The article explores a professional learning programme, a research circle, in which preschool teachers and researchers collaborate on content relating to sustainable development, science and technology. It investigates how collaborations between preschool teachers and researchers can contribute to professional learning and preschool development.…

Transformative researchers have the potential to contribute to both personal and societal transformation. In this article, I argue that the two are intertwined and that personal transformation is a necessary component of research that is designed to support change at the societal level in the form of furthering human rights and social justice. I…

Participatory Action Research (PAR) is a qualitative research methodology option that requires further understanding and consideration. PAR is considered democratic, equitable, liberating, and life-enhancing qualitative inquiry that remains distinct from other qualitative methodologies (Kach & Kralik, 2006). Using PAR, qualitative features of an…

Action research, particularly done by teachers, has had a contentious, decades-long history. As a form of social inquiry, action research has been designed to make it easier for members of social groups to create social change within their communities. Rather than conducting research that focuses on an outcome, action researchers focus on the…

The idea of using values as a means of guiding our research decisions and judging the validity of our claims of knowledge is well established in literature on the self-reflective genre of action research. Values in action research should always result in virtuous behaviour--to promote the general social good. However, ideas of what constitutes the…

This paper is about: developing critical understandings about the nature and origins of one's personal and professional identity; learning how to transform uncritically internalised and potentially damaging conceptualisations of identity and identity formation; saying why it is important to do so; and considering what kinds of texts can show the…

This study examines how critical literacy read-alouds can be facilitated in an early childhood setting. More specifically, it describes how books allow young children to connect with experiences that help them identify and challenge inequality and envision social change. A classroom teacher and two university-based researchers collaborated to…

The focus of this article is the exploration of and an explanation of student researchers' affect and activity in an action research project. Using a hermeneutical theoretical framework we argue that the researcher group as a whole constructs a wave process and at the same time each individual researcher in the group creates a wave process that…

Recently, awareness within academia has grown regarding the incompatibilities of mainstream research with indigenous cultures as well as the historical injustices that have accrued through colonizing practices. Accordingly, support for alternative (non-Westernized) research approaches has been increasing. Participatory action research (PAR) and…

Applied researchers, whether working with the framework of design-based research or intervention science, face a similar implementation challenge: practitioners who enact their programs typically do so in varied, context-specific ways. Although this variability is often seen as a problem for those who privilege fidelity and standardization, we…

This article discusses practitioner inquiry in a South African context. It begins by outlining the changing policy context in the country, particularly since the advent of democracy in 1994. The implications of these changes for practitioner inquiry are then discussed. The article explores some issues and dilemmas arising from this context,…

The notion of teachers studying their own practice and working with students and community partners to address issues of inequality in schooling is the radical root of many forms of educational practitioner inquiry. But this emancipatory foundation of practitioner inquiry is currently under threat by efforts to limit the focus of this engaged form…

This paper presents some reflections on the process of creating research, from the point of view of a psychologist working in an academic environment in a developing country which is undergoing social transformation. It explores some tensions between global and local concerns in research, and reflects on the relation between research, art,…

This paper engages with some of the specific issues that challenge critical practice. My argument is related to the Carr and Kemmis debate on "staying critical" and to ideas expressed in my current book, "Community Development: A Critical Approach." I refer to critical practice as any practice that has a transformative social justice intention,…

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…