this so precisely echoes my own situation now, as I resist the drums for
Research Questions, more questions, more problem-finding, more questions,
more studies, more research, more results, more questions;... to what end?
A question I *do* wonder about: How can we learn to act upon what what we know?
In the past, say, 100 years of academic productions of knowledge, and the
ongoing insistance that grad students generate more questions and more
knowledges, at one point can we say
ok yes now we know something: what can we do? This is the question: what
can we DO?
There is no "method" of activity outside inquiry-based methods, is there?
How does a researcher move into activism, that is, what does it mean to
make use of knowledge (like "best" practices?)
In international development models of activity, professionals gather up
the existing information on an area, and use that knowledge to
collaboratively design intervention-activities (e.g., installing a sewage
system; setting up participatory forestry practices which are
environmentally-compatible with the community and its environment; etc)
...and I find myself thinking that perhaps university-researchers might
benefit from a similar model of activity, so that, for example,
an academic might gather up the information available on "best" practices,
that is, look at the contexts where educative practices organize a learning
environment where students are actively engaged with the production of
knowledge;
and implement a participatory development program, where instead of
studying and questioning, the researcher makes use of knowledge, power,
privilege, to set up, say, an infrastructure which
"makes a difference", as Bryson & DeCastell (1997) have written
about...specifically, working with the persons concerned (e.g. teachers,
students, administrative staff)
to change the school's infrastructure, to make possible pro-active practice;
or is schools are so politically-inscribed that change is not possible, how
about implementing educative"best" practices in a local community centre,
where the students have access to the new programs of change, that is, if
it can't be in the schools, does that mean we cannot develop alternatives?
what prevents us from actively making change on a local basis?
what stands in the way of the university's active relation with a
non-university community?
At what point might researchers being to act as agents of change instead of
agents of more questions and more knowledge? Is the production of knowledge
in this age of excess-information a faltering projection of the
university's ultimate stagnation?
I am not certain that this calls for generalizability of knowledge, as Mike
points out, this is not necessarily needed: specificity of context is a
useful tool for assessing the needs of a
'community'/'classroom'/'school'/etc.;
but at what point can a researcher act out of a desire for change?
diane