Ontological,
Epistemological And Methodological Commitments In Practitioner-Research
Jack
Whitehead, University of Bath
Jean
McNiff, University of Limerick
A
contribution to the Symposium on:
Have
We Created A New Epistemology For The New Scholarship Of Educational Enquiry
Through Practitioner Research? Developing Sustainable Global Educational
Networks Of Communication.
with
Jean
McNiff; Caitriona McDonagh, Bernie Sullivan, Mairin Glenn,
University of Limerick Joan Whitehead, Bernie Fitzgerald University of the West
of England ; Marian Naidoo, National Institute for Mental Health England;
Jack Whitehead, University of Bath.
at
BERA 2004 in Manchester on 17/09/04
Abstract
We
are both undertaking enquiries as we support educators in higher degree study
in different countries. Our enquiries focus on explaining what we do as
professional educators that will influence the quality of learning of others.
We
encourage practitioner-researchers to ask questions of the kind, ÔHow do I
improve what I am doing for personal and social benefit?Õ Accepting that
practitioner-research is a form of educational research that has significant
potentials for the education of social formations, we therefore aim to
transform discourses of regulatory principles into transformatory discourses of
political practices (Mouffe, 2000). Our transformatory discourses include the
transformation of our embodied values into living and communicable standards of
judgement.
In
our efforts to create a systematic knowledge base, in response to Snow (2001)
and Hiebert, Gallimore and Stigler (2002), we explain how we are transforming
the social, political, and historical contexts within which our research is
located into new forms of global influence (Herman, E. S. and McChesney, 1997).
Our methodologies are first to exercise self-critique in relation to the
judgements we make; second to invite critique through our networked
communications with peers; third to present that critical process to an
expanded critical forum in the shape of this presentation. We hope in this way
to strengthen our interconnecting networks of communicative action in which
individuals, groups, communities and networks can share accounts of learning in
order to live more fully their educational values in their varied contexts.
This
Abstract is placed within the shared commitments of the presenters at the
Symposium to the original proposal accepted by the BERA conference organisers:
We
are a group of practitioner-researchers working across the levels of education
systems. Each of us asks, ÔHow do I improve what I am doing for personal and
social good?Õ Each of us aims to generate our personal educational theories to
show how we are doing so through our contributions to the education of social
formations in our own settings. We believe that the validity of our
efforts lies in the generation of educational theories of professional
practice. A criterion for the legitimation of such validity claims is the
capacity of educators to show how they are holding themselves accountable for
their work as they seek to exercise their educative influence at local and
global levels. We explain how we are fulfilling our understanding that
acceptance of individual responsibility for ourselves and to each other through
collaborative self-study is at the heart of global influence.
We
will produce evidence to support our claims that we are contributing to
sustainable forms of global understanding through education. We will do this by
offering descriptions and explanations of our educational practices in
different settings, as we extend our educative influence for social good. We
aim to show how our public accounts of theory-generation contribute to a
systematic knowledge base. From the ground of clarifying the meanings of our embodied
values and using them as educational standards of judgment we show how
contributing to this knowledge base constitutes a form of theory-generation
that has profound implications for educational practices world-wide.
Each
of the presenters will explain their learning processes as they research the
realisation of their educational values within their social situations.
The
significance of our presentation for educational research lies in showing how,
in response to Snow's call to systematize our professional knowledge-base, the
collaborative production of evidence-based accounts can contribute to this
knowledge base. We show how this knowledge base, in response to Coulter and
Wiens(2002), Feldman (2003) and Noffke (1997), can influence the trajectories
of social change. We show how what begins as the personal accountability of
self-study has the potential to impact on processes of organisational and
social change at local levels, and how this can transform into the education of
social formations at global levels. We explain how the knowledge base, which
contains multi-media presentations of personal enquiries undertaken
collaboratively, can be disseminated through global networks, in live and
electronic forms.
Our
Ontological Commitment to Inclusional ways of Being
BERA
and AERA are the two annual educational research conferences to which we
regularly submit accounts of our research for public testing. In these
contributions we analyse the growth of our educational knowledge. This
Symposium is focused on our learning since giving presentations to AERA in
April 2004 from Jean on:
Every
Which Way (McNiff, 2004a),
and
from Jack on:
Jack
Whitehead's ontological commitments in self-study (Whitehead, 2004a)
These
were contributions to the AERA Symposium of the Self-Study in Teacher Education
Practices, Special Interest Group on, The transformative potential of
individuals' collaborative self-studies for sustainable global educational
networks of communication (Whitehead & McNiff, 2004)
While
assisting Whitehead to develop his understanding of inclusionality (Rayner,
2004), McNiff (2002) has exemplified how we live our commitment to inclusional
practices, through her own, in the preface to the third edition of Action
Research For Professional Development :
ÒÉ..
this year marks the twenty-first anniversary of my learning partnership with
Jack Whitehead.
