Chapter

Learning About Action Research in and From the Middle East

Authors:
To read the full-text of this research, you can request a copy directly from the author.

Abstract

Who we are and become is influenced by our relationships in different times and spaces. In this paper, I tell stories about my professional education work with others in the Middle East and elsewhere that shows this process in action. However, this view of the evolutionary nature of identity requires a different epistemology from the dominant either-or epistemology of conventional higher education. Through stories about interactions with others in higher education, I explain how such a divisive epistemological form encourages divisive social practices. Further, given current misappropriations of action research by a traditionalist academy, this form now infiltrates action research discourses. Finding ways to create pluralist identities therefore becomes the responsibility of academics who thereby legitimize a dynamic epistemological form through their own action enquiries.

No full-text available

Request Full-text Paper PDF

To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.

... Although some education departments of some universities in the U.S. have one or more faculty members devoted to the recognition that 'another knowledge is possible' (Santos 2008, xx), including knowledge produced through action research and other participatory research approaches, sustaining or further developing action-research courses are not guaranteed at this time of predominance of EBP talk in universities. The situation becomes more exacerbated in academic units where some faculty see action research as not meeting the standard for producing evidence of causality or as lacking a sufficiently academic tone (McNiff 2017). In addition to recognizing the signs of what McNiff identified as 'academic protectionism' (256), we wonder whether these academics know the definition of evidence in EBP introduced in the U.S., whether they have given much thought to the difficulties associated with using EBP in relation to diverse contexts of practice, the endemic disempowerment of practitioners in the field associated with EBP, and whether they recognize that acceptance of diverse knowledges (Santos 2008) is not an anti-science stance. ...
... What may be difficult is the willingness to suspend deeply held certainties in preparation for allowing new, collective wisdom jointly held by teachers, other educators, academic researchers, students and parents to arise (Briskin et al. 2009). Although difficult, each side can choose to suspend tendencies toward maintaining the epistemological status quo in the service of genuine dialog (McNiff 2017). Even in the face of the many conditions and limits for promoting practitioner research, discussions among these parties of practitioner research as a valid form of knowledge production are essential. ...
Article
We discuss democratizing knowledge production and dissemination in education illustrated in two parts that challenge the current knowledge monopoly. Our discourse includes (a) problematic cultivation of the status quo in the hierarchy of knowledge value in the U.S. as a component of civic illiteracy and (b) the need for more evidence through developing practice-based research evidence as a counter to the fixation with evidence-based practice in education. We point out a cultivated state of complacency with regard to the societal expectations of the roles of educational practitioners in the U.S. and discuss developing a new status of practitioner research for knowledge democracy. A virtual space for mentoring practitioner researchers with a goal to help them produce and disseminate their research was included as an example of knowledge democracy.
Article
Full-text available
This paper is the latest in a short series on the origins, processes and effects of performativity in the public sector. Performativity, it is argued, is a new mode of state regulation which makes it possible to govern in an ‘advanced liberal’ way. It requires individual practitioners to organize themselves as a response to targets, indicators and evaluations. To set aside personal beliefs and commitments and live an existence of calculation. The new performative worker is a promiscuous self, an enterprising self, with a passion for excellence. For some, this is an opportunity to make a success of themselves, for others it portends inner conflicts, inauthenticity and resistance. It is also suggested that performativity produces opacity rather than transparency as individuals and organizations take ever greater care in the construction and maintenance of fabrications.
Article
Full-text available
