This book explores a value-based research methodology, Living Educational Theory Research (LETR), which aligns a values-based approach with key tenets of professional development to inform and inspire future educators’ practice. Written by world-leading scholars in the field of LETR, the chapters are global in reach and promote the evolving and dynamic nature of the methodology and its application with real-world professional training within higher education. Through discussion and dialogue on the evolution of Living Educational Theory Research, the chapters explore topics such as professional development and community-based contexts, supporting academics wishing to improve their practice by placing the theory within a scholarly paradigm to legitimise its use for scholarly learning. Demonstrating how insights from disciplines such as philosophy, sociology and psychology are integrated within the generation of living-educational-theories, this outwardly looking volume will appeal to postgraduate students, scholars and researchers involved with educational theory, action research and other forms of practitioner research, and education research methods more broadly.

Action Research is an invaluable guide to both novice and experienced researchers from a diversity of disciplines, backgrounds, and levels of study for understanding how action research works in real-life contexts. The Fifth Edition builds on the experiences of the authors by acknowledging the dramatic changes taking place in our everyday lives, including developments of social and digital media that have become central to modern life. Author Ernest T. Stringer and new co-author Alfredo Ortiz Aragón aim to provide a meaningful methodology arising from their extensive field experience for both students and practitioners. Presenting research that produces practical, effective, and sustainable outcomes to real-world problems, Action Research helps students see the value of their research in a broader context, beyond academia, to effecting change on a larger scale. Additional resources can be found at the authors’ website

Since the first edition of this established text was published in 1988, action research has gained ground as a popular method amongst educational researchers, and in particular for practising teachers doing higher-level courses. In this new edition Jean McNiff provides updates on methodological discussions and includes new sections of case study material and information on supporting action research. The book raises issues about how action research is theorised, whether it is seen as a spectator discipline or as a real life practice, and how practitioners position themselves within the debate. It discusses the importance for educators of understanding their own work and showing how their educative influence can lead to the development of good orders in formal and informal learning settings and in the wider community. This second edition comes at a time when, after years of debate over what counts as action research, it is now considered an acceptable and useful part of mainstream research practice.

Gifts, Talents and Education: A Living Theory Approach is a practical guide for teachers on how to help all their pupils to enhance their gifts and talents in the classroom. Examples reveal how teachers can transform the way education is understood in schools, by relating stories of how they learned about their own gifts and talents. The book explains recent key developments in multimedia representations of social and emotional aspects of learning. These permit the multi-sensory gifts and talents of individual learners to be recognised and developed within a process that enhances the emotionally literate space of enquiring classrooms. Gifts, Talents and Education assumes a capability approach to human development which rests on enabling individuals to realise their gifts and talents within a co-created sense of the common good. The book offers values, skills and understanding as concepts that retain a direct connection with practice. The stories are grounded in the lives of practitioner researchers who show the lived meanings of these ideas as they are realised in practice, asking questions such as ‘how do I improve what I am doing?’ and ‘how do I live my values more fully in practice?’.

At the time this book was first published the disciplines of philosophy of education, educational psychology, sociology of education and the history of education had developed rapidly. The papers in this volume outline the developments that took place. The first paper analyses the nature of a theory concerned with determining practice and the place of academic disciplines within that. What emerges is the crucial role of these disciplines, but also the need to develop much more adequately a domain of practical principles, assessed and critically reformulated in the light of those disciplines. The following papers are concerned with the contributions four of those disciplines are now making.

In this fascinating and very personal book, Jean McNiff, author of the successful Action Research: Principles and Practice, argues that educational knowledge is created by individual teachers as they attempt to express their own values in their professional lives. Working with case studies of actual practice, she looks again at the familiar action research paradigm of identifying a problem, imagining, implementing and evaluating a solution and modifying practice in the light of that evaluation. She gives practical advice on how working in this way can aid the professional development of action researcher and practitioner alike. She concludes that the best teaching is done by those who want to learn and who can show others how to be open to their own processes of self development.

Introduction to Critical Reflection and Action for Teacher Researchers provides crucial direction for educators looking to improve their teaching and maximise learning. While many students can grasp the basic elements of researching their practice and can write about practitioner research, some need guidance and assistance to reflect meaningfully on their teaching practice so as to articulate their educational values. This book provides this guidance. By exploring how to engage in an authentic, practical and personalised framework, the book encourages critical reflection and action on educational practice. Moving through the process of reflecting on practice, engaging in critical thinking and planning and taking action, it helps the reader to subsequently generate educational theory from their own personal learning. Examples from the authors’ experiences illustrate the issues raised in each section, with ‘Pause and Reflect’ activities, guidelines for conducting a research project and annotated further reading available for every chapter. Introduction to Critical Reflection and Action for Teacher Researchers is based on the idea that reflection is in itself a deliberate action and something we must live - it is key to understanding our practice and is a core component of action research. This book is a valuable guide for teachers, trainee teachers and researchers interested in reflecting on and enhancing their teaching practice.

This book gives practical guidance on doing an action research project as part of an award-bearing course. Each section is supported by case study evidence drawn from the work of the authors' colleagues and students.

The concept of "funds of knowledge" is based on a simple premise: people are competent and have knowledge, and their life experiences have given them that knowledge. The claim in this book is that first-hand research experiences with families allow one to document this competence and knowledge, and that such engagement provides many possibilities for positive pedagogical actions. Drawing from both Vygotskian and neo-sociocultural perspectives in designing a methodology that views the everyday practices of language and action as constructing knowledge, the funds of knowledge approach facilitates a systematic and powerful way to represent communities in terms of the resources they possess and how to harness them for classroom teaching. This book accomplishes three objectives: It gives readers the basic methodology and techniques followed in the contributors' funds of knowledge research; it extends the boundaries of what these researchers have done; and it explores the applications to classroom practice that can result from teachers knowing the communities in which they work. In a time when national educational discourses focus on system reform and wholesale replicability across school sites, this book offers a counter-perspective stating that instruction must be linked to students' lives, and that details of effective pedagogy should be linked to local histories and community contexts. This approach should not be confused with parent participation programs, although that is often a fortuitous consequence of the work described. It is also not an attempt to teach parents "how to do school" although that could certainly be an outcome if the parents so desired. Instead, the funds of knowledge approach attempts to accomplish something that may be even more challenging: to alter the perceptions of working-class or poor communities by viewing their households primarily in terms of their strengths and resources, their defining pedagogical characteristics. Funds of Knowledge: Theorizing Practices in Households, Communities, and Classrooms is a critically important volume for all teachers and teachers-to-be, and for researchers and graduate students of language, culture, and education.

Offering updated references, questions for reflection, the latest case studies, and current advice relating to data protection and storage, this second edition of Enhancing Practice through Classroom Research provides an accessible introduction to understanding and improving teaching and learning through a process of reflection, research, and action. Divided into five parts, this self-study action research approach emphasises the positive aspects of enhancing practice and reflects how this can lead to higher levels of teacher autonomy and agency. With the addition of a chapter dedicated to the links between action research and well-being, this book provides a step-by-step guide to beginning your own research and covers topics such as: Identifying an area of professional concern or interest Exploration of educational values Developing a better understanding of practice Thinking critically about educational practices Finding a research methodology Drawing on the authors’ new experiences of working with second level, third level, and postgraduate educators, as well as their work designing postgraduate programmes in the field of critical reflection and self-study action research, this friendly guide provides a straightforward approach to classroom research. It is the perfect resource for all student and practising teachers looking for support in classroom research, as well as those wanting to pursue effective professional development or further studies in an area of interest.