In this paper, I report on the work of a practitioner inquiry group that went awry when the sponsor refused to publish and disseminate the participants' final reports, stating that they were of poor quality and did not contribute to the knowledge base. I, the facilitator of the group, disagreed strongly with her. I suggest that the difference…

The claim that faculty conduct research is one of the main justifications for the modern university. Supposedly, academe carries out important, cutting-edge inquiries in which society has an interest. In fact, states this author, research at American universities is becoming narrow and artificial, out of touch with social realities, and of…

In this article, the authors present reasons why it is easy to get lost when it comes to teaching literacy. Instead of a "best practices" approach in which educators are advised to implement programs because they worked for others, the authors advocate a teacher-researcher paradigm that provides a set of social practices for outgrowing our current…

The studies included in this special issue add significantly to the nascent literature on teacher consultation models for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and provide wonderful illustrations of how teachers might "unpack" and better understand their interventions. In this introductory essay, the authors offer suggestions for future…

Purpose: Teacher research (inquiry) has been characterized as practice improvement, professional development and action research, among numerous names and descriptions. The purpose of this paper is to support the case that teacher research is also a form of quality improvement known as continuous process improvement (CPI).…

The potential of practitioner-led action research (PLAR) to contribute to professional development in adult literacies work is considered from two perspectives. First, a recent initiative in Scotland is examined to illustrate PLAR implemented as professional development. The structural factors needing to be addressed for PLAR to contribute to…

Between 2001 and 2007 I conducted a self-study action research enquiry into my practice as a primary school teacher. The research had a collaborative aspect to it, in so far as my pupils and colleagues were invited to participate in the research, although I was the focus of the enquiry. I was unhappy about my teaching: I felt I dominated the…

In this "At Last" essay, Susan Lytle addresses issues of teacher research, work that is shaped by and that shapes the complexity of teachers' knowledge and learning, and is based on the accumulation of robust and meaningful experiences leading to classroom expertise. Assuring her readers that teacher research is alive and well, even in the current…

This article is a response to Greenbank's (2006) "The academic's role: the need for a re-evaluation?" It is also a contribution to the ongoing debate about the need to develop a broader view of scholarship and the different activities related to it such as "teaching", "research" and "service to the community". Arguments related to current research…

This contribution is set in the context of the burgeoning of practitioner inquiry in Australia, taking account also of various European and North American initiatives, against the background of the notion of action research as an emancipatory project. Practitioner inquiry, under these conditions, requires that the work move beyond a utilitarian…

Alan Reid's (2004) article, Towards a culture of inquiry, constructed a sharply focused challenge to the wave of neo-conservative educational research and policy-making sweeping the Western world at the time. In contrast to the familiar deficit constructions of individual teachers needing injections of knowledge, Reid envisions teachers as…

Action research is a systematic approach used by practitioners to conceive questions and control methodologies, and to explore classroom or school-based problems. Action research is the perfect marriage of theory and practice. Recent trends in education, such as professional development schools, data-driven decision making, and undergraduate…

Reflection is an appropriate way of accounting for professional practice and is a standard way in which one can "become better acquainted with one's own story". Defining "subjectivity" as "the quality of an investigator that affects the results of observational investigation", Peshkin highlights the requirement for…

Why do people enter academic life? What are their expectations? How can they maximize their experience and achievements, both short- and long-term? How much should they move towards commercialization? What can they do to improve their career? How much autonomy can they reasonably expect? What are the key issues for academics and aspiring academics…

This article presents the author's response to comments on her article, "Will a Clinical Approach Make Education Research More Relevant for Practice?", which focused on the question of whether a clinical research practice might make education research more relevant for practice. The characteristics of a clinical approach are: (1) an overlap in the…