Representing a dialectical form of knowledge within a new epistemology for teaching and teacher education.
Pam Lomax & Zoe Parker, Kingston University, UK

( Paper presented at AERA, New York, 1996)

The aim of this paper is to make an original contribution to educational theory which can be incorporated into an epistemology of practice appropriate to a view of teaching as a human scale activity based on democratic values.

* This original contribution consists of arguing that, as individual teachers, and as a profession of teachers, our knowledge is dialectical rather than propositional, that is (at the simplest level) there is no one answer to any question and no one question that obviously has primacy.

* Experience suggests that in order to explain what we know as teachers, we have to describe the practice in which the knowledge is grounded in a `living' form and content which does not mask the oppositional elements of the dialectic, that is we have to show the contradictions in the values that inform our questions and the contradictions in the actions that represent our attempt to find answers, and we need to do this in context. The propositional form excludes alternative ways of making connections; it is premised on certainties that are redundant when the `living' enquiry comes up with a contradiction that questions the referent on which connection makes sense.

* The living theory approach does not lend itself to explanations based on `if........ then' logic or those validated by reference to universals.Nor can it be represented through the media usually associated with such approaches like purely propositional argument or purely reported, third person speech.Nor can traditional forms of research generate or access this knowledge because it is living knowledge, enshrined in living practice rather than in structures, procedures or roles.

HOW TO READ THIS PAPER

* Part one contains two examples from our own self studies. These suggest descriptions of the dialectical form that constitutes our knowledge of our own teaching, or put another way, they are part of our own epistemologies of our educational practice.The first example is taken from a sister paper also presented this year at AERA, and focuses on Pam (Lomax, Evans & Parker,1996). The second is part of her self study taken from Zoe's Ph.D research (Parker,1996).

* In part two we move into a propositional form of argument, and locate our view of representing action research within a sympathetic literature.

* Part three contains extracts from a case study written by one of our MA students, which shows an original approach to representing his action research.

* The final part is a discussion about representing a dialectical form of knowledge within a new epistemology of practice.

PAM'S SELF STUDY

Pam: The example of my own self study is taken from a collaborative self study in which I worked with two other teacher educators, Z and M. The purpose of the study was to improve our shared practice in supporting a group teachers who worked with children with special educational needs to complete an action research project . The data I have used below came from my written reflections2, a taped session1 in which I engage with Z and M in collective self study based on memory work (Crawford,1992; Haug,1987; Lomax & Evans,1995 & 1996; Schratz,1993 & 1994; Schratz & Schratz-Hadwich,1995) and a poem3 I wrote as a stimulus for the memory work which expresses my feelings and values about the students and my work with them.

Pam's Poem: Standing for Itself3

So beautiful.
The sun sharpening the prismatic glory
of its hard, brittle surfaces,
rusted with a patina like antique bronze.

And despite the prickly pride, and the beginnings of decomposition on the surface, which had formed a colourful, rainbow-like iridescence,
standing for itself.

Its brilliance may have been dulled.
Left uncomprehending.
Blind.
Shattered.

Perhaps mistaken for something inferior and thrown back
from where it had pushed so hesitantly
into the sunlight.

Or worse.
Maliciously defaced by unscrupulous others
who would not want its self evident worth to detract
from their own superiority.

Look carefully
beneath the surface of prejudice and power.
So beautiful.
And standing for itself without any help.

Extract from taped memory session1

P What you've just said, I think, makes a really important central point doesn't it? That the difference of people in a group is as important as their similarity? Power relations are key because we do, as teachers, take over the minds of our students, and they think our thoughts and that's certainly not what I want to do. How do we get away from that? How do we help them over the hurdles when we know what they should do ..... yet leave them to be free thinking? It's a terrible dilemma.

Z I think ... we might find a clue through understanding that we've got different ways of doing things but they are OK in their different ways. And through understanding that our students might have a different way of doing things and it might get them to a better place than we had imagined them getting by the route we had suggested.

P Well, I think I am succeeding with my teachers. I am delighted today because the three of them are doing completely different things. I said to P today, look, if you haven't got much about action research, why don't you just forget it and get on with what you are doing. And I thought, well, that's an amazing thing for me to say really. I was quite surprised about myself, but then I was also quite surprised that the other two, V and B, are just leaping forward in their own directions. Somehow I haven't held them back...

Z Yes, and they haven't been moulded and processed.