This
text is as much JackÕs as mine. For the last 21 years, Jack has been a major
influence in my life of education. During that time our ideas have developed
through our own caring, creatively critical conversations. While some specific
ideas that appear in this text belong to one or other of us (for example,
JackÕs action plans, his ideas about the living ÔIÕ, about experiencing oneself
as a living contradiction, and about the nature of living educational theories;
and JeanÕs ideas about the generative transformational nature of the
evolutionary processes of human enquiry), many of the ideas have been developed
collaboratively. It is a remarkable partnership, especially in light of the
fact that we donÕt see each other that often, given that Jack lives and works
in Bath, and Jean commutes from her home in Dorset to work in Ireland. When we
do see each other, therefore, it is an all the more intensely rich experience,
for we have much to catch up on and new ideas to talk through.
Both
Jack and I are passionately interested in issues concerning knowledge,
especially the forms of knowledge and knowledge creation that action research
embodies. I have learnt from Jack the power of sharing ideas to generate new
ones, and how we need to use our technologies to make those ideas freely
accessible to all. Because of this commitment to sharing ideas, this text is no
longer available as a commercial publication, but is here, free, to use as you
wish.
We
invite you to become part of our educative conversations. You can do this by
accessing www.actionresearch.net, or www.jeanmcniff.com .Ó (McNiff, 2002)
McNiff
experienced WhiteheadÕs commitment to inclusional educational relationships in
his supervision of a doctoral enquiry. WhiteheadÕs inclusional educational
relationships are grounded in his ontological commitment to recognise the value
of the embodied knowledge of the other and in his pedagogical intent to assist
in legitimating this knowledge in the Academy. Whitehead experiences McNiffÕs
commitment to inclusionality through the quality of her inclusional writing as
she acknowledges the value of WhiteheadÕs ideas in making her own original
contributions to educational knowledge.
We
will now analyse our learning in terms of the following points from the
Abstract above that are related to the growth of educational knowledge.
Explaining
how we are transforming the social, political, and historical contexts within
which our research is located, into new forms of global influence;
The
global influence we have in mind is an educational influence. Our contributions
to transforming the social, political and historical contexts within which our
action research is located are focused on educating ourselves, influencing the
education of others and influencing the education of the social formations in
which we are living and working. In this paper we are seeking to contribute to
a clarification and an extension in what counts as an educational standard of
judgement in the Academy in our previously published work into our generative
and transformational approach to action research (McNiff, 1988, McNiff and
Whitehead, 2004). Our intention is to show how embodied ontological values, in
the self-studies of the educational enquiries of practitioner researchers, can
be transformed, through their clarification as they emerge in practice, into
living epistemological standards of judgement. We will also draw your attention
to the living theory doctorates that use such standards to validate and
legitimate a contribution to educational knowledge in the Academy.
We
see such contributions to standards of judgement as part of the education of
the social formations of the Universities that constitute the Academy. The
legitimation of such living epistemological standards of judgement has included
a sustained engagement with the power relations associated with the truth of
power and the power of truth. These political engagements (Whitehead, 1993)
have appeared inescapable in the contexts of examining boards that need to
resolve differences in examinersÕ judgements in making recommendations to a
University Senate on the acceptance or rejection of particular contributions to
educational knowledge.
In
terms of transforming the historical context in our educational influence we
recognise this transformation as a shift in our beliefs about our histories as
we integrate into our learning, insights from postcolonial theory (Murray, 2004),
peace education (McNiff 2004b) and inclusionality (Rayner, 2004). Through such
integrations we are continuously reinterpreting our historical context through
our practitioner-research as we seek to live more fully the values that carry
hope for the future of humanity. These include the value of living with a
passion for compassion (Naidoo 2004) and with a postcolonial critical pedagogy
(Murray, 2004). We recognise that for these values to characterise the
education of social formations then there will need to be a transition to a
post-traditional morality. These values, which we use as critical standards of
judgement in our living theories, are open to question in relation to both the
truth of our assertions and the rightness of our values and like Habermas we
ask the question:
But
how can the transition to a post-traditional morality as such be justified?
