Action Research in a Relational Perspective

Dialogue, Reflexivity, Power and Ethics

Lone Hersted, Ottar Ness, Søren Frimann, Lone Hersted, Ottar Ness, Søren Frimann

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780367257224
• eBook ISBN: 9781000300789
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Action Research in a Relational Perspective brings together an expert international academic team to present theoretical perspectives on social constructionist understandings of action research, as well as illustrative examples of action research practices within a wide range of sectors such as organizational learning, leadership development, education, mental health and health care.

Building bridges between theory and practice, this book explores themes of dialogue, relationships, tensions, power and ethics in action research projects. It examines both the great potential, and the challenges and dilemmas, of action research. It aims to inspire readers with ideas and a practical "how-to" understanding of doing action research from a social constructionist standpoint.

Action Research in a Relational Perspective will appeal to theoreticians and practitioners, senior researchers and PhD students, students, consultants, educators and managers who are interested in action research as an approach to organizational learning, team development, learning among professionals and citizens, or community development.

Part I

Action research and social constructionism

Chapter 1

Action research

Tradition and renewal

Lone Hersted, Ottar Ness and Søren Frimann

Introduction

This book sheds light on action research in a social constructionist view. The heart of this book is how people co-construct knowledge, learning and change together through action research. It is our hope that the book will provide inspiration and encourage you as postgraduate students, PhD-students and senior researchers to engage reflexively in action research processes with enthusiasm, as well as with ethical concerns for the participants, the surroundings and the process itself. In the following chapter, we offer an introduction to the background of the book, present a brief literature review and explain how action research can be understood in a social constructionist view.

Defining action research

In the past few decades, action research has become an increasingly widespread approach to social research (Bradbury and AR+ Associates 2017, 14), and many different approaches have been developed in recent years. In this chapter, we draw together some of the major threads that form the diverse practices of action research to provide a social constructionist framework through which the forthcoming chapters, with concrete examples, can be approached. There is no “short answer” to the question “What is action research from a social constructionist stance?” but the aim of this chapter is to provide an overall idea.

The contributors to this book originate from different countries – the UK, Italy, USA, Norway and Denmark – but something we all have in common is that we’ve been engaged with action research inspired by social constructionist ideas for several years, and we have all experienced the great potential of this kind of work. This is what we would like to share with the readers. Some of us have worked with action research in organizations, in the educational sector and in pedagogical institutions; others in health care, therapy, mental health and psychiatry and community development, as well as in museums. For some projects, we have worked with employees, managers and students and, in other cases, with patients and people with special needs and psychosocial challenges. It is our intention with this book to present and discuss the variety of ways in which action research inspired by social constructionist theory can be carried out in practice.

We know that our readership is varied. You may be new to action research, wanting to know whether it has anything to offer you. You may be new to social constructionist theory and social constructionist research inquiries. You may already be an experienced action research practitioner, perhaps with an allegiance to one of the different schools of action research and wondering how we present the kind of work you are committed to. You may belong to an academic discipline that draws on more orthodox forms of inquiry, wondering how social constructionist action research can be understood as research.

In the history of action research, many descriptions of the practice have been proposed. Peter Reason and Hilary Bradbury, the editors of the Handbook of Action Research (2015), define action research as:

A participatory process concerned with developing practical knowing in the pursuit of worthwhile human purposes. It seeks to bring together action and reflection, theory and practice, in participation with others, in the pursuit of practical solutions to issues of pressing concern to people, and more generally the flourishing of individual persons and their communities.

(2015, 4)

Greenwood and Levin (2007) describe three commitments that link most action researchers: (1) action, which refers to creating and implementing new practices (e.g., McNiff and Whitehead 2006); (2) research, which refers to contributing to new theory and also to generating and testing new knowledge (e.g., Greenwood and Levin 2007; McNiff and Whitehead 2006); and (3) participation, which is about placing a strong value on democracy and control over one’s own life situations (Fals-Borda 2001; Freire 1970; Greenwood and Levin 2007). Action research balances these elements, and if any of these three elements are absent the research is not action research (Greenwood and Levin 2007). This balance is in accordance with Reason and Bradbury’s (2001) concerns: Research occupied with “just theory without action is meaningless, and action without reflection and understanding is blind” (2001, 2). We would also like to add elements such as collaboration and reflexivity (e.g., Hersted 2017; Ness 2011), where co-researchers co-construct knowledge and practices together through reflexive collaborative learning processes. Here the dialogical exchange plays a significant role. As a reader, you will probably recognize this phenomenon throughout the chapters of this book.

