Bringing Action Research to the Curriculum Development Process
Source: Educational Action Research, Volume 15, Issue 2 June 2007, pages 271 - 281
Understanding curriculum as a complex relational dynamic that is shaped by the multiple social and cultural contexts in which teachers and learners dwell, and mindful of the ways in which our discursive practices simultaneously include and exclude, the authors accepted, as an ethical matter, our responsibility to create spaces for critical conversations in which practitioners' voices can be heard.
Reflecting on the project proposal and notes from the authors' meetings with practitioners, it is evident that while we have been somewhat successful in making explicit the authors' personal views on a social constructivist approach to curriculum development and presenting counterpoints to the dominant discourse of school readiness and a culture of performativity, the authors have, thus far, been less successful in fully engaging practitioners. As the authors move forward with the project they consider how they might engage more deeply with practitioners in critical conversations about curricula content and form.
The authors consider the possibilities of emancipatory and collaborative action research with practitioners that will, in the final analysis, enable us to extend the evaluative question 'Are the results good, for whom, and in what ways?' to 'Says who?'