Developing the Theory and Practice of Action Research a South African case.pdf

1. Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at
https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=reac20
Educational Action Research
ISSN: 0965-0792 (Print) 1747-5074 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/reac20
Developing the Theory and Practice of Action
Research: a South African case
Melanie Walker
To cite this article: Melanie Walker (1993) Developing the Theory and Practice of
Action Research: a South African case, Educational Action Research, 1:1, 95-109, DOI:
10.1080/0965079930010106
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/0965079930010106
Published online: 11 Aug 2006.
Submit your article to this journal
Article views: 3807
View related articles

2. Educational Action Research, Volume 1, No.1,1993
Developing the Theory
and Practice of Action Research:
a South African case
MELANIE WALKER
University ofthe Western Cape,SouthAfrica
Introduction
By locating it in a South African setting, this paper offers a contribution to
developing a comparative perspective on the theory andpractice of action
research. At issue is the point that the lessons and experience of action
research as it has evolved in the developed North cannot simply be
transposed to Southern context, without considering what conditions made
action research feasible, and howit might need to be adapted in diverse
locations.
I address twoissues within this broad comparative frame. The first
involves revisiting thenotion of three modes of action research articulated
by Grundy (1982, 1987) and Carr & Kemmis (1986). The second
problematises both what conditions support action research, andrelated to
this, what then counts as research in action research projects. Moreover, I
explore action research and reflective practice as a project of educational
reconstruction for a post-apartheid South Africa. Akeyquestion emerging
from my ownwork, then, must be: Is action research relevant for South
Africa and other developing countries? And following from this: What
conditions make action research possible?
Project and Context
In trying to answer these questions, I draw on my ownaction research
study ofmy work as a university-based facilitator inthePrimary Education
Project (PREP). Housed at the University of Cape Town's School of
Education, the project's main aimwasto evaluate the potential of action
95

3. MELANIE WALKER
research to Improve educational processes and outcomes (see Walker,
1991). From 1987 to 1989, I therefore worked with 34 teachers in four
township schools under the control of the Department of Education and
Training (DET).[1]
The context for Innovation and change was not promising - apartheid
education's decades-old legacy of systematic financial starvation of African
schools, of deliberately stifling the intellectual development of generations of
young people, of brutal state repression and widespread student resistance.
But, even though it was a period of massive educational upheaval in South
Africa, the transformation of schooling was nonetheless urgent and
challenging. PREP was consequently informed by the view that we might
build tomorrow In the schools of today, exploring what was educationally
possible within current school frameworks. As key agents in classroom
change, teacher development was seen as central to this process of building
quality primary schooling. My role was to work with teachers in helping
them change their practice through developing and supporting a process of
reflective curriculum development and self-evaluation.
Two Levels of Action Research
At the same time, I would research my own practice. My own interest in
action research was rooted in the assumption that this was an approach to
educational research that not only reflected my own democratic political
and educational values, but also provided the opportunity to become a
more skilled and flexible educator. My concern, then, was to research
whether my own practices in working with teachers challenged
authoritarian and oppressive education relations in order to empower
teachers to develop and implement curriculum change themselves.
Two levels of reflective practice were thus involved - my own
second-order action research into my educational practice as a
university-based facilitator, and the first-order reflective practice of the
teachers, with each level of research shaping and being shaped by the
other. Teachers' responses to my Interventions led me to develop
appropriate strategies so that teachers in turn began to experiment with
their own teaching. Such teacher action shaped the way in which I
understood my role, engaged with the literature around Issues thrown up
by my practice, and acted further. Change and development at both levels
of practice were therefore dialectically related.
Action Research Traditions Influencing the Project Design
To be sure, when I started out I had no clear view of quite what the process
of reflection and action research might look like in concrete situations. It is
thus important to emphasise that the understanding I now have is not the
same as that with which I started out. While this account emphasises the
action research process rather than educational action, it is emphatically
not a paper divorced from practice. Indeed, my engagement in and learning
96

