Critical participatory action research creates opportunities for people to work together to solve problems and address issues about the conditions under which they work, through mutually agreed on actions in practice. Partnership and recognition hold together the practices of critical participatory action research, and as mutually entwined ideals are fundamental for site-based education development.
Drawing on the theory of practice architectures, this book interrogates and extends the concepts and practices of partnership and recognition in action research as they are explored in different educational settings, and as these are played out in the day-to-day experiences and practices of people participating and collaborating in educational change. Partnership and recognition are considered in terms of the agency and actions of both individuals and collectives as they encounter one another in educational change, and in terms of the cultural-discursive, material-economic and social-political conditions that enable and constrain possibilities for partnerships and recognition. Of central importance is the concept of practice theory, and the authors illuminate how recognition, change, learning and development practices are experienced and recognised by people in a range of partnerships.
This book was originally published as a special issue of Educational Action Research.
About the Author: Christine Edwards-Groves is an Associate Professor in the School of Education at Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, Australia. Her research is concerned with literacy education, classroom interaction, professional learning through action research and practice theory. Recently, she was the lead investigator of an Australian action research project examining literacy and dialogic pedagogies in primary classrooms. She is the co-author of Understanding Education: History, Politics and Practice (with Stephen Kemmis, 2017), and is a key practice scholar in the international Pedagogy, Education and Praxis network.
Anette Olin is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pedagogy and Special Education at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, where she is also the Chair of the Action Research collegium. Her research looks at teacher professional development and learning and asks how knowledge production and practice development happens in collaborative research and development projects such as action research. She is a co-ordinator in the Nordic Network of Action Research and the program leader for an in-service master's degree program in action research.
Gunilla Karlberg-Granlund is a Teacher Educator based in the Faculty of Education and Welfare Studies at Åbo Akademi University, Turku, Finland. She has previously worked as a teacher and school principal and has been involved in facilitating tailored professional development in small schools through action research. Her main research interests are the facilitation of learning and professional development and the promotion of equity, quality and sustainability in education.
