Hi Cathrene,
Your highlights of an action research-CHAT framework helped me see that
Edwards does seem to minimize agency ("effective participation" in
distributing knowledge) and accord CHAT its more significant
contribution to illuminating expansive cycles of systemic transformation
(embedding action in systems of activity).
It's interesting that agency is central to John Elliott, on whom Edwards
leans heavily for formulations of Action Research. His 1991 book
_Action Research for Educational Change_ is about action research as a
form of creative resistance of activist teacher-researchers to
"technocratic systems of surveillance and control in the guise of
curriculum reform." (By the way, he includes here not only the kinds of
short-sighted, ahistorical government policies and processes that others
have brought to light earlier in this thread but also academic
researchers who "hijack" teachers' theories.)
He explicitly points to the ways that power, agency, and identity are
intertwined in the kinds of reflective practice that the Action Research
he's after promotes, one that "transforms rather than simply
preserves... the professional craft culture of teachers."
This points to the second critical component in your list of three about
the contributions of historical analysis: "engage in dialectic,
transactional process with the past." In my view, this hinges on the
expansion of the object of the activity of an inquiry process and the
reformulation of power relationships of those involved.
How does this view of activist teacher-researchers and critical
relationships with researcher-researchers sit with others' views of
CHAT-Action Research frameworks?
David
Cathrene Connery wrote:
> Buenas noches companeros,
>
> Jay is correct in stating that, at least in the United States, we are
> threatened by sterile, ahistorical or uni-historical epistemologies
> of reality derived from political sound bites and drive-through
> observations, “whitewashed” of all cultural influence with the
> exception of consumer culture.
>
> In regards to SCHAT & action research, Edwards’ article is, indeed,
> excellent with many cogent points. I concur with her call for action
> research to move beyond “explicit practitioner’s tacit knowledge” to
> “conceptualize how knowledge held in communities of practice might be
> informed, used, constructed, and shared”. She elegantly draws on
> Moll’s funds of knowledge as a data source in the investigatory
> process, and yet my understanding of action research goes a little
> further than “the production and interpretation of complex
> environments” by researcher OR participant. While I may have missed
> her boat, the value of action research, when motivated, informed, and
> contextualized by SCHAT, is that the process 1) results in the
> creation of a novel fund of knowledge that, when applied to the
> historical context serves as a 2) a semiotic process or psychological
> tool for the direct, immediate benefit or use of the stakeholders
> engaged in the study. It is critical that the process of
> investigation, while commencing with the researcher, concludes with
> the collaborative creation of transformative tools based on the input
> and energies of the participants in a manner of significance to their
> perezhivanija.
>
> In this framework, historical analysis retains a critical component
> of the process in that it helps us to 1) contextualize where we have
> been so we may 2) choose to engage in a dialectic, transactional
> process with the past to 3) potentially transform the future without
> rebuilding a different house with same tools and resources of the
> master so to speak. This is the beauty of the genetic method as
> informed by the goals and protocols of action research.
>
> Cathrene
>
>
>
> M. Cathrene Connery, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Bilingual & TESL
> Education Central Washington University
>
-- David Eddy Spicer, Ed.D. Harvard Graduate School of Education <eddyspda@gse.harvard.edu> _______________________________________________ xmca mailing list xmca@weber.ucsd.edu http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Feb 01 2007 - 10:11:33 PST