Action Research and Postmodernism
Congruence and Critique
Open University Press
Published on 1. November 2001
Book
Hardback
208 pages
978-0-335-20762-6 (ISBN)
Description
"Make something new, Derrida says, that is how deconstruction happens. This book exemplifies such a move in the way it addresses the stuck places of practitioner oriented research with its rational, intentional agents seeking to empower both teacher self and students. An example of putting postmodernism to work in educational research, the book asks hard questions about necessary complicities...rounded in nursery teaching and math education, it attempts to develop a better language toward a more complicated understanding of what knowledge means...without reverting to the quick and narrow scientism of the past." - Patti Lather, Ohio State University. How can we move forward from or develop traditional approaches to Action Research, which have dominated teacher research for many years now? How can teachers work at improving their teaching when there are so many different understandings of what education is trying to achieve? In which ways can post-structuralism, which has had such a major impact in other disciplines, offer practical support to teachers developing their own professional practices?
A premise of much teacher research is that reflection on practice can lead to a development of that practice. Such reflection, it is purported, enables the practitioner in organising the complexity of the teaching situation, with a particular emphasis on how 'monitoring of change' can be converted to 'control of change'. This book questions the notion of construing developing practice as 'aiming for an ideal' and suggests that such a pursuit has a questionable track record. The very desire for control, and the difficulties encountered in trying to document it can cloud our vision from the very complexities we seek to capture. The book offers detailed discussion of teacher research enquiries carried out in the context of masters and doctoral degrees. It focuses in particular on how the reflective writing generated by the teacher might build towards an assertion of professional identity through which professional demands are mediated.
A premise of much teacher research is that reflection on practice can lead to a development of that practice. Such reflection, it is purported, enables the practitioner in organising the complexity of the teaching situation, with a particular emphasis on how 'monitoring of change' can be converted to 'control of change'. This book questions the notion of construing developing practice as 'aiming for an ideal' and suggests that such a pursuit has a questionable track record. The very desire for control, and the difficulties encountered in trying to document it can cloud our vision from the very complexities we seek to capture. The book offers detailed discussion of teacher research enquiries carried out in the context of masters and doctoral degrees. It focuses in particular on how the reflective writing generated by the teacher might build towards an assertion of professional identity through which professional demands are mediated.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Milton Keynes
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
references, index
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Weight
460 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-335-20762-6 (9780335207626)
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Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Professor Tony Brown works at the Manchester Metropolitan University where he has involvement with teachers pursuing doctoral and research masters degrees based around their own professional work. He has recently directed two projects for the ESRC focusing on how student teachers learn how to teach mathematics in primary schools.Dr Liz Jones also works at the Manchester Metropolitan University where she is a Senior Lecturer in Education with a particular interest in Early Years and Educational Studies. Her appointment follows twenty years based in both mainstream and special primary schools.
Content
IntroductionEmancipation and postmodernismResearch and the development of practicePart one: The hermeneutic backdropCreating data within practitioner researchan hermeneutic model of practitioner researchTransitionsissues of temporality and practitioner researchOn identityPart two: The postmodern turn - deconstructing the nursery classroomFrom emancipation to postmodernisma nursery studyA tale of disturbanceIdentity, power and resistanceDeconstructing the nursery classroomthat will undo nicely but so what?Transgressive agentsan optimistic possibility?ConclusionCritical pedagogy in a postmodern worldReferencesIndex.