This article investigates the relationship of systems thinking to action research by reviewing the main developments in systems thinking and relating these to action research. There are two main lines of thought in systems thinking that lead to wholly different conceptions about action research. The first (systems thinking) advocates thinking about real social systems that it assumes exist in the world. The second (systemic thinking) supposes only that the social construction of the world is systemic. Greater emphasis is placed on systemic thinking consistent with its greater importance to contemporary action research. The article concludes that systemic thinking when taken to its practical conclusion from a critical perspective offers to action research a somewhat unique liberating praxis. Concern that any liberating praxis could remain hollow is addressed through a certain kind of ‘spiritual’ awareness that is suggested by wholeness. KeywordsAction research-Systemic practice-Holistic practice-History of systems thinking-Complexity theory-Systemic spiritualism
Article
Since its first publication, Action Research: Principles and Practice has become a key text in its field. This new updated edition clearly describes and explains the practices of action research and its underlying values, and introduces important new ideas, including: • all professionals should be reflective practitioners; • they should produce their personal theories of practice to show how they are holding themselves accountable for their educational influences in learning; •the stories they produce become a new people's history of action research, with potential for influencing new futures. This new edition has expanded in scope, to contribute to diverse fields including professional development across the sectors and the disciplines. It considers the current field, including its problems as well as its considerable hopes and prospects for new thinking and practices. Now fully updated, this book contains: • A wealth of case-study material • New chapters on the educational significance of action research • An overview of methodological and ethical discussion The book is a valuable addition to the literature on research methods in education and nursing and healthcare, and professional education, and contributes to contemporary debates about the generation and dissemination of knowledge and its potential influence for wider social and environmental contexts. Practitioners across the professions who are planning action research in their own work settings will find this book a helpful introduction to the subject while those studying on higher degree courses will find it an indispensable resource.
Book
Eugene Rogan has written an authoritative new history of the Arabs in the modern world. Starting with the Ottoman conquests in the 16th century, this book follows the story of the Arabs through the era of European imperialism and the superpower rivalries of the Cold War, to the present age of unipolar American power.
Article
Robert Fisk is one of the world's best known journalists. He has been based in the Middle East as the UK Independent's Middle East correspondent for nearly 30 years, during which he has reported on two U.S. wars in Iraq, two Afghan wars, the Israel/Palestine conflict, Israel's invasion of Lebanon, the civil war in the former Yugoslavia. His new book, The Great War for Civilization (HarperCollins 2005), collects his reporting in a single, 1300-page source. A previous book, the 700 page Pity the Nation (4th edition Nation Books 2002) covered the Lebanese civil war. Fisk is widely respected as a tireless reporter who strives to get firsthand information and who brings a sense of fairness, knowledge and history to his reporting. His work is based on a moral framework that views war as the â€oetotal failure of the human spirit†and journalists as having a duty to report from the perspective of the victims. I caught up with him in Toronto on November 24 to discuss his book and his views on journalism, war and even Canada.
Article
Drawing on the concept of cosmopolitans and locals within competing discourses regarding the aims of higher education and international marketization, this paper suggests that cultural cosmopolitanism may be developed through intercultural dialogue. It reflects on the findings of an action research-based teacher professional education programme in Qatar, with further delivery in other Gulf States, and suggests that potential negative outcomes of uncritical ‘othering’ forms of marketization, potentially resulting in epistemological mnemocide through the exercise of cultural imperialism, may be avoided through developing dialogical communities of inquiry, where issues of values pluralism may be negotiated according to participants’ needs and capacities for knowledge creation. These ideas may be significant for negotiating appropriate criteria for judging the quality of delivery and methodological ethics of the increasing numbers of international programmes using practice-based forms of enquiry. They are essential if international development work is to encourage sustainability through independent knowledge creation.
Article
