Abstract
Action research is aimed simultaneously at producing knowledge and at bringing about some sort of practical improvement, whether in terms of personal development, technical efficacy, or sociopolitical change. Phases of inquiry often alternate with phases of action, with each informing the other. It has been applied and developed in a variety of contexts, including business organizations, community projects, social work practice, and the professional development of school teachers.
References
- Adelman, C. (1993) Kurt Lewin and the origins of action research. Educational Action Research, 1, 7–24.
10.1080/0965079930010102 Google Scholar
- Altrichter, H. and Gstettner, P. (1997) Action research: a closed chapter in the history of social science?, in Participatory Action Research (ed. R. McTaggart), University of New York Press, Albany, NY.
- Argyris, C., Putnam, R., and Smith D.M. (1985) Action Science, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA.
- H. Bradbury (ed.) (2015) The Sage Handbook of Action Research, 3rd edn, SAGE, London.
10.4135/9781473921290 Google Scholar
- Caswill, C. and Shove, E. (2000) Introducing interactive social science. Science and Public Policy, 27 (3), 154–157.
10.3152/147154300781781968 Google Scholar
- D. Coghlan and M. Brydon-Miller (eds) (2014) The SAGE Encyclopedia of Action Research, SAGE, Thousand Oaks, CA.
10.4135/9781446294406 Google Scholar
- Collier, J. (1945) United States Indian administration as a laboratory of ethnic relations. Social Research, 12, 275–276.
- Corey, S. (1953) Action Research to Improve School Practices, Columbia University, Teachers College, New York.
- Elliott, J. (1991) Action Research for Educational Change, Open University Press, Buckingham.
- Fals Borda, O. and Rahman, M.A. (1991) Action and Knowledge, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD.
10.3362/9781780444239 Google Scholar
- B. Flyvbjerg T. Landman, and S. Schram (eds) (2012) Real Social Science: Applied Phronesis, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
- Fox, M., Martin, P., and Green, G. (2007) Doing Practitioner Research, SAGE, London.
10.4135/9781849208994 Google Scholar
- Freedman, J.A. (1989) Defining clinical sociology. Sociological Practice, 7 (1), 53–56. Available at http://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/socprac/vol7/iss1/7.
- Gibson, R. (1985) Critical times for action research, review article. Cambridge Journal of Education, 15 (1), 59–64.
10.1080/0305764850150108 Google Scholar
- Greenwood, D. (2015) Evolutionary systems thinking: what Gregory Bateson, Kurt Lewin, and Jacob Moreno offered to action research that still remains to be learned, in The Sage Handbook of Action Research (ed. H. Bradbury), 3rd edn, SAGE, London.
10.4135/9781473921290.n42 Google Scholar
- Greenwood, D. and Levin, M. (2011) Introduction to Action Research, SAGE, Thousand Oaks, CA.
- Guhathakurta, M. (2014) Development action research, in The SAGE Encyclopedia of Action Research (ed. D. Coghlan and M. Brydon-Miller), SAGE, Thousand Oaks, CA.
- Gunz, J. (1996) Jacob L. Moreno and the origins of action research. Educational Action Research, 4 (1), 145–148.
10.1080/0965079960040111 Google Scholar
- Hammersley, M. (1992) What's Wrong with Ethnography?, Routledge, London.
- Hammersley, M. (1993) On the idea of the teacher as researcher. Educational Action Research, 1 (3), 425–445.
10.1080/0965079930010308 Google Scholar
- Hammersley, M. (2004) Action research: a contradiction in terms? Oxford Review of Education, 30 (2), 165–181.
- Hammersley, M. (2017) Childhood studies: a sustainable paradigm? Childhood, 24 (1), 113–127.
- Haneda, M. (2014) Dialogic inquiry, in The SAGE Encyclopedia of Action Research (ed. D. Coghlan and M. Brydon-Miller), SAGE, Thousand Oaks, CA.
- Heron, J. (1996) Cooperative Inquiry: Research into the Human Condition, SAGE, London.
- Heron, J. and Reason, P. (1997) A participatory inquiry paradigm. Qualitative Inquiry, 3 (3), 274–294.
10.1177/107780049700300302 Google Scholar
- Hodgkinson, H. (1957) Action research: a critique. Journal of Educational Sociology, 31 (4), 137–153.
