Charly Ryan

Deleuze, action research and rhizomatic growth

Abstract Deleuze and his colleagues, particularly Guattari, have had a profound impact on a number of fields of study. The authors argue that their work offers a range of images to help think about and write action research, a way that acknowledges and celebrates the complexities of the sites of action. The article has a divided structure, coherent with the style of Deleuze & Guattari. The authors present some Deleuzian ideas, particularly the concept of rhizomatic growth, and show how they might profitably be used to analyse and write accounts of action research, reflecting the multiplicities of practice, in this case within education. They have shown the potentialities of the ‘rhizome’ as a way to rethink the field of action research, imagining a new epistemology (in which the concepts work, rather than represent) and how the rhizome demands experimental forms of writing ourselves in action research. They show a cartography (of smooth and striated space) that is required to think rhizomatically about action research.

Creating Case Studies of Practice through Appreciative Inquiry.

Taking a positive view is a fruitful way to prompt educators to reflect on and to develop their practice. Teachers, teacher educators and children bring a wide range of ideas that provide a powerful basis for developing understanding of the complexities of classroom practice. Using appreciate inquiry the authors show how they developed their understanding of professional development as they worked with groups of teachers who investigated their science teaching practice with young children and produced case studies of practice. The authors also show how the roles and ideas of themselves as university tutors were challenged and emerged to suit the range of contexts involved. Their view of Continuing Professional Development was influenced by the lived experiences of the teachers and themselves. They worked to systematise learning through identifying commonalities of experience and reflection along four dimensions: creating spaces for growth; working with emergent purposes; action research as rhizomatic growth; and collaborative and collective action. The rich variety of outcomes shows the value of creating space for growth for children and for adults. The energy and enthusiasm liberated motivated the participants to explore their worlds in ways that were difficult to predict at the start of the project.

Ways of Presenting and Critiquing Action Research Reports [1]

[1] This paper grew out of a discussion at the CARN mini‐conference in Chelmsford, UK, on 26 February, 1993

Changing over a Project Changing over: A Project-Research Supervision as a Conversation.

Extracts from the written conversation between research student and supervisor show the nature of educative research supervision. The authors argue that researcher–supervisor relationships are methodological in nature as they shape and influence the people, the project and the field. Such relationships, which construct meanings, are complex. A conversational approach, spoken or written, with its freedom, spaces and power dynamics, provides possibilities for reflexivity and growth for all parties. This conversational freedom is illustrated in the structure of this text, as a dialogue to which the voice of the UK editor of this journal is added, constructing another layer to the conversation. As in conversation, the form and content of the text is messy and open to interpretation, yet its construction reflects the argument presented in the text. Supervision as conversation replaces then subverts the managerialist approach to research supervision and its carefully planned, linear route to a dissertation.

Keeping it complex: the power of support from a community of professionals

Abstract This paper reports on ways to think about how a teacher educator might learn. A review of the process of writing a Collaborative Action Research Network conference paper is presented, followed by a reflection on the nature of the Conference feedback. The learning at the Conference is built on by an analysis of approaches to thinking about learning. This covers how learners, both teachers in initial education and their teacher educator, might respond to anomalous data. This shows the need to think things through from the points of view of others. This difficult process is aided by conference attendance and also by adopting post-formal thinking. This post-formal approach goes beyond the formal, closed problem approach of a number of models of teacher learning to one that acknowledges a multiplicity of ways of looking and analysing teaching and learning. Evidence is presented that suggests that using the post-formal approach may be a fruitful way to think about teacher development.

Writing ourselves reflectively

We report on an international collaboration between three writers and researchers, our ways of investigating and reflecting on our practice through writing and its purposes, and how we construct our reflective learning. We borrow from Deleuze and Guattari to affirm the possibility of resisting with/ in reflexivity as we try to rewrite ourselves for future possibilities. Through the structure and content of the text we illustrate some of the ways ‘we welcome the interruption of each other’s voices’ and the messy process of reflection and action. We use fragments from our work together to illustrate how we negotiate meanings of words, concepts and their relationships to create this written conversation to support our reflections.

Planning as action research

Abstract Planning contains so much more than the written plan. Early in 2000, an invitation came from the Collaborative Action Research Network (CARN), to people experienced in action research who might want to help plan and present an action research event for elementary school science teachers in Venezuela, South America, in Autumn 2000. This article analyses the outcomes from planning and enacting the resulting workshop to show how planning can be the subject of action research. It goes on to show how planning and teaching interact in a multifaceted way towards technical, practical and emancipatory ends. Planning and teaching are best seen as conversation, a conversation that is both synchronous and asynchronous.