P No, they haven't been moulded. They are doing things that are so outrageously marvellous - a bit like M and her stories - and me becoming an addict for stories.....

Extract from Pam's written reflection on a teaching session:2

I wanted to explain how much I had learned from them about their area of expertise, special educational needs. I shared an experience in which I had remarked to some colleagues upon the offensiveness of a poster advertising lager, which depicted a woman in thick lensed glasses with a handsome young man and a slogan which said: Her Dad owns the Brewery! My colleagues thought I was objecting to the poster as sexist but I was really offended by the reference to the glasses, and the message this gave about disability. I said to the group that I would not have made the connection before working with them and I thanked P and N particularly for my raised awareness of this issue.

(Maybe my poem celebrates my joy in being able to learn from P and N and the others...... my faith, hope, optimism and belief in human beings as capable of constructing the worlds they choose to live in . Standing for itself?)

On Thursday evening, in discussion about the day, Z reported that N was surprised at our lack of awareness about disability. This seemed to suggest a criticism of me. Is the prospect of such criticism a reason why people do not expose their `vulnerability'? Are they afraid that exposing their failures might result in them being criticised for their ignorance rather than being applauded for sharing their learning?

The following is a transcript of the conversation that I had with Z and M that evening1

M The first main point was the one that you brought up Pam, about learning from the students ......
P Right
M ....which related back to my story .... me feeling worried that these people might be different.
P Yes
M But there is a possible problem ... with coming up with this as an issue ....in that .... the fact that we are revealing our sudden learning might surprise other people. It might surprise other people that we haven't become aware of this before.
P Well .... that's got nothing to do with it has it?
Z No .... It has a bit.... because N had a strong reaction to what you said this morning. He thought about it all morning ... then he said it to me (.......)
P What did he say?
Z He said he was shocked that you hadn't thought about disability .... in that way ... and he was just shocked at the revelation really and surprised.
P That's all right, isn't it? Maybe that will allow him to question his assumptions about how people think about things?.... yes? .... because we always assume that people know everything and think everything .... and they don't .... because sometimes it's never occurred to them, has it?
Z No ... but it's quite painful for him that it doesn't occur to people .... that's what a huge part of his life is about.....
P But that's unfortunate for him...
Z Yes
P .... but it's true.

Possibilities for Discussion

It must be left to the self study itself to provide evidence that the tutors (including Pam) learned something as a result of their study which they could use to improve the learning of their students. In the context of this paper we must ask if the extracts from Pam's self-study communicate the dialectic of her life as a teacher educator better than would be the case in more traditional research. We think they do.

A number of dilemmas suggest themselves from the data presented, the first to do with what she would call a `service' or `vocation' view of her job as a teacher. In relation to her valuing of service, it is important that her students do well within the academy, and generally her experience enables her to guide them with successful outcomes. In fact she prides herself on the examination success rate of the courses she directs. Yet, she also values an independence of `mind' for her students, that she knows she could help them develop, and is confident would lead to them being empowered. But she also knows that this is risky and suspects that her students are not capable of making this choice with full knowledge of possible outcomes. This is not a dialectic that is resolvable; and she sees both sides of it being exploitable by critics (and friends) who would reject her right to make either choice.


The poem, which was an experiment in using an aesthetic form of communication, expresses this dialectic in another way: the analogy with the beautiful brittle glass which has survived despite the hazards. Perhaps the poem also suggests a tentative answer: that it should stand (or fall) for itself? Perhaps this answer is also suggested by Pam's delight in her students, B and V, whose uniqueness is suggested by the different directions they are taking.

The other dilemma that is visible in the account is that of how much a teacher can afford to show herself as a learner without the imputed ignorance damaging her relationship with her students. Pam's response to Z and M in the taped extract suggests that she is not willing to `pretend' to know because of that threat and her responses to their tentative points of view are dismissive. This perhaps shows up a power relation that Pam would prefer to ignore, either because it demonstrates dislike of being challenged or because it is at odds with her valuing of collegiality - or maybe a lack of sympathy for others who feel greater vulnerability.

ZOE'S SELF STUDY

Zoe: My research is about part time research students' experiences of their work, and my current practice as a teacher educator involves me in facilitating part time students' action research. One of my values is that one should not facilitate the actions of others if one has no experience oneself of trying to carry out similar actions. Therefore, my understanding of my own development as an action researcher is a key element which informs my practice as a teacher educator. Being able to explain the process of my own learning can help those who are carrying out action research themselves. Sharing my autobiography of learning with my students and asking them to share their's is a marvellous way of starting to work with each other. Yet, despite this insight I have only just recently come to realize that my work as a teacher educator can also inform my research.