4. ACTION RESEARCH: A SOUTH AFRICAN CASE
about action research emerges from my practical concern of how best to
work with teachers to develop a democratic form of in-service teacher
education (INSET).
For South Africans interested in action research at that time, there
were no precedents for local school-based action research projects. This
was further compounded by the relative absence of an extensive and
vibrant educational research community - a further consequence of
apartheid education. Moreover, a decades-old academic boycott by
democratic educators meant that the only way I could access international
thinking around action research at that time was through available texts. It
is thus not surprising that the 1987 project design was Influenced by two
traditions in action research from the North - it would be Inauthentic to
deny or gloss over the impact of these in shaping my understanding.
The first was the application by Grundy (1982) and Carr & Kemmis
(1986) of Habermas's (1972) three knowledge constitutive interests to action
research. Following Habermas, these writers explicate three modes of action
research: the technical, practical and emancipatory. It is not my intention to
rehearse these for the purposes of this paper. Suffice to note the
attractiveness to progressive educators in South Africa of the emancipatory
form which aims to develop a critical consciousness, underpinned by a
commitment to the ideas of freedom, equality and justice (Carr & Kemmis,
1986; Grundy, 1987).
I assumed that practitioner engagement in action research would
logically (and inevitably) develop into critical reflection on schooling and
society. My own writing at that time reveals a confident assumption that the
action research process had "the potential to re-insert teacher agency into
the struggle within education for the transformative schools, which aims to
transform self and social relations ... rather than simply reproducing them"
(Walker, 1988, p. 150). Democratic practice, enlightenment and
emancipation were all central In this view of action research. I believed too,
that action research would be "highly political", given prevailing material
and political conditions in the townships. But I had underestimated the
difficulties of doing emancipatory action research myself, of facilitating
teachers' emancipatory action research, and even of facilitating action
research at all.
The second key influence on the project design was the tradition of
action research developed in England by Stenhouse (1975) and Elliott
(1981), and reflected in CARE (Centre for Applied Research in Education,
University of East Anglia) projects such as that of Hull et al (1985).
Stenhouse's (1975, p. 142) view turns on the idea that "curriculum
research and development ought to belong to the teacher". For Stenhouse
(1975, p. 165) it then followed that "it is difficult to see how teaching can be
improved or how curriculum proposals can be evaluated without
self-monitoring on the part of teachers". Developing this philosophy over
time, in practice, Elliott (1988) recounts shifts in educational action
research projects to the point where the generation of educational
knowledge and research now rests firmly with teachers.
97

5. MELANIE WALKER
But Imperfectly understood at the time PREP was designed and
conceptualised, was the critical point later underscored by Elliott (1988): far
from being imposed on teachers by academic researchers, action research
developed organically from an existing teacher culture receptive to notions
of innovations, of reflective practice, and curriculum theorising. Indeed,
Elliott stresses, it presupposed such a culture. The point is that action
research was rooted both in teachers' view of themselves as autonomous
professionals, and a well-established movement for curriculum as process.
These factors underpinned the shifts from educational research on teaching
to action research by teachers, over a period of time. A democratic and
non-directive role for the outsider facilitator, as explicated by Hull et al
(1985), also then follows.
Reviewing Traditions of Action Research
By contrast, no similar culture on which to build research and development
endeavours existed in DET primary schools in 1987. In these schools the
dominant teaching culture had been shaped by the educational legacy of
Bantu education, by experience of political oppression, and by the
authoritarian working relations (including a centrally prescribed curriculum
and textbooks) of the DET. This was further complicated by teachers'
impoverished educational background and a mostly poor quality college
training. Gwala (1988) has argued convincingly that, while Bantu education
has failed politically, it has been devastating in its cumulative effects on the
underdevelopment of Intellectual skills and human potential. Further, he
notes that tertiary education in African colleges and universities has been
an extension of the form and content of Bantu education in schools,
reinforcing, rather than interrupting, a view of educational activity as being
to replicate what is given.
I discovered that teachers were not only unfamiliar with any notion of
themselves as curriculum shapers, at times they actively resisted such a
role, wanting rather to "copy teaching styles*. Nor were they comfortable
with my democratic role in trying to work alongside them. As one teacher
said towards the end of the project: "At first I couldn't understand what you
were trying to do because when you called us you asked ideas from us. And
I said No! I thought you were going to give us ideas ..." (Veronica Khumalo,
Year 3 class teacher). As I was to learn, teachers did not envisage a role for
themselves as producers of educational knowledge, least of all through
action research. But they were concerned to improve their teaching, and
this was our point of engagement, albeit halting and uncertain at first.
The dilemma in terms of my own practice was to learn how to mediate
new ideas in democratic ways (see Walker, 1993). While the theory of
non-directive facilitation sat well with my democratic values, in practice it
proved problematic where teachers lacked access to alternative ways of
thinking, behaving and perceiving educational practice. Expecting teachers
to somehow mysteriously metamorphose from where they were into
self-reflective practitioners was overly optimistic. Moreover, it demanded not
98

