DO ACTION RESEARCHERS’ EXPEDITIONS CARRY HOPE FOR THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY? HOW DO WE KNOW?

An enquiry into reconstructing educational theory and educating social formations

Jack Whitehead, Department of Education, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, UK.

DRAFT 5 May 2004

“Action research expeditions attempt to communicate the essence of action research; planning, questioning, methodological skill development, the continual rethinking of the journey, collaboration with colleagues and the realization of outcomes, some of which we might expect but others which are results of the natural processes of the journey itself.” (AR Expeditions, 2004)

I am responding with hope to the invitation to contribute to this first issue of AREXPEDITIONS because I believe, like the creators of the Journal that we can make a positive contribution to the future of humanity by holding ourselves individually and publicly accountable, in explanations of our own learning, to the values and understandings in our:

* personal commitments and energy,

* collaborative support and critique,

* determination and effort,

* intellectual and emotional commitments and

* achievement and satisfaction. (AR Expeditions, 2004)

I am thinking of action research accounts, in which individuals explain their learning in educational enquiries of the kind, ‘How am I improving what I am doing?’, as living educational theories. My choice of the term, ‘living educational theories’ was influenced by a question asked by the Eduard Ilyenkov in his work on dialectical logic (Ilyenkov, 1977) ‘If an object exists as a living contradiction what must the thought (statement about the object) be that expresses it?’ Because I experienced my ‘I’ in my enquiry, ‘How do I improve my practice?’ as a living contradiction, whenever I recognised that I was denying some of my espoused values in my actions, I decided to refer to the explanations I gave for my own learning in such enquiries as my living educational theories (Whitehead, 1989).

I am offering this account of my action research expeditions into the reconstruction of educational theory with two purposes in mind. Both are connected to my desire to live a loving and productive life and to make whatever positive contribution I can to the future for humanity.

The first purpose is connected with my pedagogical intent as an educator. That is to offer understandings and other resources for learning that you could engage with in your own education. It is my hope as an educator that your originalities of mind and critical judgement will mediate between what I offer and what you find useful in learning to live more fully values, understandings and skills that carry hope for the future of humanity.

My second purpose is connected to my commitment as an educational researcher to make whatever original contributions I can to educational knowledge. I attach great value to educational knowledge because I see it as a transformatory power for good in the education of individuals and social formations. My choice to focus this contribution on the reconstruction of educational theory emerged from my recognition in 1971 that the dominant view of educational theory was mistaken in one of its main assumptions. The error was the belief that the embodied values or practical principles, used by teachers to explain their educational influence in their students’ learning, were at best pragmatic maxims that had a first crude and superficial justification in practice. The error was in the colonising practice of seeking to replace the values-based practical principles used by teachers to explain their practice with abstract principles with more ‘theoretical’ justification from the philosophy, psychology, sociology and history of education. (Hirst, 1983).

In this account of my action research expedition I do not want to be misunderstood as rejecting the contributions that traditional disciplines of education can make to the living educational theories created in the course of AR Expeditions. Indeed, I intend to show how these disciplines can make a contribution to a new disciplines approach to educational theory that is grounded in a scholarship of educational enquiry and that overcomes the error of the old disciplines approach.

I share Kilpatrick’s (1951) view of educational theory that it is a form of dialogue that has profound implications for the future of humanity. I focus my own dialogue on living values that carry hope for the future of humanity and stemming the flow of those that do not carry such hope. AR Expeditions are risky enterprises because individuals place their perceptions of who they are, what they do, what they know and explanations of their educational influence into their accounts for public evaluation. I believe that the values I see to live more fully express my own humanity and carry hope for the future of humanity. I recognise that this hope may be mistaken and that the values I express may by mistaken in the sense that they do not carry this hope. By placing my accounts of my AR Expeditions in this public forum for your critical evaluation I am inviting your criticism because I believe that this will help me not to persist in error in this life’s work. I am also inviting your creative engagement with my account because I believe that you will help me to see possibilities for improving the quality of my educational influence.

As part of the knowledge gathered in this AR Expedition I will also be focusing on the accounts of other action researchers as they offer their explanations for their own learning. I have explained why I call such explanations ‘living educational theories’, to distinguish them from the explanations derived from the conceptual frameworks of the traditional disciplines of education.

