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This article examines teachers' work as part of the everyday life of classrooms, schools and communities--as curriculum design, dynamic pedagogies and as an oeuvre which is assembled over time. One of the hardest aspects of the everyday work of teachers, and perhaps one of the most under-rated and under-studied, is listening, really listening. This article firstly explores the dangers of teachers not listening. Secondly, it highlights the contributions of teacher researchers who take students and their worlds seriously. We argue that teachers listening to students in the context of their communities can underpin responsive pedagogies and creative curriculum design, which in turn can allow students to assemble repertoires of complex communication practices for representation, participation and taking action. Finally, we speculate about how, over time, teachers, as artists, assemble an oeuvre--an assemblage of curriculum design and responsive pedagogies which could inform teacher education and research.

This study aimed to identify the difficulties that face school teachers in conducting educational research and ways to overcome them. It also aims to explore the impact of some variables, such as academic qualification and years of experience, on these difficulties. To this end, a descriptive approach was adopted and a questionnaire was designed and administered to 502 male and female teachers. The first section of the questionnaire examined the difficulties in four dimensions, namely cognitive, administrative, technical, and personal issues; the second investigated some proposed ways to overcome such difficulties. The study concluded that the level of difficulties in the various areas was high. The highest was for personal difficulties, while the highest level in the section that tackled ways followed to overcome difficulties was for the item that stated, "reducing the professional burdens placed on teachers in exchange for the motivation provided to conduct educational research." One of the crucial recommendations of the study is to develop pre-service teacher education programs that prepare teachers' capabilities for conducting educational research.

The growth, internationally, in professional doctorates over the last 25 years has been well documented, as are the forms, fields and disciplines that such doctorates embrace. Yet relatively little is known about the professional tensions teachers encounter, in relation to their positionality, when carrying out doctoral research in the schools where they work. This paper draws attention, not only to the contribution the Professional Doctorate in Education (EdD) makes to research as a whole, but also to the significance of teachers as invaluable members of the research community. Findings will be presented from interviews with 30 senior teachers from schools in England who are carrying out practitioner research as part of their doctoral studies. The paper draws attention to how power relations in the research process ferment the structural and agentic concerns of the participants in this study when discussing their researcher positionality. The scholarly significance of this study is its contribution to knowledge of how schools are increasingly becoming both sites of research and research-rich environments. With its focus on researcher positionality the paper draws attention not just to the tensions and dilemmas these participants encounter on their doctoral journey, but also to the importance of teacher researchers and their role in research knowledge production.

This paper aims to review the research paradigms of action research, narrative inquiry, and teacher research, mainly through the writings of John Elliott; F. Michael Connelly and D. Jean Clandinin; and Marilyn Cochran-Smith and Susan Landy Lytle respectively, for conceptual possibilities for fruitful schoolteacher and University researcher partnerships. This study seeks to survey the focal points relevant for the concerns of practice, theory and partnership to give the reader an introduction with an intention to further develop these practitioner research with the possibility of encouraging more fruitful School and University partnerships. This is with a view that teachers need to engage in educational research and that researchers' perspectives can also contribute especially within partnerships. The literature review aims to survey the current stances of the research paradigms along with their features, research foci, methods, outcomes and others. These are then conceptualized for possible research-practice partnerships (RPP) within educational research in terms of definitions, conceptualizations, organizations, practice and enactment. The review also investigates possible partnership issues, problems and tensions of the research paradigms to suggest resolutions, guiding questions and recommendations for researchers and practitioners.

This paper critically surveys four typologies that have been used to identify and understand international school teachers. The critique highlights two main limitations with the typologies. The first, ontological in nature, is that reifying teachers as a type does not capture the complexity of lived experience. The second, ethico-political in nature, is that labelling marginalises the teacher in the research process. Research is done on, rather than with, teachers. This paper's central argument is that the typology represents a form of symbolic violence that silences teachers' voices. In order to address the issues highlighted above, this paper proposes an alternative approach to researching international school teachers, which is situated within postmodern accounts of identity and relational ethics. This paper's contribution lies in highlighting the limitations of typologising international school teachers and teachers in general and proposing an alternative approach that reconfigures the researcher-teacher dyad within the context of a relationship of care, mutual respect and negotiation.

