Search

This qualitative article aims to understand the historical and methodological path of action research in the field of Basic Education teacher training in Brazil. For that, it was organized the investigation in two stages. First, it is historically contextualized the action research in the field of teacher education in Brazil. In the second stage -- with information collected from the descriptors Action research, Continuing teacher education, and Basic Education --, it was analyzed the abstracts of 151 theses and dissertations available in the Brazilian Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations database, published between 2000 and 2020. Based on Thiollent (2009), Toledo and Jacobi (2013), Tripp (2005), Saul (2010), Larocca, Rosso and Sousa (2005), and André (2001) theoretical contributions, the analysis indicates an ascendent process during the five decades of action research insertion in teacher education, under the strong influence of Paulo Freire in the first stage, corresponding to the period from 1971 to 2002. In the last two decades, relative to the period from 2000 to 2020, the terms used for action research in the field of teacher education have diversified. Regarding the objectives presented, especially in the last decade (2011 to 2020), it is observed dispersion concerning the intentionality of research and the methodological path, since many objectives do not signal an intention to solve the problem situation or intervene in the research field, according to the action research's theoretical assumptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]