6. ACTIONRESEARCH:ASOUTHAFRICANCASE
just one major Innovation - action research - but the learning of new
curriculum content and new teaching methods as well.
In areas Identified by teachers as a problem, I organised workshops to
Introduce methods different from the dominant drill and practice, chanting
and rote learning that prevailed in all the teachers" classrooms. The
workshops further offered a theoretical rationale to develop teacher
understanding that went beyond how to teach to why teach this way rather
than that. I supported teachers in planning, in implementing new ideas in
their classrooms, and In collecting data in the form of audio and video tapes
and participant observer fleldnotes. After these lessons, we used the data to
recollect and reflect together. Including how well they thought the lessons
had worked.
There is certainly evidence of teachers observing and evaluating their
experience and taking ownership of the new ideas. A few illustrative
comments made in interviews by teachers will suffice:
At first I had no idea how to start, how to make the children
understand the lesson... But now my pupils gained a love of
history because it was not so difficult for each person because
they were discussing in class, helping each other. (Lumka Mdlotsi,
Year 5 history teacher)
It gave me another attitude towards them [groups] because they
seemed to enjoy what they were doing. (William Thula, Year 6
history teacher)
A change has taken place, and if you have many ways of
teaching the pupils, the pupils become interested you see. If you
come to class and you are going to do reading they know, oh
she's going to do it like this, they are not interested. I'm changing
my methods of teaching and the kids are benefiting but it's going
to take time... it's a long process. (Beatrice Dlamini, Year 7
English teacher)
Even now the pupils are inspiring other children/ They were so
stimulated [by the reading lessons], by each and everything we
are doing. I tried to do this comprehension, then they answer
questions, they do creative work. Somebody draws what she was
reading, telling the story. Others dramatise. Then they tell other
pupils what is happening in their class! (Alice Moisi, Year 7
English teacher)
They get a chance to talk to each other because another child can
get something from the other chihL So that teaches them to
communicate with other pupils. We are preparing them to be
adults so they must be free. (Leah Bangeni, Year 4 doss teacher)
99