I have been developing the notion of the autobiography of my learning as a central concept for inquiring into my practice as a researcher. I think this approach can make an important contribution to a methodology of self study. My autobiography of my learning is a story of a learning self which I have carefully constructed, deconstructed and reconstructed over time. This is an edited version of my life, focusing only on those issues which I identify as important for the purpose of telling the tale. Different versions of my autobiography include different aspects of my life that are seen by me to be relevant to the purpose in hand. Looking back, I can identify important elements that I excluded because I did not see their relevance at the time.

Within any one version of my autobiography, there are special moments which I see as turning points, which change my understanding of what happens next and my telling/writing of what went before. These turning points can be represented visually, as snake charts. The snake chart is a picture annotated with brief notes which shows significant events for the drawer in the form of an undulating line. The curved line joins points of particular relevance that signal important changes that have educational significance.

Figure 1 will be tabled at the Conference

How does one represent the autobiography of ones learning to explain how ones practice can change? The snake chart reproduced in figure one describes some significant turning points in the autobiography of my learning since I joined Kingston University as a research assistant. For the purpose of this paper I will report four critical incidents.

* The first incident was a repertory grid which I drew up in 1993. Although repertory grid techniques can be criticised in a variety of ways (Harri-Augstein & Thomas,1991), the technique has provided useful data for reflection. At the time I constructed the chart I did not conceive of myself as a teacher educator, nor did I recognise that my practice included more than my formal activities as a research assistant. Like many of the action researchers that I support, I found it difficult to find a specific focus for my own action research. The repertory grid was intended to identify my constructs about the nature of research and the nature of learning. This provides a useful base position from which to reflect on how my understanding of research has changed and to consider significant points in this process.

Figure 2 will be tabled at the Conference

The repertory grid is a map of a conversation which shows three distinct areas in which bi-polar ideas are clustered together. It is interesting that these bi-polar constructs hold within themselves a dialectical position. The constructs hint at how I made sense of the worlds of research and learning and my place within them at the time I drew up the grid. Reflecting on these patterns reveals to me my dilemma about the worth of personal learning versus the worth of collaboration and interaction. It intimates that I was concerned about issues to do with autonomy and cooperation. It does not suggest that I saw research as a distinctive form of learning or throw light on how I saw the relationship between research and learning. Now I can express some of the constructs in the form of dilemmas, thus on the one hand I valued the self-worth I gain through being recognised by others, on the other hand I valued thinking strongly for myself.

* The repertory grid data becomes significant when I plot the next curve in my snake chart. I have chosen the time in 1994 when I attended the Third World Congress on Action Research, Action Learning and Process Management. By this time I was co-tutoring a group of MA students. Although I was not able to make the connection between my new work as a teacher educator on the MA programme and my research, I do recognise that I was intrigued by the relationship of research, teaching and learning. There is evidence of me saying that I was more interested in exploring what I was learning from my teaching than in carrying out my research (CARN Steering Group meeting, taped), although I encouraged some of my students to attend the Congress, I chose to present papers on my own and with other lecturers rather than with my students.

* The third curve of my snake chart documents a critical moment in my understanding of my research, when I realised that my practice as a teacher educator was a significant part of my learning in relation to my research. The insight came as I was working on my transfer from M.Phil to Ph.D with my supervisor, and trying to understand what was holding me back from writing the report. It came to us that I had been conceiving of my learning as only being significant if directly related to `formal' research events. In fact this was quite contrary to what I was accepting as relevant to the autobiographies of other researchers' learning. From this point I was able to see my relationship with my own students as a significant element in my investigation. I had been compartmentalising my learning inside a small and restrictive area rather than seeing that I could integrate all my professional learning into my practice as an educational action researcher. My breakthrough was a `learning with others' moment, both in terms of connection with my supervisor, but also the prospect of connection with my students.

* The fourth turning point in the autobiography of my learning can be related to my involvement with PL and ME in the collective self study that Pam refers to in the preceding section of this paper. The incident reinforced two key ideas that I have represented on my snake chart, and which have their roots in the data from the repertory grid I described earlier. The extract from my reflections on the memory work relates to an extract from the tape that Pam quotes earlier, where she says to me:

P What you've just said, I think, makes a really important central point doesn't it? That the difference of people in a group is as important as their similarity? Power relations are key because we do, as teachers, take over the minds of our students, and they think our thoughts and that's certainly not what I want to do. How do we get away from that? How do we help them over the hurdles because we know how they should do it and yet leave them to be free thinking? It's a terrible dilemma.

