The authors privilege neither theory nor practice, but point out the importance of their intersection in the resolution of problems or in the explanation of the ways in which students learn as discerned by teachers, themselves, regardless of their academic background. Cochran-Smith and Lytle do not necessarily equate theory with academic insight, but neither do they preclude it. Thus, they pitch a wide tent under the rubric of teacher research even as they clearly differentiate it from formal academic research. Consequently, teacher research could be represented as academic research, depending on the background of the practitioner and the purpose of the project.
The authors identify a key factor that separates teacher research from traditional academic research on teaching. University research on teaching:
Generally emerg[es] from study in a discipline (or multiple disciplines) and/or analysis of theoretical and empirical literatures; referenced to the major work in some area(s) of the field (p. 12).
Generally emerg[es] from problems of practice: felt discrepancies between intention and reality, theory/research and practice; reflective and referenced to the immediate context (p. 12).
This definition is correlated with
the methodological quest for "systematic
and intentional inquiry" (p. 7) by practitioners rather than a more academic
demand for anything so formal, for example, as "triangulation," which could,
although does not necessarily need, to be incorporated into teacher research.
Rather, the authors desire to leave scope for more inclusive methodologies
that resonate with the backgrounds of teacher researchers through the
general guiding principle of "systematic, intentional inquiry." As
Shirley P. Brown, one of the teacher researchers who contributed to Inside/Outside put
it, quoting Berthoff (1987), teachers
The educational philosopher John Dewey, argued similarly:
Fewer subjects and fewer facts and more responsibility for thinking the material of those subjects and facts through to realize what they involve would give better results. To carry something through to completion is the real meaning of thoroughness, and power to carry a thing through to its end or conclusion is dependent upon the existence of the attitude of intellectual responsibility (Dewey, cited in Archambault, 1964, p. 227).
Other than the core principle of the intersection of theory (not necessarily academic) and practice in the identification of problems or issues raised by teacher themselves through the methodological principle of "systematic, intentional inquiry," Cochran-Smith and Lytle do not place extensive definitional restrictions on what counts as teacher research. As illustrated in Inside/Outside, such openness provides considerable space for a wide plurality of expressions of this emerging genre, from the highly subjective reflections to more formal articulations of teacher research that share close affinities with academic research.
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