7. MELANIEWALKER
This is not to claim that change and development was smooth or
straightforward. Quite the contrary. It was difficult, recursive, uneven and
messy. As facilitator reflecting on my own practice, I found the research
exhausting, frustrating, emotionally demanding, and methodologically
confusing at times!
Moreover, my South African experience showed that reflection in itself
was not enough to shift existing practice where teachers lacked models of
quality practice, and sometimes even technical teaching skills. But what
gradually became clear was the need for teachers and myself to acquire
technical and practical knowledge (of curriculum development, democratic
facilitation, research development, and so on) as well as emancipatory
knowledge, and that all three modes of action research might contribute to
this end. Nonetheless, this should not automatically be read off as
constituting a technical interest, for example. Both the teachers and I had
to learn technical and practical skills, but this is not the same as
advocating a technocratic view of society and education, or elevating
efficiency in a skill to efficiency as value.
The point is rather that emancipatory knowledge cannot be divorced
from technical or practical knowledge. Critical knowledge demands an
underpinning of socially useful and relevant skills. Thus more than
emancipatory rhetoric is needed to translate political commitment into
transformed education relations, as I discovered in my own practice. During
the period of my involvement in PREP, my developing understanding was
further clarified by Delpit (1986, p. 384). She writes:
... a critical thinker who lacks the 'skills' demanded by employers
and institutions of higher learning can aspire tofinancial and
social status only within the disenfranchised underworld.
Mezirow (1981) explains it well. He maintains that "perspective
transformation" engages all three learning domains; where the technical
involves learning for task-related competence, the practical learning for
interpersonal understanding, and the emancipatory learning for perspective
transformation. As he notes, in real situations, all three are intertwined.
But while democratic teachers and teacher educators need the skills
to translate their political values into effective classroom action, the reverse
holds too:
Students need technical skills to open doors, but they need to be
able to think critically and creatively to participate in meaningful
and potentially liberating work within those doors. Let there be no
doubt a 'skilled' minority person who is also not capable of
critical analysis becomes the trainable, low-level functionary of
dominant society, simply the grease that keeps the institutions
which orchestrate his or her oppression running smoothly. (Delpit,
1986, p. 384)
The point here is that acquiring practical skills and reflecting on classroom
action, if divorced from critical analysis, is not a sufficient condition for the
100

8. ACTION RESEARCH: A SOUTH AFRICAN CASE
development of emancipatory education either in my study. My own work
suggests that the process of enquiry itself, while it may help develop
classroom skills, will not necessarily shift into a critique of the contexts of
that practice. This is the greatest limitation of the action research process in
bringing about democratic and emancipatory educational change.
What I came to understand instead through my work with teachers is
that their starting points and their values, rather than some inherent logic
in the research process itself, shape the probability of teachers being able to
shift between classroom concerns and a critical understanding of
institutional and social constraints. Emancipatory action research is, in my
experience, inherently political and will be shaped by practitioner
commitment to emancipatory political ideals. Action research in itself is no
magic formula to shift routine reflection into critical review, nor is it a
vehicle to politicise practitioners, as I had naively thought when I started
out. Indeed, to have used action research in this way would have been
fundamentally dishonest in a project that teachers joined to improve their
teaching of reading and history. All this meant my learning to accept the
limits as well as the possibilities of action research in township primary
schools at that time.
Nonetheless, neither would I want to overlook the real gains for
teachers. The twin processes of reflective practice and curriculum
development in PREP did help teachers develop technical and practical
skills which helped them work towards change in their classrooms. More
than this, it also generated empowering and personally emancipatory
moments for teachers. All this is evident in the earlier comments by
teachers, and in these from interviews by the project evaluation (Philcox,
1991, pp. 89-91):
Our lives have changed.
I am confident to say what I want.
I know what and how to teach -I do notjust accept.
I.willnot return to my old methods.
I now listen to my pupils.
My pupils are no longer passive.
In this project you are not afraid to criticiseand be criticised.
A principal summed it up: "We like to have teachers as learners in the
schools" (quoted in Philcox, 1991, p. 93).
Was My Own Action Research Emancipatory?
Now, I had set out to do emancipatory action research, focusing on my own
educational practice in working alongside teachers. What, then, were the
limits and possibilities of my own research? In practice, my second-order
action research remained a black-box mystery. Ideally, teachers should
have been part of a critical community but this would be to beg the
question of the real power differences between a white university-based
facilitator and African primary school teachers. Teachers knew from the
start of the project that I was a 'researcher' - that I was researching my own
101

