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Teacher Research: A Knowledge-Producing Profession?

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Practice Theory Perspectives on Pedagogy and Education

Abstract

Teacher research has a long and proud history, stretching back to at least the 1970s, of supporting and valuing teachers as creators as well as consumers of knowledge about educational practice. In this chapter, we explore the shape and rationale of these historical ideals and the ‘architectures of practice’ that frame them, juxtaposed with the more instrumentalist notions of teacher research expressed in recent years by, among others, proponents of ‘evidence-based practice’. We argue for an opening of the discussion around evidence in education and what constitutes good evidence of practice, and a reclaiming of the notion of ‘evidence-based practice’ as a generative rather than reductive interpretation of educational practice, consistent with rather than antagonistic to the notion of praxis as morally informed action .

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Notes

  1. 1.

    After Kemmis (2009), we argue that teacher research is a ‘meta practice’ in which it is a practice that shapes other practices (Kemmis and Grootenboer 2008).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Education and Social Work, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Nicole Mockler & Susan Groundwater-Smith

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  1. Nicole Mockler
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  2. Susan Groundwater-Smith
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Correspondence to Nicole Mockler .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Education and Professional, Griffith University School of Education and Professional, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia

    Peter Grootenboer

  2. Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia

    Christine Edwards-Groves

  3. Griffith University, Mt Gravatt, Queensland, Australia

    Sarojni Choy

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Mockler, N., Groundwater-Smith, S. (2017). Teacher Research: A Knowledge-Producing Profession?. In: Grootenboer, P., Edwards-Groves, C., Choy, S. (eds) Practice Theory Perspectives on Pedagogy and Education. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-3130-4_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-3130-4_11

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