School-based Curriculum Research

The authors' evaluation of their experience of in-service education leads to a re-consideration of educational theory, the impact of research on teachers, the interaction between educational institutions, the function of peer-group learning, the expansion of school-based in-service education and the networking of curriculum development agencies. This experience provides an empirical and ideological basis for justifying school-based curriculum research. It suggests that models of the teacher as researcher can generate theories of education that will impinge more strongly on teachers and teaching, providing they are genuinely 'school-based'. Action research, in the context of school-centred, problem-solving approaches to in-service education, is presented as a productive way forward providing that different educational agencies recognise the value of applied research and development, appreciate the importance of small scale and co-operative research and understand that research outcomes may have more to do with sensitising individual teachers than shaping educational policy.