Teachers as Researchers: A Review of the Literature. Occasional Paper No. 142.

This article summarizes the breadth, diversity, and significance of the international movement to recognize, prepare, and learn from teachers as researchers from three interrelated standpoints: curriculum improvement, professional critique, and societal reform. A derivative of action research, teacher research from a curriculum improvement stance seeks to improve practice in social settings by trying out curricular ideas as both a means of increasing knowledge of the situation and improving it. Teacher research from the standpoint of professional critique intends to improve the structures and social conditions of practice. The focus of teachers as researchers relative to societal reform is on how schools and teaching are shaped in society and what epistemological views are important for their transformation. The cumulative effect of this work has been to influence the manner in which teachers are perceived as professional curriculum developers and agents of social change. It has also influenced current collaborative research models and school restructuring plans which emphasize "teacher empowerment." Finally, this review suggests that the concept of teachers as researchers is at the center of international attention to reform in wide areas across the educational enterprise: research, teaching, the profession, its moral purpose, and its impact on societies. Forty selected references complete the document. (Author)