Our basic purpose in this paper is to share with the international educational research community, our views about action research methodology and methods. Especially, we want to explore and analyse how action research as educational ideology, has helped us to better know, understand and transform (ourselves) and our research contexts and life circumstances through knowledge, shared reflection, ethics and cooperative action. We intend to contribute to the on-going dialog about the challenges of doing research with similar methodologies in order to generate and advance in new forms of educational understandings of relevance for the international scientific community engaged in addressing social justice, equity and inclusion issues.

It is acknowledged, all research must be vigilant about the adequacy between the chosen methodology and the purposes to reach. In this sense, our research group HUM-246, led by Prof. Miguel Lopez Melero, University of Malaga (Spain), is caring out several educational researches from a critical approach. One of them is the current research we are immersed in, about the  "Conditions to building an inclusive school. Investigating cooperatively to understand and transform inclusive educational practices "(Excellence Award Research Project P08-HUM-3748). Specifically, our theoretical foundation in choosing the methodology, is Car and Kemmis´s perspective, who consider action research as ” a form of self-reflective enquiry undertaken by participants in social situations in order to improve the rationality and justice of their own social or educational practices, their understanding of these practices, and the situations in which the practices are carried out. (Carr and Kemmis, 1988: 9)

This critical approach seeks, through introspection and shared understanding to change the surrounding contexts, in this case, the educational practices towards a democratic and inclusive school.  This change occurs both individually and collectively in three dimensions: changes in language and speech, changes in activities and practice and changes in relationships and social organization. (Carr and Kemmis, 1988)

Based on this point of view, we started our research considering action research as an eminently cooperative and social process, regarding not only education, but also the relationships and commitment established between the protagonists within a group.

In action research, the teachers as researchers recognize in school and in teaching practice, the key instruments to achieve a more just and democratic society. Through shared reflection on their practice they seeks to raise awareness to think and act critically about the educational and social order in their community. In this sense the teachers as researchers are politically engaged intellectuals. (Carr 1993, Carr and  Kemmis, 1988).  In our cooperative action research carried out by university researchers together with practitioner teachers and school communities, we linked the research process with and innovation and professional development.

Carr, W. (Ed.). (1993) Calidad de la enseñanza e investigación-acción, Sevilla: Diada Carr, W & Kemmis, S. (1988) Teoría crítica de la enseñanza. La investigación acción en la formación del profesorado, Barcelona: Martínez Roca, pp.9 Kemmis, St. & R. McTaggart.(1988) Cómo planificar la investigación-acción, Barcelona: Laertes