Because some of the meanings I give to words may be different to the meanings you are giving to the same words I hope that the following clarifications will help you to make good sense of my AR Expedition. I will also explain some of the fundamental assumptions which are guiding my continuing expedition so that you can see if you would like to contribute to the journal by sharing your own assumptions and accounts and perhaps by helping me not to persist in error where you can show that my assumptions and other beliefs are mistaken.

Because all AR Expeditions take place through time and in context, it is wise to create an ecological map of the territory one has passed through in order to be able to retrace the steps in one’s history and to enable others to learn from this if they wish. So I will outline the path, ecology and knowledge-creation in my own journey so far before sharing the speculative images and hopes from the inclusional life-affirming energies in whatever life-time I have left.

This AR Expedition into the reconstruction of educational theory and the exploration of the implications of this reconstruction for my own education, the education of others and the education of social formations began in 1971, with my recognition that the fundamental assumption of the ‘disciplines’ approach to educational theory was mistaken. In 1973 I moved to the University of Bath as a Lecturer in Education with the purpose of contributing to the reconstruction of educational theory. In 1993 I published ‘The Growth of Educational Knowledge: Creating your own living educational theories’. This was a story of my AR Expedition between 1973-1993 and the hyperlinks of the internet permit me for the first time to link readers directly to the collection of papers and commentary in the Growth of Educational Knowledge.

Part One of this contribution to AR Expeditions outlines the growth in my own educational knowledge as I created my own living educational theories. It offers three original contributions to educational knowledge in terms of:

i) the inclusion of ‘I’ as a living contradiction in enquiries of the kind, ‘How do I improve my practice?’

ii) a systematic form of action enquiry

iii) the creation and testing of living educational theories

It also includes some painful experiences and engagements with the politics and economics of educational knowledge of the kind that I imagine all readers who have encountered economically threatening, colonising and disciplinary power relations will recognise. I doubt if you can undertake an AR Expedition that involves living the values that carry hope for the future of humanity, without experiencing the painful (and creative) tensions of encounters with power relations that act to deny these values.

Part Two of this contribution considers the growth in my educational knowledge between 1993-2004 as I continue to create my own living educational theory in the company of others who are sharing their own enquiries in their AR Expeditions. Two further original contributions are outlined:

iv) A dialogical and dialectical process for clarifying the meanings of embodied values in the course of their emergence in practice and their transformation into living and communicable standards of judgement.

v) Ways of influencing the education of social formations through the creation and testing of living educational theories.

The extension of my cognitive range and concerns continues in the growth of my educational knowledge through the educational influence of others in my insights into ecological feminism (Ladkin), post-colonial theory (Murray) and inclusionality (Rayner).

Part One – The Growth of Educational Knowledge I 1973-1993

One of the great benefits of AR Expeditions is that it is an e-Journal that permits live links to be made to other writings and resources. This means that I can connect to the chapters in my 1993 book on the growth of educational knowledge and the creation of living educational theories. In Part Two I will also use this facility to connect to video-clips of my educational practice to communicate the meanings of my embodied values and living standards of judgement.

In my AR Expedition into the nature of educational theory I offered three original ideas for the growth of educational knowledge:

“What are the three original ideas?

I have just given you the first one. It is the inclusion of your own ‘I’ as a living contradiction in answers to the question, ‘How do I improve what I am doing?’. I think your answers to such questions could re-vitalise education.

The second idea is related to the way in which you try to improve your work. If you do not recognise what I said above about experiencing yourself as a living contradiction and recognise what I am about to say about the way in which you have already improved your practice then I doubt if this book has much value. You see, I believe that you have already combined your capacities for action and reflection in a systematic approach to problem solving in which you will have wanted to improve something because you believe that your values could be lived more fully in your practice. I think you have already imagined ways forward, designed action plans, acted and gathered evidence on your actions, evaluated your actions in terms of their quality and effectiveness and modified your concerns, ideas and actions in the light of your evaluations.

The third idea concerns your description and explanation of your learning and educational development as you research your attempts to live your values more fully in your practice. I think your explanation is a living educational theory which, along with the theories of others, has profound implications for the future of humanity. I hope to convince you of the value of this idea by showing you its potential in the living accounts of other teachers, educators and managers.” (Whitehead, 1993, p.8)

The story of my educational development is focused on two connected threads of my life of educational enquiry.The first is my experience of existing as a living contradiction within the disciplinary and legitimating powers of my workplace, the University of Bath. The second is my published papers. You can access both the papers and narrative below. The published papers are in italics, the narratives in bold. The paper on Creating a Living Educational Theory from Questions of the Kind, ‘How do I improve my practice?’, from a 1989 issue of the Cambridge Journal of Education, is perhaps the most influential of these publications. For the sake of completeness I have also included as an Appendix my 1988 Presidential Address to the British Educational Research Association. This was not included in the original text of the growth of educational knowledge.