Traditionally established obligations rooted in communicative action do not of
themselves reach beyond the limits of the family, the tribe, the city, or the
nation. However, the reflexive form of communicative action behaves
differently: argumentation of its very nature points beyond all particular
forms of lifeÉ.. the practice of deliberation is extended to an inclusive
community that does not in principle exclude any subject capable of speech and
action who can make relevant contributions. ÉÉThe bottom line is that the
participants have all already entered into the cooperative enterprise of
rational discourse. (Habermas 2002, pp 40-41)
The
focus on learning in our research is also consistent with HabermasÕ point about
learning processes which he makes towards the end of his monumental text on The
Theory of Communicative Action:
ÒÉ..
I have attempted to free historical materialism from its philosophical ballast.
Two abstractions are required for this: I) abstracting the development of the
cognitive structures from the historical dynamic of events, and ii) abstracting
the evolution of society from the historical concretion of forms of life. Both
help in getting beyond the confusion of basic categories to which the
philosophy of history owes its existence.
A
theory developed in this way can no longer start by examining concrete ideals
immanent in traditional forms of life. It must orient itself to the range of
learning processes that is opened up at a given time by a historically attained
level of learning. It must refrain from critically evaluating and normatively
ordering totalities, forms of life and cultures, and life-contexts and epochs
as a whole. And yet it can take up some of the intentions for which the
interdisciplinary research program of earlier critical theory remains
instructive.
Coming
at the end of a complicated study of the main features of a theory of
communicative action, this suggestion cannot count even as a Òpromissory note.Ó
It is less a promise than a conjecture.Ó (Habermas, 1987, p. 383)
We
also draw insights from socio-cultural theory in the creation of our own living
educational theories and are grateful for the clarity of SkidmoreÕs (2003)
communication of his own socio-cultural perspective.
We
agree with Skidmore on the following:
Researchers
working in the tradition of socio-cultural learning theory proposed the
metaphor of ÔscaffoldingÕ to describe the role of the tutor in enabling the
construction of knowledge by less experienced learners (Wood et al. 1976), and
outlined a number of specific and inalienable responsibilities which fall to
the tutor in facilitating successful learning experiences. For example, it is
the tutor who recruits the interest of the learner in the task to be attempted;
they may have recourse to simplifying the task, or demonstrating what is to be
done in an idealized form; and they may assist the learner by reminding them of
what they already know which can help them to make headway in a problem-solving
situation, for example by appealing to analogy with the known and
familiar as a means of apprehending the new and the strange. The tutor here
acts as a Ôvicarious consciousnessÕ (Bruner 1985), sharing the burden of
learning with the student and reducing the complexity of the task to be
mastered in order to allow the learner to concentrate on the critical features.
This ability to use speech to negotiate a shared understanding of the task at hand
is one of the distinctive characteristics of human learning, as Vygotsky
pointed out; it is the culturally-mediated nature of human practical activity,
especially its imbrication in language, that makes intentional tutoring
possible.
It
is equally important, however, to recognize that the relationship between tutor
and learning which is envisaged in socio-cultural theory is a dynamic and
interactive one, not one of fixed dependency. Pedagogy, from this point of
view, aspires to the quality of Ôcontingent responsivenessÕ which also
characterises spontaneous conversation (Wells 1987), the tutorÕs interventions
being governed by the actions and utterances of the learner, treated as
evidence of their current state of understanding and of the type and amount of
help they (p.125) need to enable them to progress. One would also expect to see
a definite direction of development in the evolution of the tutor-learner
relationship over time, and in particular, a progressive ÔfadingÕ of the
support provided by the tutor and an increasing transfer of responsibility to
the learner for decision making as she/he gains proficiency in a given sphere
of activity
(Wood and Wood 1996). (Skidmore, 2003, pp. 125-126)
We
also find that our inclusional values resonate with the powerful conclusion to
his text on inclusion as he analyses the dynamics of school improvement:
MarxÕs
dictum that, in a truly democratic society, Ôthe free development of each is
the condition of the free development of allÕ (Marx and Engels 1848/1965: 105)
could serve as a useful guiding principle for the struggle to create a unified
system of comprehensive education, reminding us that the end of education is
not to reduce human difference but to allow individuality to flower. However,
the socio-cultural theory of mind suggests that a dialectical inversion of
MarxÕs formation is also necessary. The work of Vygotsky and his followers
suggests that the growth of the individual personality depends on our
experience of meaningful social interaction with others as participants in a
common culture. From this point of view, institutionalized patterns of
selection between schools, and of differentiation within them, impoverish and
distort the individual development of every student, for they diminish our understanding
of human difference. Participation in a diverse learning community is a
prerequisite for the growth of each individualÕs subjectivity in all its
richness; the combined development of all is the condition for the full
development of each. (Skidmore, 2003, p. 127)
Our
living educational theory perspectives have developed from different
ontological, epistemological and methodology bases to those of Skidmore. The
differences can be appreciated by reference to the preface to SkidmoreÕs text
which he opens with a description of his brother, Dominic, being labelled by a
local education authority as Ôsuffering from such a disability of mind as to
make him unsuitable for education at schoolÕ. Dominic died at the age of 25 in
1989 from a sudden chest infection and Skidmore has been clearly influenced by
his brotherÕs life and experience, in developing and expressing his passion to
contribute to improvements in the dynamics of school improvement through
inclusion. We have different life-experiences which motivate our passions
for education and ground ourselves as living contradictions. As we study
ourselves as living contradictions, through a generative and transformational
approach to action research (McNiff 1989), we offer for public criticism our
claims that our accounts of our own learning and educational influence, in
terms of our values, are contributing to the growth of educational knowledge.