Prior to 2011, popular imagination perceived the Muslim Middle East as unchanging and unchangeable, frozen in its own traditions and history. In Life as Politics , Asef Bayat argues that such presumptions fail to recognise the routine, yet important, ways in which ordinary people make meaningful change through everyday actions. First published just months before the Arab Spring swept across the region, this timely and prophetic book sheds light on the ongoing acts of protest, practice, and direct daily action. The second edition includes three new chapters on the Arab Spring and Iran's Green Movement and is fully updated to reflect recent events. At heart, the book remains a study of agency in times of constraint. In addition to ongoing protests, millions of people across the Middle East are effecting transformation through the discovery and creation of new social spaces within which to make their claims heard. This eye-opening book makes an important contribution to global debates over the meaning of social movements and the dynamics of social change.
Article
Incl. bibl. notes, index.
Article
Johan Wolfgang Goethe, escritor alemán nacido en 1749 en Frankfurt, es autor de numerosas obras, varias de ellas creadas durante extensos intervalos de tiempo o redactadas en más de una ocasión. La novela epistolar Las desventuras del joven Werther (1774) es uno de sus títulos significativos previos a la partida de Goethe a Weimar, donde permaneció de 1775 a 1786. Este período enmarcó una primera versión del Meister (La vocación teatral de Wilhelm Meister) y un drama sobre Fausto, que en líneas generales corresponde a la primera parte del Fausto definitivo. Tras viajar a Italia, la segunda etapa en Weimar corresponde a la segunda redacción del Meister (Los años de aprendizaje de Wilhelm Meister, 1795-1796); el período de colaboración con Johann Christoph Friedrich Schiller; la aparición de la primera parte del Fausto (1808); la publicación de la novela Las afinidades electivas (1809) y la segunda parte del Meister (Los años de peregrinaje de Wilhelm Meister). Goethe culminó, poco antes de morir, la segunda parte del Fausto, publicada póstumamente el mismo año de su fallecimiento (1832) y pasó a la historia no sólo como el escritor por antonomasia de la lengua alemana, sino como uno de los autores clásicos de la literatura universal.
Article
Obra sobre la evolución de los estados de Medio Oriente y la consolidación del mundo árabe, de la segunda guerra mundial a los 90, pasando por el fin de la guerra fría.
Article
The nature of Higher Education in the UK has changed over the last three decades. Academics can no longer be said to carry out their work in 'ivory towers', as increasing government intervention and a growing 'target culture' has changed the way they work. Increasingly universities have transformed from 'communities of scholars' to 'workplaces'. The organization and administration of universities has seen a corresponding prevalence of ideas and strategies drawn from the 'New Public Management' ideology in response, promoting a more 'business-focussed' approach in the management of public services. This book examines the issues that these changes have had on academics, both as the 'knowledge-workers' managed, and the 'manager-academic'. It draws on a study of academics holding management roles in sixteen UK universities, exploring their career histories and trajectories, and providing accounts of their values, practices, relationships with others, and their training and development as managers. Examining debates around 'New Public Management', knowledge management, and knowledge workers, the wider implications of these themes for policy innovation and strategy in HE and the public sector more generally are considered, developing a critical response to recent approaches to managing public services, and practical suggestions for improvements which could be made to the training and support of senior and middle managers in universities.
Developing inclusion in schools: How do I integrate students with additional educational support needs into mainstream schooling Teacher enquiry bulletin: Action research for teachers in Qatar Qatar: Supreme Education Council
  • S Al-Fugara
Negligent mnemocide and the shattering of Iraqi collective memory
  • N Al-Tikriti
From skills to knowledge in basic mathematics Teacher enquiry bulletin: Action research for teachers in Qatar (pp. 9–12) Qatar: Supreme Education Council. Retrieved from
  • A Al-Abdallah
The trouble with Africa
  • R Calderisi
Demonstrating educational accountability through new cultures of educational enquiry Teacher enquiry bulletin: Action research for teachers in Qatar (pp. 18–20) Qatar: Supreme Education Council. Retrieved from
  • S Al-Hajri
The responsibility of intellectuals The Chomsky reader (pp
  • N Chomsky
Cultural cleansing in Iraq
  • R W Baker
  • S T Ismael
  • T Y Ismael
The action research dissertation
  • K Herr
  • G Anderson
Teacher enquiry bulletin: Action research for teachers in Qatar. Qatar: Supreme Education Council
  • J Mcniff
Perspectives on globalization and culture: Implications for social work practices
  • J Midgley
Representations of the intellectual: The 1993 Reith Lectures
  • E Said
Time to listen: An evaluation. Retrieved from http
  • J Mcniff
  • L Mcgeady
  • M Rose
The assassins’ gate: America in Iraq
  • G Packer
Sunrise with seamonsters
  • P Theroux