CONTENTS, ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, INTRODUCTION

http://www.actionresearch.net/bk93/0con.pdf

RELATING TO YOU

http://www.actionresearch.net/bk93/0you.pdf

PART 1 THE GROWTH OF EDUCATIONAL KNOWLEDGE AND LEARNING

ABOUT POWER

1 1977 Improving learning in Schools - an in-service problem

http://www.actionresearch.net/bk93/1ins77.pdf

2 1976 Living contradictions - I am a University Academic. I am not.

http://www.actionresearch.net/bk93/2ten.pdf

3 1980 In-service Education, The Knowledge-Base of Education

http://www.actionresearch.net/bk93/3ins80.pdf

4 1980 Living contradictions - I am a creative academic. I am not a creative academic. I can question the judgements of examiners. I cannot question .

http://www.actionresearch.net/bk93/4PhD.pdf

5 1985 An analysis of an individual’s educational development - the basis for personally orientated action research.

http://www.actionresearch.net/bk93/5anal.pdf

6 1987 Living contradictions - My writings are consistent with my duties as a University Academic . No they are not.

http://www.actionresearch.net/bk93/6disc.pdf

7 1989 Creating living educational theories from questions of the kind, ‘How do I improve my practice?’

http://www.actionresearch.net/bk93/7livth.pdf

8 1990 How do I improve my Professional Practice as an Academic and Educational Manager? A dialectical analysis of an individual’s educational development and a basis for socially orientated action research

http://www.actionresearch.net/bk93/8wc90.pdf

9 1991 The actions of a Senate Working Party on a Matter of Academic Freedom.

http://www.actionresearch.net/bk93/9senwp.pdf

10 1992 Paper - How can my philosophy of action research transform and improve my professional practice and produce a good social order? A response to Ortrun Zuber-Skerritt.

http://www.actionresearch.net/bk93/10wc92.pdf

PART 2 - THE ACTION RESEARCH LITERATURE FROM AROUND THE WORLD

http://www.actionresearch.net/bk93/pt2.pdf

PART 3 - EDUCATIVE RELATIONSHIPS

ERICA HOLLEY, http://www.actionresearch.net/bk93/14Erica.pdf

MOIRA LAIDLAW http://www.actionresearch.net/bk93/15Moira.pdf

PEGGY KOK http://www.actionresearch.net/bk93/16Peg.pdf

PART 4 - INTO THE MARKET PLACE

http://www.actionresearch.net/bk93/

WORKING WITH LOCAL AUTHORITY MANAGERS, 1991-1993

http://www.actionresearch.net/bk93/17man.pdf

ACTION PLANNING FOR MY FUTURE 1993-2009 http://www.actionresearch.net/bk93/18fut.pdf

BIBLIOGRAPHY http://www.actionresearch.net/bk93/19bib.pdf

APPENDIX: How Do We Improve Research-based Professionalism in Education?-A question which includes action research, educational theory and the politics of educational knowledge. Text of Presidential Address to the British Educational Research Association at the University of East Anglia, 1 September 1988. British Educational Research Journal, Vol. 15, No.1, pp. 3-17, 1989. Retrieved 5 May 2004 from http://www.actionresearch.net//writings/jwberapres.html

Part Two The Growth of Educational Knowledge II 1993-2004

Looking back to see where one has come from and looking forward to where one may be going to are both parts of my present life. Producing this account for AR Expeditions has given me the time to look back over my enquiries between 1993-2004 and to gather together my understandings of my learning to share in this public forum.

I will begin The Growth of Educational Knowledge II 1993-2004, with my most recent learning this is focused on exploring the educational implications of:

i) two events during the week of the 11-16 April 2004 at the American Educational Research Association Conference in San Diego,

ii) the successful submission of the living theory theses of Ram Punia and Mary Hartog (under examination) to the University of Bath ready for their graduations on the 15^th July 2004.

iii) the design and development of the web-site actionresearch.net in extending the educational influence of the interconnecting and branching networks of communication supported by the internet.