We also tend place a different emphasis than Skidmore on the importance of the
dialectical and dialogical relationships between self-study researchers who
research their own lives as living contradictions and moving towards
participatory or inclusional forms of diverse learning communities.
One
of our concerns with the socio-cultural theoretical perspective used by
Skidmore to characterise his educational research is that his language and
logic, while valuable in enhancing our understanding about inclusive practices
within schools, may also be limiting our understandings of how embodied values
of inclusion could influence the dynamics of school improvement through the
creation and testing of living educational theories. We understand that we are
making this point from our own living theory perspective and that this focuses
on practitioner-researchers enquiring into the educational influence of their
own values of inclusion as they ask, research and answer questions of the kind,
Ôhow do I improve my practice?Õ and Ôhow do we improve our
practice?Õ
Exercising
self-critique in relation to the judgements we make;
Because
we identify much of our productive lives in education with making contributions
to educational knowledge we tend to critique ourselves in terms of our
Ônot-understandingÕ as well as celebrating the hope in our achievements. Before
we embark on original work of our own to enhance this understanding we make
some effort to see if others have already undertaken such work in a way that we
can draw on for our own learning. The present focus of our self-critique is on
what to do about our lack of understanding of the processes of pedagogising
(Bernstein 2000) living educational theories (Adler-Collins, 2004) in a way
that contributes a global influence to the education of social formations
(Hartog, 2004).
In
relation to the four questions below asked by Whitehead (2004b) about the
evidence base from self-study research we are focusing on the second question:
‡
Is there evidence of the generation and testing of educational theories from
the embodied knowledge of s-step researchers?
‡
Is there evidence of the transformation of the embodied values of the s-step
researcher into the standards of judgement that can be used to test the
validity of s-step accounts?
‡
Is there evidence of the emergence of educational research methodologies as
distinct from a social science methodology in s-step enquiries?
‡
Is there evidence of a logic of educational enquiry?
In
this Symposium we are focusing on this second question because of our belief
that the evidence base is stronger in relation to the other questions and we
wish to contribute to enhancing the educational influence of living standards
of judgement from the ground of the ontological values of
practitioner-researchers and professional educators. In focusing on the
transformation of embodied ontological values into living epistemological
standards of judgement we are agreeing with Bullough and Pinnegar that:
ÒThe
consideration of ontology, of oneÕs being in and toward the world, should be a
central feature of any discussion of the value of self-study researchÓ (Bullough & Pinnegar,
2004 p. 319)
Having
demonstrated the possibilities of legitimating living educational theories in
the Academy, of creating distinctively educational research methodologies
(McNiff, 2004 a & b) and of developing living logics of educational enquiry
(Whitehead, 1999) we are now focusing on making the possible, probable (Joan
Whitehead, 2003). We mean Ômaking the possible, probableÕ, in the sense
that demonstrating that something is possible in practice in one context is a
different matter to extending the influence of ideas in different contexts. We
are now focusing on the issues of communicating the nature of the processes
through which embodied ontological values can be transformed into living
epistemological standards of judgement, in the process of clarifying their
meanings as they emerge in practice. In our experience these
clarifications and transformations involve the expression of critical judgement
in a process of democratic evaluation (Macdonald, 1976). They also involve the
recognition of a process of creative compliance (MacDonald, 1987) in
engagements with the tensions between the power of truth and the truth of power
in legitimating these living standards within the Academy:
Perhaps,
in the present circumstances, defeated for the time being by force majeure, we
need to construct a theory of educational resistance, perhaps a black economy
of inadmissable enterprise and undeclared outcomes. We need to culture the arts
of creative compliance, as subject peoples have learned to do. Certainly we
need to repair the damage done by divide and rule strategies, to rebuild old
alliances and forge new ones, to reconstruct the checks and balances of a
severely disabled infrastructure. And just as certainly we must not concede to
simplified definitions of the teaching/learning task or to forms of control
that cannot take its complexity into account. (MacDonald, 1987, p.5)
MacDonaldÕs
ideas on democratic evaluation were influential in WhiteheadÕs early research
into improving learning and the creation and sustaining of networks of
teacher-researchers (Whitehead, 1976). This form of democratic evaluation was
used in peer critiques of accounts of learning as part of the process of
improvement.