Origins of action research

The origins of action research are complex, give rise to many versions and do not relate to a single academic discipline (Brydon-Miller, Greenwood and Maguire 2003). Action research emerged over time from diverse fields, such as from the early labor organizing traditions in both the United States and Europe, as well as from the Catholic action movement and liberation theology in Latin America. In the United Kingdom, the Tavistock Institute for Human Relations has promoted important initiatives by business organizations to support action research projects in both the UK and Scandinavia, also called the industrial democracy movement, which emphasized action research (Brydon-Miller, Greenwood and Maguire 2003; Emery and Thorsrud 1969). Action research also has a long tradition in educational research (e.g., Cochran-Smith and Lytle 1993; Dick 2004).

Most action research approaches link their origins to the work of social psychologist Kurt Lewin (1890–1947), who apparently borrowed the term from the sociologist John Collier (1884–1968; e.g., Greenwood and Levin 2007; Lewin 1946; McNiff and Whitehead 2006; Peters and Robinson 1984; Reason and Bradbury 2008). Lewin (1946) defined action research as a process that “proceeds in a spiral of steps, each of which is composed of a circle of planning, action and fact-finding about the result of the action” (1946, 38). He emphasized the importance of practical local democracy and education in the practice of inquiry (Bargal 2006; Reason and Bradbury 2008) by asserting that knowledge should be created from problem-solving in real life situations (Herr and Anderson 2014). Lewin further argued that people would be more motivated about their work if they were involved in decision-making about how their workplace was organized (as cited in McNiff and Whitehead 2006). Lewin’s work on human dynamics in groups later evolved into research on work teams and site-based management (Herr and Anderson 2014).

Paolo Freire’s (1970) efforts to address oppression and institutional change promoted the importance of participation and democratic dialogue in action research. Freire and his colleagues in Latin America developed influential concepts for adult education among the urban and rural poor (Brown and Tandon 1983; Greenwood and Levin 2007). Freire’s (1970, 1974, 1978) dialogic approach to adult education engaged people to participate in critical analysis and organized action with respect to their situations while giving voice to participants from a social and ecological justice perspective.

In dialogues, educators and students sought to move toward a critical consciousness of the forces of oppression and the possibilities for liberation (Brown and Tandon 1983). Inspired by Freire’s work on oppression, democracy and institutional change, the Colombian sociologist, Fals-Borda (2001) also promoted the importance of participation in action research. Fals-Borda was one of the most important and well-known participatory action researchers in Latin America (Greenwood and Levin 2007). Through his many projects, he was able to effectively incorporate a community action component into action research (Denzin and Lincoln 2005).

Brown and Tandon (1983) argued that traditional action research tended to concentrate on an individual or group level of problem analysis, whereas participatory action research, with its more emancipatory emphasis, tended to focus on broader societal analysis. Traditional action research tended to focus on issues of efficiency and improvement of practices, whereas participatory action research was concerned with community action, equity, self-reliance and oppression problems (Fals-Borda 2001; Herr and Anderson 2014).

Democratic action research elements are also found in John Dewey’s (1938) experiments on education. These elements are often taken up in definitions of action research, which emphasize an empirical and logical problem-solving process involving cycles of action and reflection (Reason and Bradbury 2008). Dewey was occupied with democracy as an ongoing, collective process of social improvement, in which all levels of society had to participate (as cited in Greenwood and Levin 2007). His important contribution was that democracy had to evolve through people’s active involvement in making sense of their world and not through merely adapting to solutions imposed by powerful outsiders (e.g., researchers or teachers; Cooney 2006; Greenwood and Levin 2007). From these ideas on democracy and participation, Dewey proposed that learning was a process of action, in which students must be active learners and not passive listeners (as cited in Greenwood and Levin 2007). Dewey’s view on science was connected to this view of a democratic society. He saw scientific research as a process of democratic social action, in which scientific knowing was a product of continuous cycles of action and reflection (Bray et al. 2000).