The first event was a gathering of action researchers in which their individual and collaborative expeditions met in the Symposium convened with Jean McNiff on:

THE TRANSFORMATIVE POTENTIAL OF INDIVIDUALS' COLLABORATIVE SELF-STUDIES FOR SUSTAINABLE GLOBAL EDUCATIONAL NETWORKS OF COMMUNICATION

The successful proposal and the different contributions can be accessed at:

http://www.actionresearch.net//multimedia/aera04sym.htm

The proposal explains that:

“This session aims to demonstrate the transformative potential of individuals' collaborative self-studies for the development of sustainable global educational networks of communication. For this potential to be realised we see certain practices as necessary. Here we explain some of these practices and how we believe we are achieving and justifying them by making our evidence base and the outcomes visible through multi media representations of our learning.

We are a group of teachers, professional educators, and education administrators, working across the levels of education systems. Each of us asks, ‘How do I improve what I am doing for personal and social good?’ Each of us aims to generate our personal educational theories (23) to show how we are doing so through our contributions to the education of social formations in our own settings.”

The second event was the publishing launch on the 14^th April 2004 of the ‘International Handbook of Self-Study of Teaching and Teacher Education Practices’ . The contents of the Handbook were written by members of the AERA Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices (S-|STEP) Special Interest Group. This group was established in 1993 and through a kind invitation by Tom Russell I helped in the formation of (S-STEP). In my chapter for the handbook on ‘What counts as evidence in self-studies of teacher education practices?’ I evaluate the contributions of self-study between 1993 and 2003 in relation to the questions I am asking of my own contributions to educational knowledge for this issue of AR Expeditions:

Is there evidence of the generation and testing of educational theories from my embodied knowledge and the embodied knowledges of other action researchers?

Is there evidence of the transformation of the embodied values of action researchers into the living standards of judgement that can be used to test the validity of action research accounts?

Is there evidence of the emergence of educational research methodologies as distinct from a social science methodology in action research expeditions?

Is there evidence of a logic of educational enquiry emerging from action research expeditions?

Is there evidence from action research expeditions of educational influences in educating oneself, in the education of others and in the education of social formations.

The submissions by Mary Hartog and Ram Punia of their living theory doctoral theses to the University of Bath marks my latest learning from my action research supervisions. Some of these are with researchers registered within our Department of Education, others are with researchers registered within our Centre for Action Research in Professional Practice (CARPP).

Since its establishment in 1993 CARPP has influenced my AR Expedition. I helped to found and develop the Centre for Action Research in Professional Practice at the University of Bath, with David Sims, Peter Reason and Judi Marshall. David moved to Brunel University soon after the establishment of the Centre. Through the influence of Judy Marshall and Peter Reason I have been enabled to extend the range of my action research supervisions into different professional contexts with workers in the police, health service, industry and commerce. You can view many of Judy’s publications

at:

http://www.bath.ac.uk/carpp/judimarshall/paperslist.htm

Peter’s publications at:

http://www.bath.ac.uk/~mnspwr/

and successfully submitted living theory theses at:

http://www.actionresearch.net/living.shtml

The design and development of the web-site actionresearch.net by Jonathan Whitehead, my son, is enabling me to explore the potential of the interconnecting and branching networks of communication offered by the web. In particular I am seeking to spread and evaluate the influence of living educational theories in the education of individuals and social formations. Jonathan has been a most creative, skilful and caring influence in designing and developing my web-site and in developing his father’s skills in being able to maintain actionresearch.net

As I look back on the continuing story of my learning in my educational enquiries from 1993 to 2004, I can see that my understandings of educational knowledge are also being transformed with the influence of my daughter Rebecca’s lovingly inclusional way of being with her father and others and with the influence of Alan Rayner’s ideas into inclusional ways of being and knowing in ‘co-creative togetherness’:

“Inclusionality is an awareness that space, far from passively surrounding and isolating discrete massy objects, is a vital, dynamic inclusion within, around and permeating natural form across all scales of organization, allowing diverse possibilities for movement and communication. Correspondingly, boundaries are not fixed limits - smooth, space-excluding, Euclidean lines or planes - but rather are pivotal places comprising complex, dynamic arrays of voids and relief that both emerge from and pattern the co-creative togetherness of inner and outer domains, as in the banks of a river.” (Rayner, 2004 http://www.bath.ac.uk/~bssadmr/inclusionality/)

