Session Information
10 SES 09 A, Research in Teacher Education: Cultures and Methodologies
Paper Session
Contribution
For too long, teachers have played a minor role in educational research, which helps to explain, at least partially, why much research has had little or no impact on the innovation of school practices. However, especially with the growth of the action research movement, teacher research has been regarded as a potentially significant contribution to the knowledge base of teaching and the innovation of curriculum and pedagogy. Taken seriously, it represents a radical challenge to the divide between theory and practice, schools and universities, and schooling structures and reform (Lyle & Cochran-Smith, 1999); it can become a “path to empowerment” by liberating teachers from a technical rationalist paradigm and promoting their agency as critical intellectuals within a social constructivist framework (Kincheloe, 2003); it can contribute to “democratic questioning of the powerful” (Schostak & Schostak, 2008: 1), and help “to construct curricula for challenge, for change, for the development of people and not the engineering of employees” (Schostak, 2000: 50).
Post-graduate teacher education programmes present valuable opportunities for teacher research to flourish. However, the transformative potential of such research is seldom assessed. Although teacher studies abound, there has not been a systematic effort to revise them in order to understand their educational relevance. To what extent and how does teacher research contribute to challenge established practices and promote educational change? This is the question that guides the study here presented.
Drawing on the notion of “educative research” (Contreras Domingo, 1999; Contreras Domingo & Pérez de Lara, 2010, Gitlin et al., 1993), according to which research is understood as a value-driven activity that seeks to understand and transform educational experience with a focus on what is socially and educationally valuable, we will report on a review of Master dissertations produced by in-service schoolteachers in one Portuguese university between 2006 and 2010, in two scientific domains: foreign language education and science education. These domains are our research areas and it is our purpose to inquire into whether the nature and purposes of teacher research differ according to distinct research traditions. The objectives of our study are: 1. to inquire into the nature of teacher research and its role as regards educational change; 2. To compare between research undertaken in two distinct scientific domains – language education and science education – as regards conceptual and methodological orientations 3. To point out future directions for teacher research based on the review.
We are aware that educational change is ubiquitous. It can have several meanings and forms (see Altrichter & Elliot, 2000). By undertaking the proposed review, we hope to shed light on change dimensions and, eventually, identify diverse understandings and realizations of change on the part of teachers-as-researchers and, indirectly, their academic supervisors. This will further allow us to reflect on the role that research conducted within Master Degree programmes plays in promoting and enacting educational change, which is an issue of wide interest, given the fact that the relation between research and teaching is a priority in the international agenda.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Altrichter, H. & Elliot, J. (Eds.) (2000). Images of educational change. Buckingham: OUP. Contreras Domingo, J. (1999). El sentido educativo de la investigación. In A. Pérez Gómez, J. Barquín Ruiz & J. F. Angulo Rasco (Eds.), Desarrollo profesional del docente – Política, investigación y práctica. Madrid: Ediciones Akal, pp. 448-466. Contreras Domingo, J. & Pérez de Lara, N. (2010). La experiencia y la investigación educativa. In J. C. Domingo & N. Pérez de Lara (Eds.), Investigar la experiencia educativa. Madrid: Ediciones Morata, pp. 21-86. Gitlin, A., Siegel, M. & Boru, K. (1993). The politics of method: from leftist ethnography to educative research. In M. Hammersley (Ed.), Educational research – Current issues. London: Open University Press, pp. 191-211. Lyle, S. L. & Cochran-Smith, M. 1999. Aprender la investigación de los docentes: una tipología de trabajo. In A. Pérez Gómez, J. Barquín Ruiz & J. F. Angulo Rasco (Eds.), Desarrollo profesional del docente – Política, investigación y práctica. Madrid: Ediciones Akal, pp. 320-338. Kincheloe, J. (2003). Teachers as researchers: Qualitative inquiry as a path to empowerment. London & New York: Routledge Falmer, 2003. Schostak, J. (2000). Developing under developing circumstances: The personal and social development of students and the process of schooling. In H. Altrichter & J. Elliot (Eds.), Images of educational change. Buckingham: OUP, pp. 37-52. Schostak, J. & Schostak, J. (2008). Radical research – Designing, developing and writing research to make a difference. London: Routledge.
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