I wrote in my reflections:

At one point in the discussion we seemed to have a breakthrough because it felt to me as if we had reached a new way of working together, a way which integrated our friendship with our joint enquiry into professional issues. This went together in my mind with the moment where P endorsed an idea I had about working together. This idea was that we all bring different styles to our teaching and we could learn from our differences. I think this is important in the context of this particular study, because much of the course we are involved in with this particular group of students centres around their trying to work collaboratively with colleagues in school and peers at college.

Possibilities for Discussion

Again, it must be left to the self study itself to provide evidence that Zoe is learning something which can be translated into action to improve education. The snake chart that she uses to present her autobiography of learning is a powerful means of conveying important episodes or incidents in her autobiography which can be made critical (Tripp,1993) in order to high light the contradictions in her practice. Using the snake chart has enabled her to reach a better understanding of the dilemmas that were thrown up in the repertory grid analysis, and use these to make sense of the dialectic between being a researcher, learner and teacher. The compartmentalising of her different roles must seem strange to a reader who is introduced to her self study by a statement that links her research about part time research students with her teaching of part time research students! An obvious dilemma is her relationship with `authority' which is represented by the association in her repertory grid analysis of positive experiences, discovering her own educational values and having her own intellectual focus. That this goes alongside having her own work endorsed, with its implication of an endorsing figure, signals the polar opposite of the dialectic in her practice as a learner with that found by Pam in her practice as a teacher. Of particular interest in this context is Blumenfeld-Jones' (1995) view of dialectics as the binding together of seeming opposites so that they do not have meaning unless so joined and therefore do not demand resolution.

REPRESENTING ACTION RESEARCH

The form in which we have presented our self studies was intended to demonstrate a dialectic between the types of text we used. We have interspersed personal voices and living theory with more formal or traditional propositional theory. The text moves across the dialectic from one type of text to another in a way which shows a dialogue between these two ways of understanding educational practice. Representing action research needs to result in a believable description and explanation of practice, and also be able to embody the dialectic which makes it living educational theory. Yet, until recently few research methodologies have resolved the challenge of finding an appropriate form in which to communicate the dialectical processes of teachers' understanding. Action research cycles and spirals have been widely used, but despite some creative adaptations (Griffiths 1990; McNiff 1988) they have been too prescriptive. Creative exceptions have been the highly innovative work on narrative and story (Clandinin & Connelly 1991; Clandinin 1992; Ely & Whitehead 1993; Carter 1993; Hatch & Wisniewski 1995); accounts that incorporate dialogue and conversation ( McNiff 1990 & 1994; Cole & Knowles 1995); accounts based on reflective diaries (Rowland 1993); and memory work (Lomax & Evans 1995).

The different forms of representation called for by Eisner in his presidential address to AERA in 1993 are beginning to appear in the public domain. Eisner (1993) argued that representing meaning is transforming the contents of consciousness into a public form; that different forms of representation require different forms of thinking and different forms of thinking lead to different forms of meaning. Similarly, the way we represent educational action research must be congruent with educational forms of understanding (Lomax, 1994b). To be educational, meaning and its representation must inform and change each other. Similarly an audience' response to a representation of meaning should help to transform the researcher's understanding of it. This is a double dialectic which operates at an intra-subjective level where understanding is made transparent in a representation and transformed in the process; and at an inter-subjective level where going public and sharing the representation of the work stimulates responses that create new meanings for the work. We have written elsewhere about four different ways of representing action research (Lomax & Parker,1995) and will refer only briefly to them below.

a. Cycles and Spirals
The action research cycle is a logical, intentional and rational form for conducting action research. It provides a means by which unique, personal, and subjective plans, actions and evaluations can be organised in an objective way. It can deal adequately with haphazard and unplanned events that disrupt planned action, because these inform the evaluation stage of the cycle and can be taken into account when re-planning further cycles. By transforming action research cycles into spirals of action, the dynamic of the research and its capacity to adapt to new influences can be shown. By employing a variation of the spiral which allows for minor issues to be investigated as side spirals, the messier business of real life can be accommodated (McNiff, 1988, p.45). Yet, such formulations inhibit the possibility of "de-centring perception" so as to see "relationships among qualities, not just discrete elements" (Eisner, 1993). By making it difficult to incorporate the illogical moments as other than unplanned episodes, the discipline of the cyclical model reduces our potential to demonstrate the dialectics of our practice.

