Teacher Professionalisation Through Action Research-possibility or pipe-dream?

Action research is normally proposed as a means of creating a research culture at the school level, and thereby developing the practice of teachers. It is not normally seen as a means for increasing their impact upon national policy-making. However, because action research is collaborative in nature, because it focuses upon school-led rather than externally-driven issues, and because it could provide an extra research dimension to the teaching profession, it is argued here that it could provide a critical underpinning for a heightened teacher status, and therefore for raising the level of impact of the profession upon educational policy-making. This, it is argued, is vital, not only for the good of the profession, but also because a critically aware and reflective teaching profession could become one of the main instruments in a move towards a more just and democratic society. This paper will critically examine this possibility with particular reference to the UK, beginning by describing the pressures towards deprofessionalisation in the UK, before moving to a discussion of different definitions of action research. It will then ask whether it is a sound measure for reasserting a greater degree of professionalism by considering a number of proposed problems with the approach. It will conclude by arguing that it may have to wait until a set of facilitatory conditions are achieved before it is truly effective for the aims described, and that a best strategy may be one which sees different forms of action research linked in a systematic manner with other professional development strategies in order to address the problem of deprofessionalisation from a number of different points of attack.