Inviting
critique through our networked communications with peers;
We
share an understanding of the significance for the growth of our educational
knowledge of the critiques we also receive through our networked communications
with peers. For example, consider MurrayÕs questioning of WhiteheadÕs values
and educational influence in relation to postcolonial theorising:
Where
is the evidence of the critical engagement with the ideas of critical race
theorists, critical non-racial theorists and post-colonial theorists in the
formation of the identities and practices of individuals you are working with?
Where is the evidence of your influence in respect of alerting them to
enhancing the quality of their work by making themselves familiar with these
epistemologies? (Why should you/they when they can get their PhDs/do their AR
writing without making reference to their critical knowledge?) (Murray, 2003) (Whitehead, 2004, p. 897)
and
WhiteheadÕs (2004c) postcolonial response on ÔDo the values and living logics I
express in my educational relationships carry the hope of Ubuntu for the future
of humanity?Õ in support of the BERA 04 Symposium on How are we contributing
to a new scholarship of educational enquiry through our pedagogisation of
postcolonial living educational theories in the Academy?
In
responding to MurrayÕs original criticism Whitehead began an enquiry into the
values of the African cosmology of Ubuntu to see if he could understand and
embrace these values ontologically and bring them into his critical standards
of judgement on his learning and educational influence. He accepted the
following ideas in his readings and conversations on the values of Ubuntu:
Each
individual's humanity is ideally expressed through his or her relationship with
others and theirs in turn through a recognition of the individual's humanity.
Ubuntu means that people are people through other peopleÉ(Government Gazette,
02/02/1996, No.16943, p.18, paragraph 18Ñquoted by Broodryk, 1997a:1). (Louw, 1998)
Murithi
(2001) added to WhiteheadÕs understandings of the values of Ubuntu in his
analysis of practical peacemaking in Africa and his reflections on Ubuntu:
The
wisdom of this process lies in the recognition that it is not be possible to
build a healthy community at peace with itself unless past wrongs are
acknowledged and brought out into the open so that the truth of what happened
can be determined and social trust renewed through a process of forgiveness and
reconciliation. A community in which there is no trust is ultimately not viable
and gradually begins to tear itself apart. With reference to the notion of I am
because we are and that of a person being a person through other people, the
above process emphasises drawing upon these ubuntu values when faced with the
difficult challenge of acknowledging responsibility and showing remorse, or of
granting forgiveness (Murithi, 2001)
As
Whitehead communicated his desire to support the enhancement of the flow of the
values of Ubuntu in his own practice and through the interconnecting and
branching networks of communication offered by the internet, Murray questioned
WhiteheadÕs belief that he could live the postcolonial spiritual values of
Ubuntu in his educational relationships on the grounds that WhiteheadÕs ÔIÕ
felt very Western and European while to get closer to the values of Ubuntu
Murray believes that Whitehead will need to understand a sense of self that is
closer to African and Arab cultural expressions of Ôi in we:
ÒI
live within an extended Arab/Omani/British family where 'we' is used only when
'I' see's the other in Ubuntu, in extended family connection, in a solidary
space where we feel at one in terms of identity and integrity. This feels so
very different to your formulary above. For this 'we' to happen there has
to be an eastern/southern "solidary logic" at work which is
fundamentally communicative, rather than a Western/northern "atomistic
logic" at work that is fundamentally ex-communicative.Ó (Murray, 23/08/04, e-mail).
For
Murray the practical spirit of Ubuntu flows from a sense of ethno-community
where 'we' comes into existence when my 'I' alongside lots of other 'I''s is
subordinated to 'we-i'. The moment 'we' happens is when my 'i' fully
understands (and values, appreciates and accepts) the responsibilities for how
my identity and integrity is embraced within the 'we' of the extended family,
and this is the first step in an ethno-community held in Ubuntu or similar
cosmology.
