This article examines the use of first-person action research to improve the facilitation of a continuing professional development (CPD) project in Early Years leadership. The intention of this project was to support Early Years Leaders (EYLs) from a diverse range of Early Years settings in NW England to improve their practice and hence strengthen…

Exclusionary discipline disproportionally impacts low-income students of Color. Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) offers a promising framework for reducing the use of suspensions in school. Prominent SEL literature and praxis, however, seem to assume a colorblind stance that neglects to respond to the sociocultural and political realities low-income…

This paper highlights action research into the practices of environmental learning through two interconnected stories focusing respectively on educational policy and the details of classroom instruction. Together these illustrate how a framework guides teachers in educational planning and supports the implementation of a curriculum for…

This article offers an insight into the process and potential of Deleuze-inspired action research. It draws on a classroom action research (CAR) project that critically reconceptualises practices of reflective writing in teacher education, including the widespread use of the 'professional learning journal' as a resource to facilitate reflection on…

Working with ethnoracially diverse student groups is a reality in most K-12 classrooms. However, studies of the impacts of professional development for cultural responsiveness have tended to use a range of approaches such as action research, video reflections, and coaching, making it difficult to tease apart the effects of each one. The purpose of…

The Gloucestershire Gateway Trust (GGT) is a social enterprise initiative in Southwest England focused on Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD). This article describes a six-year action research collaboration that has sought to support the GGT and its local non-profit organizational partners using a variety of action research methods, including…

The purpose of this study is to explore what insights pre-service EFL teachers developed through engaging in a collaborative action research (CAR) project which was embedded into an e-practicum course in Turkey. Using a qualitative holistic single-case study design, this study involved seven fourth-year pre-service teachers at a state university…

During the last decade, Finnish teacher education (TE) has received special interest due to the Finnish students' success in PISA. Although TE in Finland has many strengths, there are also challenges that need to be addressed. One of the main challenges is the relation between theory and practice. As action research (AR) has been suggested as one…

Effective lesson planning promotes good teaching and the implementation of curriculum policy. Lesson planning enables teachers to determine appropriate lesson objectives, teaching and learning activities, and teaching methods. Effective lesson planning stimulates teachers to evaluate their instructional strategies and to reflect on how to improve…

In community interventions more generally, the concept of fidelity refers to the degree to which a program is delivered as intended. The present paper discusses ways in which fundamental aspects of participatory research challenge the concept of fidelity and differ from more traditional science-dominated approaches. We begin with a discussion of…

Critical Participatory Action Research (CPAR) requires communicative space to develop shared understandings and decisions. We examine the interactional accomplishment of such a space between a classroom practitioner and an academic researcher when meeting to reflect on a lesson and agree on future action to bring about change in the practitioner's…

Action research is characteristically used to provide research experience for late-stage, pre-service teachers as a means of breaching the perceived divide between theoretical knowledge and contexts of practice. However, aside from the considerable methodological challenges of enacting action research itself, pre-service teachers also enter…

The call to raise educational standards in the UK has a particular focus on the underachievement of pupils attending schools facing challenging socioeconomic circumstances. In 2017 the Education Policy Institute (UK) reported that the most disadvantaged pupils in England are on average over 2 years of learning behind non-disadvantaged pupils by…

Forum Theatre is an interactive theatrical form of the 'Theatre of the Oppressed' (TO). I refer to Forum Theatre in this contribution as a dramatic and participatory research approach which -- despite its specific nature -- shares many similarities with approaches taken in action research and participatory research. Procedures and methodological…

Although action research has been widely recognized as an appropriate methodology for promoting the democratization of knowledge, it is not always conducted from an emancipatory and transformative paradigm. Using AR in a technical way, renders it no more than a researcher-driven, problem-solving heuristic that perpetuates the intellectual…