b.Dialogue and Conversation
We have given examples of the use of dialogue to represent action research in our two self studies. We think we have demonstrated the intra-subjective dialectic that Jean McNiff described in her account of how she experienced writing as a reflection of the processes of mind (Mcniff, 1990:56). We have also highlighted the inter-subjective dialectic, in our collective self reflection work. McNiff also used this form in her publication of authentic conversations, that, she claims, show a living theory being created (McNiff 1992:91-96; 1993:71-98).

c.Stories and Poems
Stories are generative in the way they encourage diverse and original interpretation for both their authors and their audiences. The possibilities of interpretation for Pam's poem shows this. Moyra Evans' use of story to facilitate the professional development of staff is a good example of the double dialectic of creating an account which transforms its author's understanding and presenting an account which engages others in its development. She writes about `an original use of story as a way of enabling teacher researchers to overcome some of the emotional difficulties which occur in revealing areas of tension and vulnerability. These are often associated with tensions experienced when deeply held values are discovered'. Kathy Carter says that a story `is a theory of something. What we tell and how we tell it is a revelation of what we believe' (1993:9).

d.Visualisation and Drawings
Some action researchers have created unique visualisations to help them understand and communicate changes in their own practice. We have already demonstrated the way in which snake charts can be used to document the autobiographies of our learning, incorporating critical incidents to identify the living contradictions of practice. Elsewhere we have described other ways of representing action research that can describe different stages of an enquiry and embody how conceptions of practice change over time.In the next section we present a unique way of presenting action research.

A CASE STUDY

We would like to focus on an action research project done by one of our masters students, in order to show the dialectic that is possible between a `form' of representation and the meaning that is developed and communicated by the researcher. Brumby's dissertation is about how he and colleagues worked collaboratively to improve the internal environment of his middle school. This included raising the standard of display work, making it more cross-curricular and giving Art and Aesthetics a higher profile. Writing about his values, he says:

* I believe that the aesthetics of the school's internal environment affect the way we feel about our place of work;
* the school environment should reflect the ethos of the school in terms of our cross-curricular approach to the delivery of the curriculum and our commitment to an equal opportunities policy;
* by my intervention I could raise staff and pupil awareness of the importance of the environment;
* pupils' involvement in initiating change encourages them to take more responsibility in initiating that change;
* teachers who are confident with their delivery of a wide range of art techniques and resources can enrich the learning of our children and enhance the display work of the school;
* more care and consideration in the planning and organisation of a classroom may promote a calmer working environment where pupils become more responsible and more independent in their learning. (op cit:19-20)

Tony formed a working party to carry out his/their aims for an improved environment: he held INSET days, he and colleagues worked with pupils to survey the internal environment and improve it, he attended meetings with the governing body, he and colleagues developed a code of practice, he involved the Parent Teacher Association, he established the environment as an item on the agenda for all staff appraisal in his school.

Brumby's dissertation contains a description and explanation of his action and presents evidence to support a number of claims. The following extract from the external examiners report endorses his success in a remarkable piece of action research.

This ... study ... documents ... changes in the writer (professionally, and one suspects, personally) as a consequence of engagement in and commitment to AR; changes in and to the physical environment of the school; and changes in and to the staff team with whom he worked. In all three respects the work appears to have achieved a large measure of success ...... the study certainly gains strength as it progresses and there is a very confident and competent handling of multiple themes .... The validation .... reflects a major characteristic of the study in terms of openness and honesty, and a concern for collaborative work. Here as elsewhere there is a well balanced `double reflection' on the project itself and on the writer's capabilities and development as a manager. ... There can be no doubt about the effectiveness of the study ... (Examiners Report,1995).

For the purpose of out paper we are more interested in the way in which he represented his research and in the way his `representation' acted to help him make sense of his own meaning and communicate this authentically to his readers. We suggest that Brumby began to develop an epistemology of his own practice through his unique visualisation of the connections between different parts of his work.

He visualised his research as a compact disc player. The reasons which led him to choose this metaphor included a concern that cycles of action research should be presented in a way which engaged the reader, the intention of presenting critical incidents in a way which protected the individuals concerned and thus conformed to his sense of ethical research practice; and the need to represent complicated and simultaneous events: `to untangle the web of spirals' (p44) coherently.