Researcher-practitioner partnerships have gained increasing prominence within education in recent years, yet scholarship on partnerships and tools to guide partnerships' work remain in their infancy. Drawing on our own work in a partnership as well as analysis of abstracts for the 41 partnerships funded by the Institute of Education Sciences and the Spencer Foundation, we analyze the prevalence of four types of research questions--data quality, information gathering, evaluation, and design questions--within partnerships and reflect on the constraints and affordances of each question type for partnerships. We argue that explicitly considering the extent to which possible questions are of high interest and are actionable for both researchers and practitioners may increase the likelihood that the needs of both parties will be met and that partnerships can truly serve as a tool for meaningful improvement in education.

We report data from the first year of a three-year collaboration between a sport-based youth development program, Positive Coaching Alliance (PCA), and a university-based research institute. The theory of change of PCA was tested with youth athletes, representing multiple sport types (e.g., individual/team) and seasons (e.g., fall/winter), who completed self-report surveys indexing a key facet of positive youth development--character. Noting assets and challenges of such researcher-practitioner collaborations, we discuss the results of the first year of data derived from this collaboration and differences in their use to the researchers and practitioners. Using this collaboration as a sample case, we discuss implications for refining how developmental scientists can advance outreach scholarship, and specifically researcher-practitioner engagement, through the use of developmental theory and methodology.

Background: Action research (AR) for school-based curriculum innovations (SCI) has been ardently pursued in Singapore schools for the past few years, leading to a plethora of project reports published as monographs and in a new journal, the "North Star". Training workshops were conducted at the national, zonal, and school levels to equip teachers with essential research competence, further supported by face-to-face and on-line consultation. Many and varied pedagogies in practically all subjects were trailed with the view to raise students' achievement. Aims or focus of discussion: This paper is a sequel to a status report published in an earlier issue of this Journal (Soh, 2006a) and describes the efforts of the education authority, the teacher-education institution, the schools, the teachers, and the private consultants in promoting AR/SCI in Singapore schools. Project reports in various formats are briefly described. The experience of the past few years also pointed up some issues that deserve attention such as the identification of research topics, reference to theories, expectation of success, and assessment of probability of success. Arguments/comments/suggestions: The writer believes that the effort of the past few years will bear fruit for Singapore schools in their effort in school improvement and the pragmatic approach is to be maintained. However, those issues identified above need be attended to if the effect is to be maximized so that resources will be properly utilized. Conclusion: Using AR/SCI as a mean to raise student achievement is a pragmatic approach suited to Singapore's philosophy and this can be continued to benefit the schools and their students. (Contains 1 table.)

This article articulates the results of an ongoing study in an urban school in New York City in which student and teacher researchers engage in practices that support the science success of the schools' predominantly Latino/a and African American population. By situating the study in the nature of corporate and communal practices, the article demonstrates the necessity for an expansion of approaches to teaching and learning that includes students' ways of knowing. Furthermore, the article shows the emergence of analogy as an outcome of embracing communal teaching practices.

When the authors began working with the editorial team for a major journal in their field, they decided to go beyond commitment to taking action by establishing support structures for teacher researchers who were novice writers and who wanted to publish their work in professional journals. Through their interactions with many teacher researchers and their manuscripts, they gained insights into the major struggles that are encountered in trying to shape ideas into a publishable manuscript. This article focuses on identifying these struggles and sharing the ways in which the authors worked with teacher researchers to respond to the obstacles they faced, both in writing a strong manuscript for submission and in making their way through the review process. Their work focused around issues such as using a teacher voice, writing from a point of tension, integrating theory within the manuscript, reflecting on research findings, having a central focus, using supportive classroom examples, avoiding teacher heroism, and considering the broader implications of the research. The authors first establish a context for this work through examining the role of writing for teacher researchers and describing the project within which this work took place.

Educational development (also called academic or faculty development) has been described as fragmented, disconnected, and a "family of strangers," due mostly to the different academic backgrounds of its members. In this paper, the authors report on a survey of over 1000 educational developers from 38 countries on six continents. To help the field gain a clearer picture of itself at the international level, the authors provide a profile of developers' demography, institutional locations, academic backgrounds, and current roles, and discuss the implications for educational development as a field and developers as a community.