10.2307/2264741 Google Scholar
- John, M., Eckhardt, G., and Hiebsch, H. (1989) Kurt Lewin's early intentions. European Journal of Social Psychology, 19, 163–169.
- Kedia, S. and Willigen J. Van (2005) Applied Anthropology: Domains of Application, Praeger, Westport, CT.
- A. Kelly, R. Lesh, and J. Baek (eds) (2008) Handbook of Design Research Methods in Education, Routledge, London.
- Kemmis, S. (1988) Action research, in Educational Research, Methodology, and Measurement: An International Handbook (ed. J.P. Keeves), Pergamon, Oxford.
- Kemmis, S. and McTaggart (2014) Critical participatory action research, in The SAGE Encyclopedia of Action Research (ed. D. Coghlan and M. Brydon-Miller), SAGE, Thousand Oaks, CA.
- Langemeyer, I. (2011) Science and social practice: action research and activity theory as socio-critical approaches. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 18 (2), 148–160.
- Lassiter, L. (2005) The Chicago Guide to Collaborative Ethnography, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.
10.7208/chicago/9780226467016.001.0001 Google Scholar
- Levin, M. and Greenwood, D. (2008) The future of universities: action research and the transformation of higher education, in The SAGE Handbook of Action Research (ed. P. Reason and H. Bradbury), 2nd edn, SAGE, Thousand Oaks, CA.
10.4135/9781848607934.n20 Google Scholar
- Lewin, K. (1951) Field Theory in Social Science, Harper & Row, New York.
- Marrow, A. (1969) The Practical Theorist: The Life and Work of Kurt Lewin, Teachers College Press, New York.
10.1037/h0027104 Google Scholar
- Parsons, J. and Harding, K. (2011) Post-colonial theory and action research. Turkish Online Journal of Qualitative Inquiry, 2 (2). Available at http://www.acarindex.com/dosyalar/makale/acarindex-1423932613.pdf (accessed March 13, 2020).
- Rapoport, R. (1970) Three dilemmas in action research. Human Relations, 23 (6), 499–513.
10.1177/001872677002300601 Google Scholar
- P. Reason and H. Bradbury (eds) (2008) The SAGE Handbook of Action Research, 2nd edn, SAGE, Thousand Oaks, CA.
10.4135/9781848607934 Google Scholar
- J. Rothman and E.J. Thomas (eds) (1994) Intervention Research, Haworth Press, New York.
- Rubinstein, R. (2018) Action anthropology, in The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology (ed. H. Callan), Wiley Blackwell, New York.
- Sanford, N. (1970) Whatever happened to action research? Journal of Social Issues, 26 (4), 3–23.
- Schön, D. (1983) The Reflective Practitioner, Basic Books, New York.
- Schurr, C. and Segebart, D. (2012) Engaging with feminist postcolonial concerns through participatory action research and intersectionality. Geographica Helvetica, 67, 147–154. Available at https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/7021/7163f5d83ab6ff8c4131c66196665a125d57.pdf (accessed March 13, 2020).
10.5194/gh-67-147-2012 Google Scholar
- Somekh, B. and Nissen, M. (2011) Cultural-historical activity theory and action research. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 18 (2), 93–97.
- Stokes, D. (1997) Pasteur's Quadrant, Brookings Institution Press, Washington, DC.
- Tofteng, D. and Husted, M. (2014) Critical utopian action research, in The SAGE Encyclopedia of Action Research (ed. D. Coghlan and M. Brydon-Miller), SAGE, Thousand Oaks, CA.
- Van Elteren, M. (1992) Karl Korsch and Lewinian social psychology: failure of a project. History of the Human Sciences, 5 (2), 33–61.
- Wedekind, V. (1997) Obscuring power: a critique of action research, in Knowledge, Method and the Public Good (ed. J. Mouton and J. Muller), Human Science Research Council Press, Cape Town, pp. 331–354.
- W.F. Whyte (ed.) (1990) Participatory Action Research, SAGE, Thousand Oaks, CA.
- Williams, K. (2008) The Educational Priority Area Project forty years on: “If at first you don't succeed, you [still] don't succeed.” Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association Annual Conference, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh. Available at http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/177776.pdf (accessed March 13, 2020).
