The Impact of Action Research and Education Reform in Northern Ireland: education in democracy

Abstract

A recent survey of the impact on graduates of the University of Ulster's MSc programme in education management has identified issues concerning the nature and purpose of education in the current social and political climate of Northern Ireland. The evidence suggests that most of them use some form of action research to accommodate themselves to, and make more efficient, the operations of the organisation in which they work. This means that their work is circumscribed by the market values embedded in the Education Reform Order (Northern Ireland) (1989). When this evidence is placed into the whole of the UK's social, educational and political context and the history of education in Northern Ireland, it becomes clear why educational action research falls outside the concerns of current educational provision at institutional level. Because the Northern Ireland curriculum is a replication of the English National Curriculum, itself a response to the politically defined English economic situation, there is seen to be no need to prepare future citizens of a new Northern Ireland any differently to those in England. Yet the current and most pressing problem in Northern Ireland is the lack of political stability. Whatever the outcome of the current peace negotiations, it is vital that the next generation be helped by their teachers to be able to think for themselves and so be able to evaluate in a rational way the political, economic and historical faces of their social environment. It is argued that there is a need to reappraise current educational purposes and practices based on the dominant political free market ideology.

Reflecting on Elementary Children’s Understanding of History and Social Studies

“…Yet Hutchinson and Whitehouse (1999) noted the paradoxical nature of policy recommendations within the United Kingdom. If one favored position is that teachers become adept at a set of merely banausic skills, another is that teaching should be a research-based profession (Hargreaves, 1997).…”

“…Such literature paints a bleak picture of the capacity of teachers in the future to critically challenge prevailing orthodoxies within the system. Yet Hutchinson and Whitehouse (1999) noted the paradoxical nature of policy recommendations within the United Kingdom. If one favored position is that teachers become adept at a set of merely banausic skills, another is that teaching should be a research-based profession (Hargreaves, 1997).…”

“…As we noted in the introduction, a developing consensus-applicable to the United Kingdom and North Americaholds that teachers benefit from inquiry into teaching and learning. Although Hutchinson and Whitehouse (1999) contended that the current technicist models of teacher development are incompatible with the true principles of action research, other pragmatic voices argue that the competency framework is with us for the foreseeable future and, therefore, must be reshaped to ensure that young teachers evolve into critical, reflective educators-practitioners who can eventually undertake meaningful action research. The question then arises, how can these critical and autonomous dimensions be fostered within the constraints of a prescribed curriculum?…”

Professional Qualities and Teacher Induction

“…There is a deeper and broader sense of the practice of education here, including selfeducation, as a means of achieving a life that is conditioned by virtues. Writing in a Northern Ireland context Hutchinson & Whitehouse (1999) identify their preferred virtues as:…”

Professionalism, authenticity and action research[1]

“…Handal suggested that even teachers who in engage in the research and reflective processes of school-based action research spend most of their time 'constructing practice' at a technical level and little time 'deconstructing practice' at an ideological level (Handal, 1991). Hutchinson & Whitehouse (1999) argued on the basis of their recent study of the impact of action research in the context of educational reform in Northern Ireland that:…”