It is challenging for ex-practitioners beginning to teach in higher education settings due to their long experience in other fields. In this paper, as an example of a nexus of practitioners and academics, the focus is the issues of novice teacher educators at the beginning of their careers and support programmes for them. Three factors were identified as causing the most distress: difficulty in changing their identities, adjusting to the new work environment and fear of research. These problems align with the cognitive, social and ethical aspects of learning. To overcome these problems, various potential platforms exist, such as traditional mentoring, peer mentoring, joint reflection or self-study. With support programmes, regardless of platform, novice teacher educators' struggles can be opportunities to learn more about the three aspects of their new jobs. (Contains 1 figure.)

This article presents findings from a study about the perceived impact of a job-embedded graduate program designed to prepare teacher leaders within the context of university-district-school partnerships. Study participants completed a 30-item survey about impact of the program on instructional practices, collaboration with peers, participation in teacher research, and acceptance of leadership roles. Survey results indicate that graduates perceived changes in their abilities and actions related to teacher research, instructional practices and curricular design, and teacher leadership as a result of participation in this graduate program. Results also indicated that graduates perceived that their actions as leaders have an impact beyond their individual classrooms and the children whom they teach. The study has implications for the development of graduate programs to prepare high-quality teacher leaders who lead within and beyond classroom walls.

Upgrading the status of early childhood teaching and improving job satisfaction are areas of concern to practitioners, policy makers and other stakeholders in the early childhood field. Ways to upgrade practicing teachers, including their involvement in research, is an on-going challenge. This paper reports on a research in Singapore where a sample of practicing teachers was asked about their views on practitioner research. The interviews focused on the possible challenges faced by practitioners in implementing practitioner inquiry research. In addition, the participants discussed changes that can be made to support practitioner inquiry research in early childhood settings in Singapore.

This paper discusses evidence, collected during an ESRC-funded project ("Reconstructing a Scottish School of Educational Research, 1925-1950"), of a remarkable vision to involve teachers in educational research in Scotland by the Educational Institute of Scotland in the 1920s through the work of its Research Committee. Led by William Boyd, the Committee thought that involvement in research was a crucial stepping stone towards achieving professional status for teachers. It conducted a number of detailed investigations involving teachers, thereby introducing research into the consciousness and practice of teachers. This paved the way for Scotland to make significant contributions to educational research on the international stage. (Contains 120 footnotes.)

Increased emphasis on content coverage and test scores can be an obstacle to many middle level practices, such as curriculum integration and differentiated instruction. While an increasing number of well-prepared, exemplary middle grades educators know and understand this situation, these educators are often not the ones leading school change. Teachers are at the center of all reform movements, and without their full participation and leadership, any effort to reform education is doomed to failure. Teacher leaders serve as mentors and encourage their peers; they influence policies in their schools; they assist in improving instructional practice; and they help develop the leadership capacity and improve retention of other teachers. This article attempts to answer questions on the current status of teacher leadership and on how teachers can cultivate leadership in their middle level schools. (Contains 2 figures.)

While developing critical literacy in our students is a priority for all of us, Wilhelm believes that we must develop a critical literacy of teaching, as well. He asserts that this can best be achieved by 1) teaching through an inquiry context, and 2) taking on a teacher-researcher stance to think both reflectively and reflexively about our teaching. In other words, we must always learn from our students how best to teach them.

Borrowing her title from Parker Palmer's "Courage to Teach", Kathy Egawa revisits her own professional learning journey and contrasts traditional, one-size-fits-all professional development with her own more meaningful learning from teaching. Her stories and research from the field focus on 1) learning from students, 2) learning among colleagues, and 3) learning from experts, including teacher research. Finally, she uses Etienne Wenger's work with "communities of practice" to consider whether successful participation in teacher learning communities must be voluntary or can be assigned.

In this paper, I report on the work of a practitioner inquiry group that went awry when the sponsor refused to publish and disseminate the participants' final reports, stating that they were of poor quality and did not contribute to the knowledge base. I, the facilitator of the group, disagreed strongly with her. I suggest that the difference between her evaluation and mine may have seemed to be about different views of what counts as quality, but were likely indicators of deeper differences with regard to our views on knowledge. I conclude by stating that examinations of knowledge conceptions are key to practitioner inquiry stakeholders finding consensus on appropriate outcomes, or at least making spaces for alternatives, and the potential value of the work that practitioners do in inquiry groups.