From the originators of action research, a “family of approaches” (Reason and Bradbury 2008, 7) developed. Within this family are rich and diverse action research methodologies. Reason and Bradbury (2001) describe the following types of research within the action research family: Practitioner research (e.g., Anderson, Herr and Nihlen 1994), action science (e.g., Argyris, Putnam and Smith 1985), self-study (e.g., Bullough and Pinnegar 2001), participatory action research (e.g., Fals-Borda 2001), action research (e.g., Greenwood and Levin 2007) and cooperative inquiry (Heron 1996). What links the above-mentioned approaches is a focus on how people generate knowledge “that is both valid and vital to the wellbeing of individuals, communities, and for the promotion of larger-scale democratic change” (Brydon-Miller, Greenwood and Maguire 2003, 11).

Reason and Torbert (2001) suggested a framework to organize action research as “first, second, and third-person research/practice” (2001, 6). First-person action research is about self-inquiry. It addresses the skills, methods and abilities of the researcher to foster an inquiry process that is applied to the researcher’s own life (Reason and Bradbury 2008). Second-person action research is about interactions, norms, governance and the mission of specific persons and groups with whom the researcher is working (Torbert and Taylor 2008). Third-person action research reaches out more broadly and extends the inquiry to a wider community with the intent of transforming the politics of the issue being researched (Burgess 2006). From this framework, the primary purpose of action research is to produce practical knowledge that is useful to people in the everyday conduct of their lives. A wider purpose of action research is to contribute through this practical knowledge to the increased wellbeing – economic, political, psychological and spiritual – of individuals and communities and to a more equitable and sustainable relationship with the wider ecology of the planet, of which we are an intrinsic part. Within this family of approaches, the epistemological stances are quite variable; we claim that the literature on action research are not so much focused on how people actually do research together. You may, as a curious reflexive reader, now be wondering what characterizes action research in a social constructionist view? Let’s continue and take a closer look at some of the basic characteristics. In the following, we will explain how social constructionist theory and practice can provide useful, practical knowledge to the field of action research.

Action research in a social constructionist view

Action research as future-forming research

Gergen and Gergen (2015) argue that perhaps the most generative idea emerging from social constructionist dialogues is that what we take to be knowledge of the world and self finds its origins in human relationships. What we take to be true as opposed to false, objective as opposed to subjective, scientific as opposed to mythological, rational as opposed to irrational, moral as opposed to immoral, is brought into being through historically and culturally situated social processes. This view stands in dramatic contrast to two of the most important intellectual and cultural traditions of the West (Gergen and Gergen 2015). The first is the tradition of the individual “knower,” the rational, self-directing, morally centered and knowledgeable agent of action. Within the social constructionist perspective, we find that it is not the individual mind in which knowledge, reason, emotion and morality reside, but rather in human relationships. The social constructionist action researcher shifts the attention from the individual actor to coordinated relationships (McNamee 2010).

The second is that the social constructionist researcher’s focus is not a concern about uncovering truth or reality as it is, but an attempt to understand how people make sense of their everyday social world. Constructionist research is therefore concerned with seeking explanations about how social experience is created and given meaning (Turnbull 2002). While setting aside the idea of research as a matter of uncovering truth, social constructionists support the idea of research as future-forming, as advocated by Gergen (Gergen 2014). In this view, research becomes a practice in which social change is indeed the primary goal.

Action researchers have viewed themselves as politically engaged since the very inception of the practice (Reason and Bradbury 2015). Gergen and Gergen (2015) claim that, in part, such engagement served to distinguish action research from positivist social science. Pos...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• Notes on contributors
• Foreword
• PART I: Action research and social constructionism
• PART II: Action research: Reflexive dialogues for change
• PART III: Emotions and tensions in action research
• Epilogue
• Index