Figure 3 will be tabled at the Conference

How had he arrived at his solution? He explains that as he was writing in his reflective diary, the words of a song came to mind:

Round,
Like a circle in a spiral,
Like a wheel within a wheel,
Never ending or beginning
On an ever spinning reel.

Despairing of understanding what he was writing about, he got up to play the music and the compact disc player itself provided an answer:

A large wheel comes out from the machine at the press of a button. This wheel holds three discs (or components) each one turning in the same direction...but were it to hold more discs, they could each represent one calendar month of my action research enquiry. the system also has many special features. It is easy...to program specific tracks. By installing a tape into the machine I would have no problem in finding a common theme which appears on several of the discs and [could] program them onto one tape...Eight discs containing chronological accounts of the enquiry would be necessary.

Brumby identified eight themes from his reflective diary. He began to see himself as `the programmer, lifting themes from the CDs and rearranging them in a format that would make sense'.

At the validation meeting (op cit:154) when he had to present an overview of his research and make substantiated claims to have improved his practice, he developed his musical analogy further. he gave the four aspects of his work song titles which reflected their principal characteristics. `We've Only Just Begun' referred to the first phase of the project where he formed collaborative teams and carried out an initial audit of the internal environment of the school. `Take Good Care of Yourself' foregrounded the health and safety aspect of the project and his facilitation of collaboration between disparate staff groups. `Flash, Bang Wallop, What a Picture' was the title he allocated to developing display work in the school. `People, People Who Need People' represented the significant support of the governing body, the premises committee and the Parent Teachers' Association in financially backing the initiative when governmental funding cuts had affected schools nationally.

Brumby did not simply adapt a theory from outside his lived experience, but thought carefully about what he had learnt and then used his own resources of metaphor and interest to show what his epistemology of practice looked like. The central question he asked himself was, am I managing better? From trying to answer this question he developed a theoretical model which presented a series of connections which made sense in terms his practice. Because he showed what it is like to manage better in a school setting, he provides original insights which others in comparable settings can use to inform their different practices.

DISCUSSION

We have written this paper in the context of recent debates about educational action research, particularly in relation to teaching and teacher education, and the way in which the methodology of action research can be used by teachers and teacher educators to enable them to contribute to an epistemology of practice that is different from that of the established social science disciplines (Whitehead 1993; Rowland 1993; Lomax 1994a). The paper offers an implicit criticism of some academics who seem to have abandoned the strong practical relevance of early forms of action research (Lewin,1945; Kemmis & McTaggart,1982) for a more academic theorising about it. For example Rowlands (1995) points out that Carr has moved away from writing about action research because action research has largely rejected his own area of contribution, namely educational philosophy. Rowlands (op cit) also identifies an uncomfortable undercurrent in much action research literature between practitioners and those who `provide the intellectual resources' for practitioners. We hope that our work dispels any notion that we might belong to such categories.

Our premise is that teachers' and teacher educators' knowledge is (and should be) dialectical. This view is set in opposition to deficit models of teaching as a profession that have argued it lacked a propositional body of knowledge comparable with that of other professions (Hoyle & John 1995). It is also in opposition to theories about teachers' knowledge which explain its supposed in-accessibility in terms of its `implicit' `tacit' or `craft' nature (Brown & McIntyre 1989; Day, Calderhead & Denicolo 1993). In contrast to these ideas the paper draws upon recent work in the UK and US which has sought to develop new approaches to educational theory by focusing on teachers' and teacher educators' investigations of their own practice (Russell & Munby 1992; Noffke 1994; McNiff. & Collins 1994; Lomax 1994b; Dadds 1995; Pimenoff 1995).

In the context of the extended debate about the validity of qualitative research that has taken place in Educational Researcher in the last two years (Delandshere & Petrosky 1994; Moss 1994; Richardson 1994), action researchers have addressed the issue of determining appropriate criteria and standards to judge their work and its representation (Lomax 1994b; Whitehead 1993; Laidlaw 1994; Lomax & Evans 1995). In this paper we have gone further than this, in suggesting that we need to establish the legitimacy of a new epistemology of practice within which our work makes sense.