9. MELANIE WALKER
practice, that I would write It up and share It with a wider audience. But
differences (not necessarily negative) of context and skill, job description
(teachers defined as teachers, myself defined as a researcher), and real
constraints on teachers' time, In the end meant that I worked with them for
curriculum change, but I tackled the second order research alone.
Therefore I would not claim the existence of a critical community of
researchers, especially if one differentiates between 'participation' and
'involvement':
Authentic participation in research means sharing in the way
research is conceptualised, practised and brought to bear on the
life-world.It means ownership - responsible agency in the
production of knowledge and the improvement ofpractice.Mere
involvement implies none of this; and creates the risk ofco-option
and exploitation of people in the realisation of the plans of others,
(author's emphasis, McTaggart,1989, p. 3)
On this basis, it would seem that teachers were participants in the process
of curriculum change, but only involved in the process of my own research.
This raises the further question, then, as to whether my own research
can be considered emancipatory action research. On the one hand there is
evidence in my research for a concern with the conceptions between
schooling and society, for improvement In practice, and for the involvement
of all participants in the process of change. But on the other hand,
emancipatory action research is crucially a collaborativeprocess. As noted,
above, while the process of changing practice was collaborative, my
research on that process was not. Further, research requiring individual
academic effort is in any case In potential conflict with this ideal
(Groundwater-Smith, 1988).
In the end, however, Grundy (1987, p. 159) reminds us that "given the
transcendent technical interest In our society" it Is unlikely that "the
emancipatory potential of action research will be fully realised in one
situation". For all that, action research still "offers a programme for
strategic action which opens up the possibility of working systematically In
ways which foster freedom, equality and justice in learning environments
and interactions" (emphasis added). I would argue, then, that my research
was Informed by an emancipatory interest imperfectly realised In the
practice of the research itself.
What Does 'Research' Mean in 'Action Research'?
The project's original Intention had been to evaluate teacher action
research, and I wrestled over three years with what the concept of 'research'
in action research meant in practice. In the pilot study In 1987 the
language and practice of action research had not been a key feature of work
with teachers, although there was some promising teacher reflection on
practice. At school meetings in 1988, I emphasised the idea of teachers as
researchers, saying things like "through researching your own practice,
102

10. ACTION RESEARCH: ASOUTHAFRICAN CASE
through investigating what happens in your classrooms you can become a
better teacher, a more critical and creative teacher" (fieldnotes 27/1/88).
Two short pamphlets explained the process of action research, both
illustrating the action research cycle, and accompanied by a simple account
as to how this might work in action. The workshops and one-to-one
meetings were characterised by similar attempts to encourage teachers to
collect evidence on their teaching for reflection, and to introduce a research
discourse. But given constraints of context, teaching culture and skill the
focus of my work was much more in the area of changing methods and
supporting teachers in making these changes. Data collection was still
organised largely by myself, this being exacerbated by the initial reliance on
videotape, the equipment and expertise for which was exclusively located at
the university. What was a research project for me, was more a curriculum
development project for teachers, offering resources, expertise and support.
Yet this still leaves unresolved the question of what counts as
'research'. Stenhouse (1981, p. 9) is clear about what he would define as
research: "systematic enquiry made public". Elliott (1981) emphasises the
need for teachers to publicise their findings in order to be regarded as
teacher researchers, while Ebbutt (1985) claims that the distinguishing
feature of action research is making teachers' reports open to public
critique. McNiff (1988) states that it is teachers' making public their claims
to knowledge that defines their classroom enquiries as research. Essentially
the former would involve individual professional development, the latter a
contribution to public knowledge. Ashton et al (1989, p. 14) conclude that
such positions seem "to imply a concept of research far removed from that
of teachers simply enquiring more systematically into their practice".
Using the criteria of Stenhouse and others I would claim that my own
study qualifies as research in its contribution to a shared body of public
knowledge about educational practice and research methodology. Further,
as action research should, it has developed my own practical wisdom
(Elliott, 1989) on educational change, and how to work democratically in my
particular situation with teachers. On this basis I claim to know my own
educational development. Furthermore, my understanding of action
research has developed so that the insight I now have is not the same as
that with which I began in 1987, nor is my present understanding static.
Deciding how to go about action research in my particular situation has
been and continues to be the basis of my learning about the theory and
practice of action research.
Yet if one emphasises 'public scrutiny' of written reports, it is difficult
to argue that teachers in PREP did 'action research'. Nonetheless, I would
claim that teachers were beginning to engage with teacher-research in their
engagement in a research process, collecting evidence with my help on their
attempts to improve, and Individually and collectively discussing this
evidence. Importantly, teachers interviewed at different times during the
course of the project articulated a view of themselves as reflective, flexible
learners who were engaged in improving their teaching, a view which is
103

