practice‐based practice

Action research changes people’s practices, their understandings of their practices, and the conditions under which they practice. It changes people’s patterns of ‘saying’, ‘doing’ and ‘relating’ to form new patterns – new ways of life. It is a meta‐practice: a practice that changes other practices. It transforms the sayings, doings and relating that compose those other practices. Action research is also a practice, composed of sayings, doing and relating. Different kinds of action research – technical, practical and critical – are composed in different patterns of saying, doing and relating, as different ways of life. This paper suggests that ‘Education for Sustainability’, as an educational movement within the worldwide social movement responding to global warming, may be a paradigm example of critical action research.     

The Utopianisation of Critique: the Tension between Education Conceived as a Utopian Concept and as one Grounded in Empirical Reality

Critique is a concept that is constantly used as an instrument for agreement or disagreement, for reflection and discussion. There is a difference, however, between critique as a historically grounded phenomenon and critique as a utopian conception not situated in any particular socio‐historical context. Educational theory resists reduction to empirical science partly because of its utopian character. Thus tensions that arise within it concerning its individual, social and emancipatory aims mean that it always has a double aspect of being both utopian and socially grounded at the same time. In general there is a tension within the practice of education between upbringing, on the one hand, and self‐emancipation on the other, which is reflected at the level of educational theory in the distinction between normative‐utopian and dogmatic‐empirical elements. Even a utopian critique, however, must make use of the social and historical materials available in order to function, and thus it becomes itself historically situated. This unavoidable situation is one that must be embraced by a self‐consciously utopian form of theorising. Just like other theories of society, the theory of education has two possibilities for self‐definition. It can be conceived of either as a utopian or as a factual theory. In the latter case, it follows social contingency passively, giving itself over to the ‘destiny of Being’ in order to await the ‘result’. But it can also be interested and take part in social processes, and thus contribute to the opening out of thought and culture to utopian considerations. Educational critique, even in the utopian sense, however, has to recognise its own dogmatic elements in order to function as critique. It is thus self‐evident that critique without dogmatism is not only impossible but also senseless. Similarly, educational dogmatism, although it apparently excludes critique by definition, must contain within itself the possibility of new forms of critique based on its own assumptions. Its very reliance on empirical methods to address the solution of unquestioned problems can itself subvert the dogmatic normative assumptions on which that empirical enquiry is based.     

教育“行动研究“的原理及其应用

以教学第一线的教师作为研究主体的教育行动研究,是当代社会科学研究方法中的人类学方法在教育研究中的一种应用形式,它是促进教育理论与实践相结合的重要途径。行动研究在发达国家早已成为教师教育的必修课。本文根据我国教师的需要,运用中外教育实践中的实例,对行动研究的性质、过程和方法进行了较全面的论述。     

Professional movements,local appropriations,and the limits of educational critique: the cultural production of mixed messages at an urban middle school

Although critical ethnographers have explored in some depth the ways that social critique informs how youth assess their schooling experiences, the implications of social critique by educators themselves have been of much less interest. Yet, numerous professional educational movements have been wrought from social critique or, at the very least, from critique of school practices that fail to contribute to more equitable social outcomes. Featuring one middle‐school classroom contextualized by such movements in the field of education, this article presents an analysis of student appropriations of the messages embedded in a year‐long community service‐learning project. The project engaged students in democratic action framed by the question: Do our voices count? It is argued that while students embraced a newfound political agency through this work, the lack of opportunity to question individualism, the structural dimensions of urban poverty and their own relative privilege in the school ultimately produced social divisions rather than social critique.     

Politicising action research through queer theory

Queer theory and action research together offer possibilities for exposing the deep injustice of both homophobia and heterosexism. Underpinning identity categories of sexuality and gender, these forms of social injustice lurk in schools, families, religions, communities, and nation‐states. For educators and educational researchers, addressing homophobia and heterosexism in schools and other educational institutions may be enabled through action research that takes up the premises of queer theory. The inquiry part of queer theory and research is interested in how gender, sex, desire, and sexuality organise all human behaviour. Action research can materialise the radical potential of queer theory through research projects that provide opportunities for homophobic and heterosexist teachers, students, administrators, counsellors, parents, and even researchers towards asking questions about how they identify self and other and how this in turn is implicated in a social hierarchy that devalues those whose sexual practices are different from the norm.     

Qualitative research in Australia

Qualitative educational research in Australia has been characterized since the early 1970s by vitality and interest in reconstructing in cultural terms the best research practices, particularly those observed in the UK and USA. The former's influence is best demonstrated in case study method and participatory action research in the 1980s. Australian qualitative educational sociology, drawing on critical theoretical methods, continues to command strong international respect. More recently, post‐structuralist theory has influenced many approaches to qualitative inquiry, especially in feminist research, which reflects a more globalized view of research. Whatever theoretical and methodological directions Australian qualitative enquiry takes in the later 1990s, research must address political and economic contexts of change both nationally and globally if it is to make a difference.     