Murray believes that the 'i' set up in eastern and southern cultures is an 'i'
that is 'we-i' and says that the Western and European 'I' has to learn how to
let go of 'I' as a procedure to be satisfied before making the move to 'we',
which usually entails agonising over one's space, one's autonomy, one's sense
of identity. In eastern/southern indigenous cultures the movement in 'we-i'
space is seamless.
In
our thoughtful engagement with the issues of identity, integrity and
divisiveness we seek to understand the forms of logic that sustain
divisiveness, we then use that understanding and exercise our own
transformative logics to enquire into the transformations of our personal and social
situations into non-divisive relationships that celebrate our common humanity.
In seeking to do this we are drawn to GaitaÕs views:
"Treat
me as a human being, fully as your equal, without condescension - that demand
(or plea), whether it is made by women to men or by blacks to white, is a
demand or a plea for justice. Not, however, for justice conceived as equal
access to goods and opportunities. It is for justice conceived as equality of
respect. Only when one's humanity is fully visible will one be treated as
someone who can intelligently press claims to equal access to goods and
opportunities. Victims of racial or other forms of radical denigration, who are
quite literally treated as less than fully human, would be - if they were to do
it. The struggle for social justice, I argue, is the struggle to make our
institutions reveal rather than obscure, and then enhance rather than diminish,
the full humanity of our fellow citizens.
To
speak, as I do, of fully acknowledging another's humanity will, I know, sound
like rhetoric to many people who would prefer to speak of recognising someone
fully as a person, or even as a rational agent, at least when, in philosophical
mode, they try to make perspicuous what really is the bearer of moral status.
My endorsements of Weil's remark - that love sees what is invisible - will
sound even worse to them. In this preface I can only plead that I mean both and
soberly. Later I argue that improbable though it may seem at first, placing the
weight that I do on our humanity and on love rather than on, say, the obligated
acknowledgement of rights, is more hardheaded than the longing to make secure
to reason what reason cannot secure, all the while whistling in the dark. "(Gaita, 2002, pp.
xx-xxi)
Our
concern is that we do not succumb to pressure to stay locked within a mentality
in which divisiveness is the norm but show how we are trying to establish new
norms of inclusionality (Whitehead & Fitzgerald, 2004; Rayner, 2004;
Naidoo, 2004). We are thinking of our transformative logics as living logics
that draw on IlyenkovÕs (1977) question, ÔIf an object exists as a living
contradiction, what must the thought (statement about the object) be that
expresses itÕ. While Ilyenkov believed that he could answer his question through
writing Logic, we believe that we are answering this question in the living
logics of our enquiries into, ÔHow do we work together to improve our
practices?Õ
For
the evidence in jeanmcniff.com and actionresearch.net to show that such
inclusional values have been legitimated in the knowledge-base of the Academy,
in the form of living epistemological standards of judgement, we believe that
we will have to address the problem that the values in a Western ÔIÕ do not
migrate easily across cultural borders, east and south, and that the value of
Ubuntu or similar cosmologies that hold the values of Ôi in weÕ do not migrate
easily across cultural borders, north and west. We do however believe that a
generative and transformative approach of action research (McNiff 1989) can
bring these values alongside (Pound, 2003) each other in speaking inclusionally
and 'cross-culturally'. Our belief is grounded in the evidence provided in the
doctoral thesis of Ram Punia which shows that the western influence of ÔI-YouÕ
relationships can work creatively alongside Ôwe-iÕ relationships. PuniaÕs
self-study is focused on his life-long learning into the making of an
international educator with spiritual values:
This
autobiographical self-study presents my living educational theory of lifelong
learning as an international educator with spiritual values including belief in
cosmic unity and the continuous professional development for personal and
social development of life in general. The landscape of knowledge includes
India, UK, Singapore, Hong Kong, Fiji, Samoa and Mauritius in several roles
including a lecturer, teacher trainer, a change agent in curriculum,
staff and school development, a training technologist in corporate learning and
a student in the University of Bath. (Punia, 2004, Thesis Abstract)
Naidoo
(2004) also researches from an inclusional way of being as indicated by the
inclusion in her title of ÔI am because we areÕ. She has been exploring the
potential of visual narratives in multi-media accounts for clarifying and
communicating the meanings of inclusional values in the course of their
emergence in the practice of educational enquiry. Her work is
particularly significant for this Symposium as she demonstrates, through a
visual narrative, how the process of clarifying and communicating the meaning
of inclusional values, including a passion for compassion, transforms them into
living and communicable, epistemological standards of judgement. What impresses
us most about NaidooÕs research is that she is able to show the mediating and
transformatory influence of her passion for compassion. This passion for
compassion mediates between immediate responses of anger towards the other that
can accompany a postcolonial critique (Murray 2004). Such critiques, moved by a
passionate anger directed towards the other, can sever relationships and
emotionally damage the other. Naidoo shows how her own passion for
compassion and the othersÕ capacity to respond in a creative and productive way
can work together to enhance the flow of values that carry hope for the future
of humanity. Adler-Collins (2004) expresses a similar passion for compassion in
his development of a curriculum for the healing nurse at Fukuoka University.