11. MELANIE WALKER
arguably Integral to developing action research and a culture that supports
rather than subverts change. For example, teachers said things like:
If you cannot evaluate yourself,you won't know if you are a good
teacher or not (Bulelwa. Kgase, Year 3 class teacher)
I know it's not an easy thing to use the [new]methods perfectly,
you know, 100%from, the word go, but if you take them and use
them you wffl. see how they work and then afterwards, you are
going to evaluate them... you are going to improveby using your
own thinking. (Gladstone Mashiyi, Year 6 history teacher)
When I think about researching my own practiceIfound that
faults with regards to methods can be rectifiedorold methods can
be changed and the new ones can be adapted to, and my attitude
when presenting the lesson to the pupils, their reaction when they
receive the informationfrom me. Is itstimulating or the other way
around?And the improved way of teaching.(David Mpetha, Year
7 Afrikaans teacher)
As a teacher I think you must not stand at one point, you must
change as times change. Education does not stop. That's what I'm
discovering. (BeatriceDlamini, Year 7 English teacher)
I was Just a self-centred somebody. IJust go to my classroom, I
teach, I go out, I go home. Now I've discovered that no! You must
go to otherpeople, to other teachers. And you must also give help
to other teachers. (Veronica Khumalo, Year 3 class teacher)
At times you areJust given methods [atthe college] - when doing
this lesson you can apply this. But when it comes to the practical
situation, it's difficult and I think you have to be somebody
flexible to be able to change that method when you see, no the
kids don'tfollow you and quickly change it. (RuthNdude, Year 6
English teacher)
I think what Melanie put across to us was teachers researching
their own teaching, with maybe the Universityof Cape Town
providing us with materials, or the teachers themselves trying to
develop the methods that would be helpful to them and help the
kids, and the teachers growing in their teaching. (Cynthia Bengu,
Year 5 English teacher)
Thus, midway through the project I began rather to conceptualise a
continuum from reflection to research, rather than a sharp dichotomy
between these two activities. I expressed it this way In conversation with a
university colleague:
104

12. ACTION RESEARCH: A SOUTH AFRICAN CASE
I still have questions about whether what the teachers aredoing
can be labelled research, or whether it doesn't matter, and it's
only my problem of definition because I'm too locked into what
constitutes an academic view of research. At the same time, I'm
aware that teachers are not being very rigorousin looking at
classroom evidence because they don't have the time or perhaps
the research skills. So I wonder if we shouldn't rather callour
approach 'reflection on action' or 'reflectiveconversation' which
would be a step along a continuumfrom research toreflection,
(fieldnotes 3/8/88)
Change has to start somewhere, and if less was achieved than had been
hoped for - reflective teaching rather than action research - this is not to
say that the envisaged change should be abandoned. Rather it needs to be
reformulated in the light of local conditions. In my own context, this
reformulation lay in conceptualising the reflection-research continuum,
where all points of engagement along the continuum contributed to
professional development, along which practitioners will enter and exit at
different points. This view accords with that of Stuart (1991, p. 149) who
distinguishes between "reflection in action" and "action research":
Through action research teachers are helped to make the process
[reflection in action] more conscious, more explicit,and more
rigorousto the point where, if made availablefor publiccritique
and discussion, it can be called research.
What I remain uncertain about is what 'public critique' or 'publication'
might mean in practice, not searching, however, for a unitary meaning but
exploring these constructs at different development levels and in diverse
action situations. It seems to me there is danger in suffocating practitioner
attempts to engage with action research by defining publication as written
reports. On the other hand, the process of writing is itself developmental, as
is the process of public critique, however that may be defined and
organised.
Is Action Research an Appropriate and Relevant
Model for In-service Teacher Development in South Africa?
There were limits to what was achieved In my work with teachers -
reflection rather than research; teacher reflection ranging from the technical
to the practical rather than the emancipatory; shifts in teacher thinking and
practice towards new ideas and not yet frameworks for understanding their
practice; and an emancipatory interest in my own work imperfectly realised
in my practice. For all that, there are also signposts to a project of practical
possibility and starting points for a more hopeful educational future.
Different social relations in their classrooms, the introduction of relevant
texts, collegial working relationships, greater confidence in their own
105