The purpose of education: pedagogues’ and teachers’ negotiations in Danish primary schools*

In 2014, the Danish primary school system went through a major reform. One main change is the greater participation of pedagogues in school. This is a dramatic change both for teachers and for pedagogues, a distinct profession, traditionally working outside school and representing a creative and social approach to learning and wellbeing. This article examines how teachers and pedagogues in an action research project negotiate their new common work and which understandings of good pedagogical practice these negotiations express. The article shows that international educational rationales about learnification and attainment that are found in the Danish reform, affect the professionals’ understandings of professionalism and educational practices, and that this marginalises some traditional pedagogical practices. However, the article also shows that both pedagogues and teachers critique dominant educational policy rationales and explore what space for action exists in the reform.     

Book reviews

Equality and power in schools Kathleen Lynch & Anne Lodge Education in a post‐welfare society Sally Tomlinson Markets for schooling: an economic analysis Nick Adnett & Peter Davies Action research and postmodernism: congruence and critique T. Brown & L. Jones H.BusherUniversity of Leicester Strategies to promote inclusive practice C. Tilstone & R. Rose (Eds) Teachers as researchers J. L. Kincheloe Handbook of mixed methods in social and behavioral research A. Tashakkori & C. Teddle (Eds) Quantitative methods in educational research: the role of numbers made easy Stephen Gorard     

Social identity theories and educational engagement

There is a large body of research in studies of schooling, particularly ethnographic case studies, which posits that collective action among students undermines engagement in school and contributes to educational inequality. In this paper I review studies of engagement from a social identity theory perspective. To what extent can collective action explain why some student groups are less engaged than others? I discuss four approaches to identifying social identity‐related problems of engagement frequently used in prior research. While researchers often find problems of engagement among low‐academic‐status students, research on educational engagement has had difficulty locating the underlying causes of inequality in student engagement. Social identity theories of educational engagement are inherently theories of collective action. I conclude that a fifth approach, large‐scale observational studies of monitoring and sanctioning, provides the best framework for identifying both the prevalence of, and solutions to, this particular source of disengagement.     

Action research in science education – an analytical review of the literature

Action research is suggested as a way to engage teachers in curriculum development and the betterment of teaching practices in schools based on educational research activities. As in other educational domains, action research in science education is employed with both aims to better understand and develop teaching practices and to contribute to teacher continuous professional development. A variety of methodological approaches using action research in science education exists, from more technical toward more emancipatory interpretations. The range of educational settings and goals for which action research is performed is also quite broad. The purpose of this analytical review of the international available literature is to provide an overview of the main aspects in applying action research in science education.     

Teacher Research,Action Research: the Logo Action Research Collaborative

Action research is a form of professional inquiry in which the teacher's role is seen as key to educational improvement. This paper describes methodologies developed by the Logo Action Research Collaborative – a national network linking 100 teachers at nine sites – that facilitate and support collaborative inquiry by teachers into their own teaching practices, in order to understand, improve, develop, and incorporate new forms of student assessment, teaching methods, and curriculum. The project focused on the Logo computer language, a powerful learning environment for problem‐solving and mathematical inquiry. The authors provide background information on action research as an evolving discipline. They identify three phases of a year‐long action research cycle, and describe key strategies developed by the project to support teachers in taking on a research frame of mind, identifying areas of concern, and undertaking and completing action research projects. The paper includes several illustrative examples of action research investigations undertaken by teachers, and demonstrates the benefits to the students and teachers involved. It closes by making a case for the potential contribution of action research to current educational reform initiatives and school restructuring.     

Participatory action research and the struggle for legitimation

There is little reason why educational research in Australia should be progressive and highly developed given that its history and direction are subject to the economic and political determinants of an increasingly conservative and uncertain world. Whether or not educational research is an entirely derivative field or a semi-distinctive social science, is essentially qualitative or quantitative in character, desires knowledge that is vaguely accurate or accurately vague, seeks epistemological or ontological explanation, remains to be seen as history works itself out. It cannot be considered a neutral endeavour and demands that researchers identify a political perspective or worldview from which new knowledge is described and interpreted. In developing an approach to participatory action research, in particular from working with Indigenous communities, a number of challenges and knowledges have emerged that are described in this paper and which embrace community partnership, two-way enquiry learning and the educational public sphere. Participatory action research as outlined here may be the only framework appropriate for democratic community research although it is not as yet legitimated within the pantheon of available methodologies and philosophies.     

