Research on Teaching and Teacher Research: The Issues That Divide

Abstract

Neither interpretive nor process-product classroom research has foregrounded the teacher's role in the generation of knowledge about teaching. What is missing from the knowledge base for teaching, therefore, are the voices of the teachers themselves, the questions teachers ask, the ways teachers use writing and intentional talk in their work lives, and the interpretive frames teachers use to understand and improve their own classroom practices. Limiting the official knowledge base for teaching to what academics have chosen to study and write about has contributed to a number of problems, including discontinuity between what is taught in universities and what is taught in classrooms, teachers' ambivalence about the claims of academic research, and a general lack of information about classroom life from a truly emic perspective. This article proposes that teacher research has the potential to provide this perspective; however, several critical issues divide teacher research from research on teaching and make it difficult for the university-based community to acknowledge its potential. The article also proposes that in order to encourage teacher research, the educational community will need to address incentives for teachers, the creation and maintenance of supportive networks, the reform of organizational patterns in schools, and the hierarchical power relationships that characterize much of schooling.