13. MELANIE WALKER
pedagogical knowledge, and a collaborative power with a model of working
with an outsider - none should be underestimated.
Reflective teaching is, after all, an important step along the reflection-
research continuum. A further point needs mentioning. Reflective
curriculum practitioners are centrally involved in the production of valuable
educational knowledge, not only in Implementing the curriculum. Moreover,
In South Africa we have a cadre of progressive teachers many of whose
democratic politics fail to translate into democratic classroom practice.
Action research would be one way for them to address this gap between
their values and their practice.
I would therefore argue that action research underpinned by a view of
teachers as reflective practitioners (Schon, 1987) is one appropriate model
for INSET in South Africa. Two qualifications are needed, however. The first
is that more rigorous and sustained research efforts, including the writing
of reports, need to be supported by changed working conditions, including
structural and political change, and a teaching culture that welcomes and
values innovation. The former may well be quickly put in place by an
interim government, the latter is likely to be slower and more difficult to
realise.
The second point relates to a debate current in South Africa
counterposing what is described as vocational and academic education. In
essence this Involves the argument for widespread vocational skilling in
South Africa now, versus the longer term need for flexibility and
transferable skills (Wolpe, 1991). Choices for one or the other must in turn
be formulated "from the concrete conditions of the society and the
development strategies which may be appropriate to transform those
conditions" (Wolpe, 1991, p. 11). Thus under the present conditions of
teacher development one might argue the more urgent need for the mass
implementation of narrowly tailored training schemes for teachers. This
paper concedes the need for such training. Indeed, as I noted earlier, the
importance of technical skills in teacher development cannot be dismissed.
Action research in the short term therefore is perhaps not likely to be the
dominant model of INSET.
Nonetheless, I would also argue that the longer term development of a
post-apartheid society demands a more holistic, flexible and reflective view
of teaching practice. Models of INSET, such as that of action research which
are underpinned by this view, need also to be developed alongside other
forms. Arguably, too, it is this latter model of professional practice that will
contribute to developing quality primary education as a national
development goal in the longer term.
I would argue, then, that action research is both a relevant and
appropriate model for teacher development in South Africa. My own
experience of working with teachers demonstrates that action research
promises much that is valuable: teacher empowerment, the generation of
endogenous theories of teaching and learning; educational research which
contributes to policy development and its implementation: and worthwhile
working relationships between universities and teacher communities. As
106

14. ACTION RESEARCH: A SOUTH AFRICAN CASE
such it bears serious consideration as a strategy for reconstructing
education in South Africa.
Next Questions
It seems appropriate to end a paper that traces the development of my
personal understanding of action research by emphasising that this
continues to shift and develop. I do not believe that there is an 'essential' or
'absolute' action research out there for practitioners to discover, and I find
new questions and dilemmas being raised for me in my new role In staff
development In higher education. In particular, the question of what
constitutes research is acute in the historically black university (the
University of the Western Cape) In which I now work. Although committed
to educational transformation the university bears, still, its historical
burden as an apartheid institution for black students, one never intended
to produce new knowledge or develop a research culture. Now I wrestle with
what is possible and feasible in this setting - how best to support university
lecturers interested in action research to improve the quality of their
students' learning by changing their own teaching. Where do these
lecturers in this specific institution enter the reflection-research
continuum, and is it valid to require less than rigorous publicly reviewed
research in written form of them? In what ways might action research
contribute to developing a vigorous research culture?
For my own part, the attraction of action research lies precisely in this
never-ending spiral of action, reflection, inquiry and theorising arising from
and grounded in my practical concerns, where the search is not for right
answers but towards "practical wisdom ... in particular, complex and
human situations" (Elliott, 1991,p. 52).
Acknowledgements
I should like to thank the anonymous reviewer whose thought-provoking
comments helped shape the revision of this article.
Correspondence
Melanie Walker, Academic Development Centre, University of the Western
Cape, Private Bag X17, Bellville 7530, South Africa.
References
Ashton, P., Henderson, E. &Peacock, A. (1989) Teacher Education through Classroom
Evaluation: the principles and practice of IT-INSET. London: Routledge.
Carr, W. &Kemmis, S. (1986) Becoming Critical: education, knowledgeandaction
research. Lewes: Falmer Press.
Delpit, L. (1986) Skills and other dilemmas of a progressive black educator, Harvard
Educational Review,56, pp. 379-85.
107