This paper explores themes associated with teacher research and its role in enhancing and more deeply emancipating practice. Wider themes underpin how research might be understood which entails one in acknowledging political and epistemological controversies about the concept of evidence and its use in defining professionalism. Evidence-based practice (EBP) has been defined as the approach to decision-making which is transparent, accountable and based upon a careful consideration of the most compelling evidence. EBP is said to be one of the most compelling success stories of the 1990s, but some feel it may turn teachers into mere information managers, undermining their deeply personalised child-centred knowledge. It follows that taking a stance on these issues has implications for the legitimation of professionalism and evidence-based practice.

This article presents an action research conducted by a group of teachers comparing multiage with same-age interactions of children, especially among toddlers. The research involving 31 children ranging in age from two through five-and-a-half was conducted under optimal conditions, with small groups, low teacher-child ratios, and highly trained teachers. The research found that dominance behaviors (hitting, kicking, spitting, taking or demanding objects, etc.) were significantly less prevalent in multiage groupings than in classrooms of same-age peers. The children in the multiage groups also demonstrated higher rates of language exchange--talking to each other and imitating speech--than children with same-age peers. The findings, however limited, raise interesting issues and as action research served to: (1) increase teachers' collective confidence in looking for answers to questions in the environment rather than blaming children; (2) demystify research and convert it from something that is out there to a tool that is available and useful to classroom teachers; and (3) open the door to further inquiry by giving teachers permission and encouragement to examine practices that they had accepted as givens. More refined research can help teachers learn more about how the size and age composition of groupings affects children's behavior.

This article is based on a "think piece" produced as a resource for action researchers working within networks of schools. The original article considered the utility of key ideas within knowledge management to practitioner researchers attempting to share their research outcomes with other teachers in their network. This article, rather than addressing their utility to practitioner researchers, sets out to consider how they might help those involved in "commissioning" and supporting enquiry in schools. The support of these individuals, head teachers, senior managers and CPD coordinators, is vital if enquiry is going to develop in a school or network. They have to make decisions between competing approaches to professional development and the transfer of good practice. It goes on to consider how the theoretical literature on knowledge management can help this important group consider the potential utility of action research as a means of transferring, as well as generating, new knowledge and practices. (Contains 1 table and 1 figure.)

Action research activity enables the teachers to find out questions about their teaching habits, their students learning ability, where the good teachers are constantly involved in this process to know what happens in the class. Action research is a valuable tool in the hands of the teachers, which helps them to know more about teaching and learning.

The fact that children growing up in poverty are likely to be in the lower ranges of achievement on standardised literacy tests is not a new phenomenon. Internationally there are a myriad of intervention and remedial programmes designed to address this problem with a range of effects. Frequently, sustainable reforms are curtailed by deficit views of families and children growing up in poverty. This article describes an ongoing research study entitled "Teachers Investigate Unequal Literacy Outcomes: Cross-Generational Perspectives", which made teacher researchers central in examining this long-standing dilemma. It outlines the research design and rationale, and analyses how two early career teachers worked their ways out of deficit analyses of two children they were most worried about. It argues that disrupting deficit discourses and re-designing new pedagogical repertoires to reconnect with children's lifeworlds is a long-term project that can best be achieved in reciprocal research relationships with teachers. (Contains 1 note.)

Discusses the limitations of experimental studies of learning and the emergence of alternative paradigms such as constructivism. Examines the growth of teacher research and its historical influences, including Montessori, Dewey's Progressive Movement, and Lucy Sprague Mitchell. Discusses current trends in teacher research, asserting that it is imperative that teachers have opportunities to contribute to educational research. (KB)

Describes a school-university collaboration which tackled issues of mentoring, writing, and publication, bringing teachers, professors, and administrators together for research. Participants' action research resulted in a major book publication on new directions for mentoring and creating cultures of synergy. Strategies for developing and assessing professionally diverse collegial networks and recommendations for conducting collaborative action research are included. (SM)

Discusses teachers' involvement in research on teaching, examining Australian research and professional development on Teaching English as a Second Language (TESOL). An evaluation framework to facilitate cross-case and cross-context analysis of such research is proposed, recommending that TESOL researchers first characterize TESOL professional development activity, and second, consider its relation to other educational and mainstream research traditions. (Author/SM)