In a poem entitled ‘Inquiry,’ Mary Harbage captures the substance and spirit of teacher research: ‘To ease her disquietude,’ Harbage writes, ‘the teacher reached into the clutter of new ideas and untried ways... asked a question,... and said,... “I will test and try, adjust and watch, and make of this something good and new” ’ (1962, p. 391). The poem’s publication date also suggests the enduring
... [Show full abstract] nature of concerns with teacher research. An offshoot of post-World War II action research, teacher research is ‘systematic, intentional inquiry by teachers about their own school and classroom work’ (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1993, p. 5). The primary participants in teacher research are K-12 teachers, working individually or collaboratively with other teachers and university-based researchers. Motivated by questions arising out of teachers’ own practice — a ‘disquietude’ with the status quo, a dissatisfaction with existing theory — teacher researchers address questions of deep personal significance with an eye toward systemic change. Language and literacy have been of particular interest to teacher researchers and indeed, much of the current knowledge base in this area stems from teachers’ classroom inquiries and their wider examinations of the sociocultural contexts of language learning. All recent teacher research utilizes a qualitative, case study or ethnographic approach; the aim, Nixon (1987, p. 24) insists, is not generalize but to cultivate ‘wisdom which will inform our strategic action.’