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To cite this article: Shirley Grundy (1994) Action research at the school level: possibilities and problems,
Educational Action Research, 2:1, 23-37
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Educational Action Research, Volume 2, No. 1, 1994
ACTION RESEARCH AT SCHOOL LEVEL
SHIRLEY GRUNDY
Murdoch University, Australia
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SHIRLEY GRUNDY
the competence of the teacher. An OECD report, The Teacher Today (1990,
p. 9), for instance, points to teachers as having the key responsibility for
educational improvement. It is argued in the report:
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ACTION RESEARCH AT SCHOOL LEVEL
Education wished to see was that every teacher should think for
himself [sic] and should work out for himself such methods of
teaching as would use his powers to the best advantage.
Stenhouse goes on to argue, however, that “there are a number of factors
which make this highly individualistic conception of teacher autonomy
difficult to maintain in present circumstances” (1976, p. 182). It is arguable
that these factors are still present, if not accentuated, almost two decades
later, and that these and other factors continue to make the autonomy
associated with individualism problematic. Having discussed various factors
such as contestation over teaching methods and the restructuring of
pedagogical practices, Stenhouse (1976, p. 183) claimed:
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SHIRLEY GRUNDY
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ACTION RESEARCH AT SCHOOL LEVEL
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SHIRLEY GRUNDY
action. These are the strategic moments of action and reflection. These
moments are both retrospectively and prospectively related to each other
through two organisational moments: planning and observation (Grundy,
1987, p. 146).
The action research process can be entered at any moment.
Sometimes, for instance, change happens in schools in a relatively
unplanned manner, but if it is to be justified as educationally worthwhile
and/or incorporated into the ongoing life of the school, such changes need to
be evaluated (through reflection) on the basis of evidence (observation).
Planning for sustaining or modifying the change might then need to occur.
On other occasions changes might need to be planned on the basis of
reflection upon rationally generated evidence of what is already happening
(sometimes called reconnaissance (e.g. Elliott, 1991, pp. 73-75)).
As a change process action research challenges certain traditional
assumptions about the process by which educational improvement should
take place.
(i) Action research challenges the separation of research from action.
Traditional curriculum development approaches follow a sequence whereby
policy or curriculum directives are ‘developed’ in one site by experts of one
sort or another and ‘implemented’ at the level of practice. Such a model of
educational change privileges the researcher, developer or policy maker and
relegates the practitioner to the technical role of carrying out plans
developed elsewhere. Action research challenges this separation.
(ii) Action research challenges the separation of the researcher and the
researched. Again, traditional approaches to educational change place
teachers and even more so students on the receiving end of research which
is supposedly based upon some generalisations made about them in the first
place. The researcher (or policy maker, or curriculum developer) is separated
from the subjects (or more appropriately the objects) of the research. Action
research challenges this separation.
(iii) By bringing together ‘research’ and ‘action’, the ‘researcher’ and the
‘actor’ (or practitioner) action research challenges assumptions about the
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control of knowledge. It is not some outside expert who is seen to be the all
knowing one. Knowledge and action are brought together in the participants.
(iv) By recognising the importance of social and contextual change as well as
change in individual practice, action research challenges assumptions about
the nature of educational reform. As was noted at the beginning of this paper,
traditional assumptions about improvement privilege the role of teachers in
educational improvement, but are either silent on the role of the school as
an entity in its own right or regard the school as the benign organisational
structure for the work of teachers. Action research challenges these
assumptions.
principles of action research have been used to validate reflection and for
collaborative planning, but often it has been individual practice and
improvement which have been the focus (see, for example, instances cited by
Carr & Kemmis, 1986, pp. 167-174). Individual teachers have been
supported in their endeavours to improve individual practice by tertiary
institutions which ‘teach’ action research, and by in-service and professional
development activities.
There have been, however, some action research oriented improvement
programmes, aimed at generating school level improvement. Through the
seventies and into the eighties, the idea of participatory decision making and
educational change began to develop in Australia, as elsewhere. The now
abolished Commonwealth Schools Commission and Curriculum
Development Centre (CDC) were active in promoting and supporting the
work of School Based Curriculum Development (SBCD) and School-level
Evaluation. A 1975 paper by Malcolm Skilbeck, the first Chair of the CDC,
stressed the importance of participation by teachers in curriculum
development and the collaborative development of programmes to meet the
local needs of students:
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ACTION RESEARCH AT SCHOOL LEVEL
learning (NPQTL, 1992, p. 2). One part of the broad agenda for the project
was to investigate the relationship between the organisation of teachers’
work, teaching practices and student learning. The principal strategy for
pursuing this agenda was through the National Schools Project (NSP). The
second NPQTL Annual Report (NPQTL, 1992, pp. 2-3) described the NSP as
follows:
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SHIRLEY GRUNDY
educational practices are not dependent solely upon the good practices of
individual teachers. The situation in which the work of teachers takes place,
the organisation of the school, was also recognised as having a crucial
impact upon both the work of teachers and the learning of students.
Interestingly, this project also fulfilled the desire expressed by
Stenhouse and discussed above for professional autonomy to be located
within the community of the school. The NSP was grounded in an agreement
between the Education Systems and the Teachers’ Unions that schools
would have the opportunity to suspend established practices and
procedures and experiment with innovative forms of work organisation and
pedagogical practices. In this way the autonomy of schools was not only
being recognised, but actively encouraged as a means of facilitating
educational change.
It is, however, important to understand that this autonomy was
divested to schools, not to individual teachers, and was dependent upon the
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making the nation more ‘competitive’. And action research has clearly been
co-opted as a process along the way.
For the educational worker interested in the critical (Carr & Kemmis,
1986) and emancipatory (Grundy, 1987) potential of action research, the
appropriation of the process in a national, ideologically linked project is
problematical. Yet it is also clear from the foregoing description of the
principles within which the NSP was grounded, that the Project was
underpinned by democratic and participative ideals and practices that have
the potential to challenge the taken-for-granted assumptions about the
economic purposes of education. This reflects the spaces that are opened up
within any socio-political agenda for action grounded in alternative values.
Quoting Raymond Williams, Giroux (1981, p. 99) reminds us of this
non-totalising aspect of ideology:
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Conclusion
In this paper I have argued that it is important to recognise the school as a
site of educational reform rather than assuming that the school is simply the
place where teachers carry out their educational work. Much of the current
training and re-training rhetoric, for instance, implies that as long as the
work of each individual teacher can be improved then the quality of
educational provision as a whole can also be improved. Such assumptions
are grounded in outmoded forms of liberalism which no longer provide an
adequate basis for quality education in a postmodern society.
However, a swing of the pendulum to a position which portrays
educational reform as simply a matter of organisational or administrative
restructuring, will also fail. Organisational reform alone will not guarantee
improvement in educational provision any more than will improvement in
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SHIRLEY GRUNDY
Correspondence
Shirley Grundy, School of Education, Murdoch University, Murdoch, New
South Wales 6150, Australia.
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