Participatory Action Research: issues in theory and practice

ABSTRACT Action research is now common in educational and social practices of various kinds. The renaissance of this valuable approach to social enquiry has many virtues, but success is somewhat soured by cooption of some of the techniques occasionally used by action researchers for the technical improvement of practices, the Implicit values of which are poorly understood and timidly questioned. Naive cooption is accompanied by both traditional and new critique. Like most approaches to educational and social research, action research (or some people's impressions of it) has been subjected to critique by theorists of the so‐called post‐modern turn. These critiques have become prematurely Judgemental, and though drawing on what some see as powerful theoretical resources, are somewhat oblivious to the breadth and dynamism of action research theory and practice and dismissive of the achievements of action researchers who often work in contexts decidedly more risky than the academies which nurture and reward c...

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