Louis M. Smith

Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow: reflections on action research and qualitative inquiry[1]

Abstract In this article the author argues that the current state of educational inquiry, particularly as it relates to action research and qualitative inquiry, is in high flux. If this were true, several possible implications follow. First is the idea that with this flux all inquiry occurs in a context that is politcial, organisational, and geographical. Second is the need to see local adaptations of action research – origins, structures, variations, and meanings for the participants. Inquirers and practitioners work in these local settings and typically hope to make improvements and reforms there. Third, a historical view seems exceedingly important as one assesses the current situation and looks to the future of action research. Knowing how things ‘were’ facilitates possible visions of the future. Fourth, each of these implications has importance in the breadth or narrowness of the definition(s) of action research, that is, what counts as action research. Finally, working on the belief that most if not all action research is autobiographical, the author carries the argument through a series of autobiographical stories of a particular local endeavor involved in building an action research community. For some, that might be an unusual organisational structure of an article.

Teacher Awareness: Social Cognition in the Classroom.

By-Smith, Louis M.; Kleine, Paul F. Teacher Awareness Social Cognition in the Classroom. Central Midwestern Regional Edixational Lab., St. Ann, Mo. Spons Agency-Office of Educatbn (DHEW), Washington, D.C. Pub Date Aug 68 Contract -OEC -3-7 -070310 -1605 Note-19p. EDRS Price. MF -

The ethics of researching those who are close to you: the case of the abandoned ADD project

025 HC-

Observer Role and Field Study Knowledge--An Essay Review of Usable Knowledge and SAFARI I.

1.05 Descriptors -*Cognitive Ability, *Student Attitudes, *Student Teacher Relationship, *Teacher Characteristics SP 002 831

ACHIEVEMENT, AFFILIATION, AND POWER MOTIVATION IN ADOLESCENTS

This paper explores the ethical issues involved when researchers attempt to study participants who are personally close to them. It describes a case in which two researchers decided to study the experiences respectively of their son and grandson, both with ADD. They had barely initiated the study when ethical concerns led them to abandon the project. The authors relate the specific issues raised in the case to general issues of ethics in action research, such as anonymity, informed consent, collaboration, and the tension between the personal and professional.

The retired action researcher: dilemmas, choices and resolutions

Essay reviews are an uncodified form of professional communication. Our usage is essentially flattering. We propose to report on two recent positions in education and social science, to partially integrate them, and most importantly, to build them into an extension of our own approach. Usable Knowledge is a short book by two well-known American social scientists and policy analysts, Charles Lindblom of Yale and David Cohen of Harvard. SAFARI I, Success and Failure and Recent Innovation is a collection of papers edited by Barry MacDonald and Rob Walker, educationists from the University of East Anglia, Norwich, England. The Lindblom and Cohen effort poses a research agenda on the interdependence of research, theory and practice in social science. The authors are critical of the conventional wisdom among social scientists who believe professional social inquiry, with its pursuit of authoritativeness, should be the major contributor to social problem solving. The

Educational innovators : then and now

364 adolescents from a stable, homogeneous community were tested for the relationships among age, sex, and amount of achievement, affiliation, and power motivation. Findings indicate that power motivation increases in later adolescence and females have more affiliation motivation than males. The three motives were apparently unrelated.

Innovation and Change in Schooling: History, Politics and Agency

Abstract An autobiographical essay, addressing the practical and theoretical issues of ageing and inquiry during the retirement years. Constraints, dilemmas, and choices abound.