Action Research as Professional Development: A US case study of inquiry-oriented inservice education

Action research has been claimed by writers in the social reconstructionist tradition of teacher education to improve teachers’ understanding of their own practices and the situations in which they are carried out. A graduate course in action research, which was designed to engage inservice education students as participant inquirers into their own professional practices, provided an opportunity to examine these claims. Despite the emancipatory conception of action research embedded in the structure of the course, the practitioner students maintained a technical orientation and depoliticized approach to their inquiries. The author's own inquiry into his course practices revealed a pedagogical, an epistemological, and a political dilemma in conducting university-based action research courses.