Epistemology is a word associated with research. Epistemology refers to the explanatory principles which underpin particular bodies of knowledge, what the Oxford Dictionary refers to as `the theory of the method or grounds of knowledge'. It is by exploring the process of our own action research and reaching a metacognitive understanding of this that we are able to theorise the grounds of our own contributions to knowledge and develop our epistemologies of our own practices. If we are to turn our descriptions of our educational practice into explanations (theories), we will do better if we understand the body of knowledge to which they will contribute. This body of knowledge, we argue, is constituted by the `living theories' of educators. Understanding the grounds upon which this knowledge is constituted is understanding its epistemology.

Lomax,Whitehead and Evans (1996) propose five guidelines for contributing to an epistemology of practice.

1. If you can provide a validated account of how you have brought quality to education through your action research, you have contributed to the creation of `living theory'.

The living theory is constituted by our own descriptions and explanations of our educational practice as we strive to become more effective (Whitehead,1989). The principles we use to explain our actions come from the educational values which are embodied in our practice. These are the yardsticks against which we can measure our effectiveness. The validation of this process depends on us being able to provide convincing arguments for the importance and adequacy of our descriptions and to show their direct contribution to our explanations. This makes methodology an essential and integral part of our enquiries. Our explanations are offered in a dialogical form as a series of questions and tentative answers rather than as factual knowledge. Our explanations embrace the contradictions in our practices and as we resolve these contradictions our theories change. They are `living' in this sense.

2. If you can describe and explain your practice in bringing quality to education in relation to your own educational values you have begun to develop the explanatory principles for understanding the grounds of your own professional knowledge.

Although educational goals have been described by philosophers in their explanations of the aims of education, we prefer to work from our own values when we explain our educational practices supporting teachers. We think that our pursuit of educational goals is about living our own personal educational values in our practice as educators. Our explanation of our practice as educational practice is based on, and is comprehensible, in terms of our values. Values are those qualities which provide meaning and purpose in our lives and which also provide the explanatory principles for why we make the judgements we do. We do not mean that values are absolute qualities that necessarily remain unchanged. An aspect of the `living' quality of educational theory is that values are questioned, modified, clarified and sometimes changed as the research proceeds.

3. If you are researching your action in endeavouring to bring quality to education you have started the disciplined process towards generating knowledge about your practice.

An understanding of quality practice cannot be separated from the means through which we define and extend the practices that constitute that quality. The research methods of social science and business provide technical links between the object and objectification of the practice whereas in action research the means and ends are merged so that methodology and theory inter-twine in the service of practical, morally committed action which we call praxis. In the living theory, practical educational explanations are particularly powerful because they form part of the process of trying to improve the quality of professional practice; they involve researching our action as we try to bring about improvement by working to reduce the gap between our values and the practice.

4. If you are theorising the grounds of your own knowledge, you are developing your epistemology of your personal practice

The creation of living theories about educational practice can occur without us understanding the grounds of our own professional knowledge. Where we are able to theorise about the grounds of our own knowledge of our practice we have begun to develop our individual epistemologies of personal educational practices. We think that van Manen's (1995) ideas clarify this point. He writes from a phenomenological perspective, basing his insights on his work as a teacher trainer. He has identified a phenomenology of tactful action in which he sees tact as a form of practical knowledge that becomes real in action (p45). He argues that tact `possesses its own epistemological structure that manifests itself first of all as a certain kind of acting: an active intentional consciousness of thoughtful human interaction'(p43)in which practitioners act `with the head and the heart and must feelingly know what is the appropriate thing to do'(p33).

5. If you are making your personal epistemologies of your own practices public you are contributing to an educational epistemology of practice.

The way in which we, as individuals, understand and theorise the grounds of our personal knowledge of our professional practices, we call our epistemologies of our practices. But it is also important to make a contribution to public knowledge as a profession of educators. To do this we need to be able to theorise the grounds of professional educational knowledge so that we can distinguish it from other forms of knowledge. We argue that practitioners' individual epistemologies of their practices, once in the public domain, contribute to a new epistemology of practice that should exist alongside more traditional epistemologies. This is important because unless our view of epistemology is accepted in the academy, the forms of professional knowledge that we support are denied certain academic forms of legitimation like higher degrees that are an important currency in our society (Whitehead & Lomax,1987; Whitehead,1993:79-92). We also believe that we need to be able to make a convincing case for our special claims to professional educational knowledge if we want to see `Education' or `Teaching' as an independent profession that is allowed to run its own business in terms of its own imperatives (Lomax,1995b).

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