In a paper on The
importance of loving care and compassionate understanding in conversations
which sometimes become infused with irritation, frustration and anger, Whitehead (1997) affirms the creative,
engaged and appreciative responses of DÕArcy (1998a &b) in overcoming her
fury at his focus on making ÔYes-ButÕ critical responses that were not balanced
by the aesthetically engaged and appreciative responses at the heart of
DÕArcyÕs doctoral enquiry (DÕArcy 1998a).
Presenting
the critical process to expanded critical forums.
We
have extended our presentation of the above critical process to other critical
forums such as AERA and global e-forums to show how we transform our
ontological values into living epistemological standards of judgement through
clarifying their meaning in the course of their emergence in practice. We use
these living standards as explanatory principles in accounts of our educational
influence. Here is some evidence that demonstrates how others have exercised
their own originality of mind and critical judgement in their productive lives
as they make their own contributions to educational knowledge. This evidence
includes their appreciative and engaged responses (DÕArcy, 1998a) to what
we have done in our educational relationships and what we have produced in our
accounts of our own learning.
Whitehead
(Joan) and Fitzgerald (2004) have supported this action research methodology,
explicitly from the writings of McNiff (1998), in their work with Brislington
Training School. Delong (2004) has integrated the approach within the
development of a culture of educational inquiry within the Grand Erie District
School Board in Canada. Williams (2004) has integrated and extended the ideas
in Australia in his own research and supervision of practitioner researchers in
their workplaces. Adler-Collins (2004) has integrated the approach in his
pedagogisation of his living educational theory and embodied knowledge of being
a healing nurse in the nursing curriculum of Fukuoka University in Japan.
Laidlaw (2004) has integrated the approach in the development of action
research with Chinese characteristics in ChinaÕs Experimental Centre for
Educational Action Research in Foreign Languages Teaching. McNiff (2004) has
extended presentations of this process in Ireland (McNiff, McNamara &
Leonard 2000), Israel (McNiff 2003a) and South Africa (McNiff 2003b). Murray
(2004) has supported the development of action research approaches to
professional development at the Royal Agricultural College in the UK and
integrated these insights into his postcolonial critical pedagogy.
One
of the most impressive contributions to developing and presenting this critical
process to expanded critical forums can be seen in the work of Peggy Leong, the
Manager of the Academy of Best Learning in Education (ABLE) at the Singapore
Institute for Technical Education (ITE). LeongÕs (1991) Masters Dissertation on
ÔThe Art of an Educational InquirerÕ, continues to inspire us through its
powerful aesthetic form and rigorous attention to scholarship. In this
educational enquiry Leong shows how tensions to retain her personal and
cultural integrity and identity are held together with a desire to learn from
the ideas and values encountered in a different culture. In her most recent
presentation to an international conference in Thailand, Leong (2004) outlines
an approach to improving education developed through the creativity of staff at
ITE. This approach is named PEPP & ER because it involves a process of Practice, Exploring, Planning and Performing and habits of Enquiry and Reflection. It draws insights
explicitly from the action research approaches to professional development
developed by McNiff and Whitehead:
ÒMore
than 10 years after my dissertation was written, the acceptance of Action
Research has spread its wings and evidence of its influence on the professional
development of educators reside in the world wide web in various forms. The
adoption of an Action Research process by the MOE of Singapore for the
professional development of teachers in 1998 signals that the achievements of
Action Research in that it is valued for what it sets out to do: to improve
educational practices with the teacher or practitioner at the heart of the
research inquiry.
