Action research with principals: gain,strain and dilemmas

The scientific status of action research is characterised by confusion and disagreement. This article discriminates between action research identified with professional work in schools and action research as a research strategy. Action research as professional work, does not have the same claim on documentation and publication, and can better be described as critical inquiries or action learning to separate this from a research strategy. This article discusses strengths and weaknesses of action research as a research strategy, and its potential of generating theory about educational leadership. First, the article focuses on how practitioners in collaboration with external researchers played a generative role in developing an analytical framework which gave a better understanding of educational leadership within a specific context. A dilemma language for educational leadership was constructed in order to capture important aspects of principals' work, and the analysis of experienced dilemmas highlighted a perspective of leadership as relational and dialectic. Secondly, the article gives an analysis of the researcher's dilemmas which emerged as significant through action research methodology. The dilemmas were related to goals of action research, to the role as an external facilitator and to publications of findings. It was impossible to escape from situations where different interests emerged and there always seemed to be a trade-off. The article underlines that an analysis of the role of self in social inquiry serves as a critical context in order to understand the research findings.