Editorial

Along with the narrative turn in social sciences, the quality of research has become a more and more intricate issue. Action research reports are often narratives, located in the context of the evolving experiences of those involved. In this paper, the problem of quality in action research narratives is addressed, and some principles for assessing the quality of narrative research reports are proposed. The issue is explored both at a theoretical‐conceptual level and through a number of practical cases from the narrative‐biographical research project TeacherLife. As narrative researchers, the authors are not willing to accept an extremely relativistic stand. They argue the need for conceptual tools to grasp the problem of quality of narratives, but tools different from the traditional concepts of validity and reliability, which harbour markedly positivistic connotations. They propose five principles for judging the quality of action research from a narrative point of view. According to these principles, a good action research narrative firstly acknowledges the past course of events that have shaped the present practices (the principle of historical continuity). Secondly and thirdly, it is reflexive (the principle of reflexivity) and elaborates the story dialectically (the principle of dialectics). Fourthly, a decisive criterion for successful action research is that it produces some useable practices that, in one way or another, can be regarded as useful (the principle of workability). The authors agree with Aristotle, who claims that a good narrative involves a balance between ‘logos’, ‘ethos’ and ‘pathos’. They place emphasis on ‘ethos’ and ‘pathos’ through a principle of evocativeness. These criteria are not proposing as an established checklist, and the authors point to the overlap between some of them. They are drawn from experience in supervising action research projects, evaluating narrative reports and encouraging people to write authentic narratives of their research work.     

Becoming connected,being caring

This paper highlights perspectives on action research in education, health and social care and was originally presented as a keynote at the International Practitioner Research Conference and Collaborative Action Research Conference in 2005. The paper links with the other conference keynote given by Stephen Kemmis, co‐author of Becoming Critical. It reflects on the importance of Being Caring in action research in the context of health and social care; particularly in relation to emotionally supporting practitioners to improve their practice in settings which do not always welcome more emancipatory or critical approaches often used in education. The paper begins by exploring the nature of practitioner research and action research in health and social care and its links with quality. It argues that health and social care professionals have often drawn their methodological understanding from the literature written by colleagues in education. This literature tends to support critical and emancipatory forms of action research, which health and social care professionals have tended to adopt in an uncritical manner. Reflecting on some of the contextual constraints in health and social care, it argues that many of these factors are beyond the control of individual practitioners and suggests a need to focus on the neglected area of emotions, in addition to, contextual issues. To illustrate the usefulness of this approach an example of psychodynamically informed action research is given. The paper concludes that in the quest to be critical, practitioner researchers/action researchers in education, health and social care may be ignoring the emotional contexts in which they work. It suggests that being caring may be the key to being critical.     

Research‐capacity building,professional learning and the social practices of educational research

There have been numerous attempts in the past few years within education research—and social science research more generally—to alter the character of research practice(s). In particular, there has been a systematic effort to address perceived shortcomings in research practice through a series of ‘research‐capacity building’ initiatives, aimed at the restructuring of professional learning. In this article the authors explore empirically the ways in which different modes of professional learning are implicated in the social practices of education research. These considerations lead to the conclusion that the currently dominant approaches to research‐capacity building are based on an underestimation of the difficulties in influencing the professional learning of educational researchers significantly and, thereby, changing the practices of educational research. More realistic expectations of these forms of research‐capacity building, in turn, suggest the need to develop alternative approaches that acknowledge the exigencies of the current social organisation of educational research more fully.     

A View from Somewhere: Explaining the Paradigms of Educational Research

In this paper I ask how educational researchers can believe the subjective perceptions of qualitative participant-observers given the concern for objectivity and generalisability of experimental research in the behavioural and social sciences. I critique the most common answer to this question within the educational research community, which posits the existence of two (or more) equally legitimate epistemological paradigms—positivism and constructivism—and offer an alternative that places a priority in educational research on understanding the purposes and meanings humans attribute to educational practices. Only within the context of what I call a transcendent view from somewhere—higher ideals that govern human activities—can we make sense of quantitative as well as qualitative research findings.     

Voluntary responsible bodies in English adult Education

Abstract

The paper examines the future prospects for educational research as conducted in UK universities and colleges of higher education in the light of current general changes in the organisation, funding and culture of higher education, and in respect of specific changes in the initial and in service training of teachers. It includes a critical examination of the claim made by some educational researchers that their research constitutes a special case, differentiated from other social science and humanities disciplines, both by the routes into educational research and the concerns of those who practise it. It is suggested that the special case argument for the alleged distinctiveness of educational research is largely unjustified, and does not contribute positively to the future prospects of that research or kelp to ease the relative isolation of educational researchers. Alliances between educational researchers, and those researching in the social sciences are advocated as one strategy which will help both partners. It is also suggested that educational researchers should try to ensure that novel and existing modes of training new researchers such as doctoral programmes, make connections with the training of other beginning researchers, rather than dividing would‐be educational researchers from their counterparts in other disciplinary or interdisciplinary areas.