Facilitating Practitioner Research

Book excerpt: This book addresses the complex dilemmas and issues that arise from the contribution made to practitioner inquiry. Facilitating practitioner research is far more than providing advice upon methods which may be adopted, or even modelling research practices and drawing attention to appropriate resources and theories. It also requires the evolution of strong reciprocal partnerships that will contribute to professional knowledge formation in both the academy and the field. When such engagement is undertaken then matters associated with authentic ‘praxis development’ for field based and academic practitioners emerge. The authors explore how a transformative partnership requires particular professional attitudes of practitioners and academic researchers and show how it should result in three integrated areas of knowledge: the ideological, the empirical and the technical. The text draws upon extensive case studies from The Netherlands, Sweden and Australia which not only to illustrate and illuminate, but also highlight contradictions and tensions and serve to surface issues related to the quality of the partnerships between the academy and the field and the ways in which quality impacts upon practice. These varying social geographies also allow a discussion of different intellectual traditions, belief systems, problem settings, questions, and discourses