15. MELANIEWALKER
Ebbutt, D. (1985) Educational action research: some general concerns and specific
quibbles, in R. Burgess (Ed.) Issues in Educational Research: qualitative methods.
Lewes: Falmer Press.
Elliott, J. (1981) ActionResearch: aframeworkfor self-evaluation in schools, Working
Paper No 1, Teacher-Pupil Interactionand the Quality of Learning. London:
Schools Council.
Elliott, J. (1988) Teachers as researchers: implicationsfor supervision and teacher
education, address to the American Educational Research Association, New
Orleans, April 1988.
Elliott, J. (1989) Educational theory and the professional learning of teachers: an
overview, Cambridge Journal of Education, 19, pp. 81-101.
Elliott, J. (1991) ActionResearchfor Educational Change.Milton Keynes: Open
University Press.
Groundwater-Smith, S. (1988) Credential bearing enquiry-based courses. in J. Nias &
S. Groundwater-Smith(Eds) The Enquiring Teacher—supporting and sustaining
teacher research. Lewes: Falmer Press.
Grundy, S. (1982) Three modes of action research, reprinted in S. Kemmis &
R. McTaggart (1988) The ActionResearch Reader, 3rd edn. Geelong:Deakin
University Press.
Grundy, S. (1987) Curriculum: product or praxis. Lewes: Falmer Press.
Gwala, N. (1988) State control, student politics and the crisis in black universities, in
W. Cobbett & R. Cohen (Eds) Popular Struggles in South Africa.London:James
Currey.
Haberrnas, J. (1972) Knowledge and Human Interests. London: Heinemann.
Hull, C, Rudduck, J. & Sigsworth, A. (1985) A Room Fullof Children Thinking. York:
Longman.
McNiff, J. (1988) ActionResearch: principlesand practice.London: Macmillan.
McTaggart, R. (1989) Principles of participatory actionresearch,paper presented at the
Third World Encounteron Participatory Research, Managua, September.
Mezirow, J. (1981) A critical theory of adult learning and education, Adult Education,
32, pp. 3-24
Philcox, S. (1991) Primary education project: evaluating facilitation, in W. Flanagan
(Ed.) Teachers and Their Work- case studies in in-service education in African
primary schools. Cape Town: University of CapeTown.-
Schōn, D. (1987) Educating the ReflectivePractitioner. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Stenhouse, L. (1975) An Introduction to Curriculum Research and Development London:
Heinemann.
Stenhouse, L. (1981) What counts as research, reprinted in J. Rudduck & D.Hopkins
(Eds) (1985) Research as a Basisfor Teaching: readingsfrom the work of Lawrence
Stenhouse. London: Heinemann.
Stuart, J. (1991) Aspects of professional development in K. Lewin &J. Stuart (Eds)
Educational Innovation in Developing Countries: case studies of change makers.
Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Walker, M. (1988) Thoughts on the potential of action research in South African
schools, Cambridge Journal of Education, 18, pp. 147-54.
Walker, M. (1991) Reflective practitioners: a case study in facilitating teacher
development in four African primary schools in Cape Town, unpublished PhD
thesis, University of Cape Town.
108

16. ACTION RESEARCH: ASOUTH AFRICAN CASE
Walker, M. (1993) An outsider-facilitator's dilemma in a South African teacher
development project (unpublished mimeo).
Wolpe, H. (1991) Education and social transformation: problems and dilemmas, in
E. Unterhalter, H. Wolpe & T. Botha (Eds) Education in a Future South Africa.
London: Heinemann.
109