Our way(s) to action research: Doctoral students’ international and interdisciplinary collective memory work

Abstract

This study involved six Swedish and Canadian doctoral students who shared interests in using action research in professional education in different disciplines. We employed Noffke’s three dimensions of action research as a theoretical framework (i.e., the Professional, the Personal, and the Political). Using collective biography as a methodology, we cooperatively examined how our personal and professional agendas and macro-level structures have been shaping our intentions to conduct action research projects in our respective disciplines. The key findings of this international and interdisciplinary collective biography relate our growing awareness of the intimacy between research and life in various professional and geographic contexts. Collectively addressing our shared frustrations, we celebrated action research as a methodology that attends to the dynamic and concrete lived experiences of our participants in various spatio-temporalities. Reflecting upon the hybridity of our own researcher identities, we were also able to see the intimate relation between ourselves as active citizens and critical action researchers who are determined to take up the challenges and engage in critically oriented action research that could nurture more “caring,” “empowering,” and “transforming” public spheres.

Collective Teacher-Researcher Inquiry: Localizing School-Based Curriculum Development in Diversified Hong Kong Schooling Contexts

“…Table 1 shows the profile of the participants in the collective biography. Having led inquiries that employed collective biography (e.g., Zhang et al, 2014), Zheng and Sally believed that inviting teachers to share their lived experiences of SBCD would elicit significant stories about the tensions, challenges, and forces that shaped how SBCD was recontextualized in Hong Kong. We concur with Pratt (1991) that "where there are legacies of subordination, groups need places for healing and mutual recognition, safe houses in which to construct shared understandings, knowledges, claims on the world that they can then bring into the contact zone" (p. 6).…”

Toward community food security through transdisciplinary action research

“…The collective reflections facilitated mutual learning while ensuring that the research remains responsive to the problem context. And like Zhang et al (2014), we find that our "unique and differing personal and professional backgrounds share a common goal of reflecting as a way to improving our practice" (p. 301). The under-consideration of reflexivity on assumptions, expectations, and values, along with the practices that sustain them, has been recognized as a key problem in transdisciplinary research among scholars (Fortuin & van Koppen, 2015;Popa, Guillermin, & Dedeurwaerdere, 2015); from our experience, applying reflexivity principles of action research, supported by first-and second-person inquiry, can help address this problem.…”

Stirring doctoral candidates into academic practices: a doctoral course and its practice architectures

“…They collaboratively analysed these narratives and presented their analysis in a joint paper at the 2012 Canadian Society for the Study of Education conference (Fyn et al 2012). The paper was further developed for publication in the international journal Action Research (Zhang et al 2014).…”