I think that the AERA Symposium at http://www.actionresearch.net//multimedia/aera04sym.htm shows a quality of inclusionality that sustains the living boundaries of the identities of the individual researchers, while showing the transformative potential of inclusional self-studies for sustainable global educational networks of communication. In my introduction to the Symposium I made several claims whose validities are open to your questioning. In relation to my own life of educational enquiry I explained my hope that readers would help me to test the validity of my beliefs about the educational influences of my practice so that I could be helped not to persist in error through understanding and overcoming them in practice. When I write about an ontological commitment I am meaning an embodied value that gives meaning and purpose to my life and educational practices. At the heart of my ontology is the expression and recognition of a flow of life-affirming energy and pleasure. I know that many people connect their expression of a spiritual energy to their submission, within a religion, to the will of a deity/God. My own preference is to feel the creative power of such a spiritual energy in the face of the certainty of my own death without experiencing the need to submit to such religious tendencies.

In my paper on my ontological commitments in my AR Expedition you will see that I acknowledge the influence of being certain of my death in living a productive life, in contributing to the growth of educational knowledge and in contributing to post-colonial practices in the inclusional spirit of Ubuntu.

As you may have already seen in the first part of this contribution I insist on including my learnings from the difficulties I encounter while on the AR Expeditions. In Part One these difficulties focused on my learning from:

i) a threat to my economic well-being in receiving a letter terminating my employment,

ii) on the denial of the academic legitimacy of two educational theses and the mobilising of the truth of power of the University in forbidding my questioning of examiners who recommended that I should not be permitted to resubmit my doctoral submissions in 1980 and 1982,

iii) my resistance to the mobilisation of the disciplinary power of the University in claiming that my activities and writings were a challenge to the present and proper organisation of the University and not consistent with the duties the University wished me to pursue in teaching or research.

In the contribution to the AERA 2004 Symposium my learning moved forward as answered my questions:

Can I communicate the ontological power of an inclusional 'will to live' and 'will to knowledge' through a Daughter's birth.

How do I express the meaning of a loving warmth of humanity through a Father's death, a Son's birth and a Colleague's death.

How can my ontological commitment to living a productive life be expressed as an epistemological standard of judgment?

What is my ontological commitment to enquiry learning?

How can I communicate an ontological commitment to an inclusional way of being in my educational relationships with my students?

What do I mean by an ontological commitment to post-colonial practice in the spirit of Ubuntu?

My embrace of the spirit of truth and reconciliation of Ubuntu is important to me in recognising the contribution to humanity of an African cosmology. A central value in Ubuntu is that a person is a person because of other people. I am connecting this value with what I am learning with Simon Riding, a teacher and doctoral researcher in ‘Living myself through others’ (Riding, 2004 at http://www.actionresearch.net/module/srmadis.doc ).

I can also see a growth in my understanding of post-colonial theory and practice, race and identity as I enquire with Paulus Murray into our ‘White and Black with White Identities in Self-Studies of Teacher Education Practices’ for our joint presentation at AERA 2000. http://www.actionresearch.net/A2/aerapj.htm

(See also Paulus Murray’s homepage at http://www.royagcol.ac.uk/~paul_murray/Sub_Pages/FurtherInformation.htm )

Living Conclusion

In this transitional conclusion, as I move into the future, I want to draw attention to the use of digital technology, visual narratives and performance texts in communicating the meanings of the embodied values we use to account to ourselves for the worthwhileness of our existence. I also want to explain how the visual narratives can help to clarify the meanings of embodied values as these are clarified in the course of their emergence in practice and are transformed, in the process of this clarification, into living standards of judgement that can be used to evaluate the validity of claims to knowledge from within a living theory perspective.

Because of the present lack of a large file space required to make the video-clips referred to in the paper below available, at present you will not be able to access the video-clips. As more space becomes available in the future you will be able to view the clips from the links provided in the paper that answers my question:

"How Valid Are Multi-Media Communications Of My Embodied Values In Living Theories And Standards Of Educational Judgement And Practice?" http://www.actionresearch.net/multimedia/jimenomov/JIMEW98.html

My reason for highlighting multi-media narratives of our learning as we seek to live the values of our humanities more fully is because I believe that the sharing of accounts of our learning and influence and our openness to listening and responding to the creative and critical evaluations of others are probably, along with the expression of our loving spirits, the values that carry most hope for the future of humanity.

References

AR Expeditions (2004) About AR Expeditions. Retrieved 1 May 2004 from http://www.arexpeditions.montana.edu/docs/about.htm