The distance between educational researchers and classroom teachers benefits disinterested observation, but dispossesses the researchers of participatory modes of understanding. In attempting to resolve this problem, some researchers have developed the theory and practice of teachers as researchers, similar to Kurt Lewin's action research. Lewin argued for a system of analysis, fact finding, conceptualization, planning, and execution, and then a repetition of the whole cycle. The process involves the participants of the social world under investigation at every stage. Although not at the forefront of research developments in education, the impact of action research in education is seen in the trend toward reconceptualizing the field in more participatory terms. Action research has several essential features: (1) an interest in participatory democratic processes for social and intellectual reconstruction; (2) a linking of the development of theory and practice; (3) a means for producing authentic critiques of practice; and (4) the development and strategic use of programs of social action as tools. Action research is sufficiently well established in Australia to have substantive and methodological problems that need to be solved. (FG)