Action
Research has evolved and established itself as a professional development
approach that has universal appeal to teachers and cuts across diverse cultures
having been recently introduced to Guyuan Teachers' College, Ningxia Province,
China (Laidlaw, 2004). Action Research is about change - in the people who
value and believe that change brings progress and personal, professional and
social development. In 2002, Jean McNiffÕs definition of Action Research in the
second edition of her book ÒAction Research: Principles and PracticeÓ also
shows her professional development when compared with the earlier 1988
definition:
Action
research is a name given to a particular way of researching your own learning.
It is a
practical
way of looking at your practice in order to check whether it is as you feel it
should be. If you feel that your practice is satisfactory you will be able to
explain how and why you believe this is the case; you will be able to produce evidence
to support your claims. If you feel that your practice needs attention in some way you
will be able to take action to improve it, and then produce evidence to show in what way the practice
has improved.
It
is this on this basis of Action Research that PEPP&ER Framework has been
developed.Ó (Leong, 2004)
In
offering this evidence of our educational influence to extended critical forums
we want to stress that the only individuals we are claiming responsibility for
in terms of a direct influence in their education are ourselves. When we claim
to have influenced the education of others what we are meaning is that
something we have done, said, written or shown has been mediated by anotherÕs
originality of mind and critical judgement within their own learning. This is
an important point for our work as educational researchers. We are both more
than twice the age of BERA and have spent BERAÕs lifetime in living a
productive life in education. We find hope in looking back at our achievements,
especially when what we have produced has been found useful by others. Hence
our only disagreement with the ideas below from the early unpublished writings
of Marx on producing things as human beings is the point about directly
creating anotherÕs life. In our view of education our influence is not direct,
it is mediated through the others originality and critical judgement.
Suppose
we had produced things as human beings: in his production each of us would have
twice affirmed himself and the other.
In
my production I would have objectified my individuality and its particularity,
and in the course of the activity I would have enjoyed an individual life, in
viewing the object I would have experienced the individual joy of knowing my
personality as an objective, sensuously perceptible, and indubitable power.
In
your satisfaction and your use of my product I would have had the direct and
conscious satisfaction that my work satisfied a human need, that it objectified
human nature, and that it created an object appropriate to the need of another
human being.
I
would have been the mediator between you and the species and you would have
experienced me as a redintegration of your own nature and a necessary part of
yourself; I would have been affirmed in your thought as well as your love.
In
my individual life I would have directly created your life, in my individual
activity I would have immediately confirmed and realized my true human nature. (Bernstein, 1971, p. 48)
Catriona
McDonagh and Mairin Glenn have demonstrated their originalities of mind and
critical judgement in such mediations in their contributions to this Symposium.
McDonagh (2004) provides the evidence that shows how she is exercising her
educational influence with individuals and groups. In this demonstration of her
own learning and her acknowledge of the influence of our ideas, McDonagh has
also provided us with the evidence of how we have influenced her actions with
the individuals and the groupings she works with. Glenn (2004) provides similar
evidence as she shares her understandings on how technology can help to sustain
global educational networks of communication:
I
am seeking to understand my values as I give them life in my everyday work
practices and living. I am examining this understanding at two levels: the
practical and the theoretical. I am gradually coming to know in a way that is
different to my previous way of knowing, I can see how my values are being
re-generated repeatedly in a series of generative transformational patterns
(McNiff, 2002, 2003) which are inherent not only in my claim to knowledge but
also in how I have undertaken my research and how I live my life. (Glenn, 2004)
Bernie
Sullivan (2004) analyses her research into the education of travellersÕ
children from an explicit critical pedagogy perspective. Our commitment to
research the development of our communicative action in our relationships with
those we work with has led to our present question; How do we show how those we
work with also come to commit to developing communicative action in relation to
their networks? We are hopeful that at BERA 05 we will be able to show that
these networks are characterised by non-coercive relationships that encourage
independence and interdependence in all participants to exercise their capacity
to make their original contributions to their own knowledge, to influence the
education of others and the education of social formations (Hartog, 2004). We
intend to draw on insights on the evaluation of international networks that
have emerged from the doctoral work of Madeline Church and her collaborators
(Church, et.al.2002). We also intend to extend the effectiveness of our action research
as we evaluate the use of insights on collaborative inquiry (Reason, 2002 &
2004) and living systemic thinking (Marshall 2004).
We
believe that at the heart of our educational action research is a
responsiveness to others as we seek to understand and respond to the learning
needs of our students. We also accept a responsibility as educational
researchers to submit our accounts of learning for public criticism in order to
test and to strengthen their validity as contributions to educational knowledge.
So, we are hoping to receive your responses as we seek to enhance our own
learning and our educational influence in the social formations in which we
live and work.
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