Reform of the Social Sciences, and of Universities Through Action Research (paper)

Notes from Handbook of Qualitative Research - Ch. 1

I am continuing to go back to fundamentals in an effort to try and find direction. As such I am going to pick bits and pieces out - for my record as much as anything.

Tacit knowing

Much of our knowing is tacit; it expresses itself in our actions. (p. 49)

...tacit knowing connotes the 'hidden' understandings that guide our actions without our ability to explicitly communicate what the knowledge is. (p. 50)

Knowing how

"Knowing how" grounds knowledge in actions and, because this is precisely how we are able to identify tacit knowing, knowing how seems a more direct anchor to use. (p. 50)

Collective knowing

Knowledge is also inherently collective... ...People working together develop and share knowledge as a collective effort and collective product, the petty commodity view of knowledge production notwithstanding. (p. 50)

...refers to the work of Aristotle in making a taxonomy based on episteme (theoretical knowledge), techne (pragmatic knowledge and context-dependent practical rationality) and phronesis (practical and context deliberation about values). (p. 50)

...phronesis is best understood as the design of action through collaborative knowledge construction with legitimate stakeholders in a problematic situation... ...Phronesis is a practice that is deployed on groups in which all the stakeholders - both research experts and local collaborators - have legitimate knowledge claims and rights to determine the outcome... ...phronesis involves an egalitarian engagement across knowledge systems and diverse experiences. (p.51)

This is clarifying for me - I am not sure how you could work with people and not have phronesis as such... however....


Action research

...Either social research is collaboratively applied or we do not believe it deserves to be called research. It should simply be what it is: speculation. (pp. 52-3)

A different grounding for social research can be found in pragmatic philosophy. Dewey, James, Pierce... ...offer an interesting and fruitful foundation for ontological and epistemological questions inherent in social research that is action relevant. Pragmatism links theory and practice. The core reflection process is connected to action outcomes that involve manipulating material and social factors in a given context. Experience emerges in a continual interaction between people and their environment; accordingly, this process constitutes both the subjects and the objects of inquiry. The actions taken are purposeful and aim at creating desired outcomes. Hence, the knowledge creation process is based on the inquirer' norms, values and interests. (p. 53)

The research logic is constituted in the inquiry process itself, and it guides the knowledge generation process. (p. 53)

These general characteristics of the pragmatist position ground the action research approach. Two central parameters stand out clearly: knowledge generation through action and experimentation in context, and participative democracy as both a method and a goal. (p. 53)

Could a variant of this be used to ground my research, worth considering... and again, this time with a name:


Cogenerative Inquiry

Cogenerative inquiry processes involve trained professional researchers and knowledgeable local stakeholders who work together to define the problems to be addressed, to gather and organize relevant knowledge and data, to analyze the resulting information, and to design social change interventions. (p. 54)

Validity, Credibility and Reliability

The core of the validity claim centers on the workability of the actual social change activity engaged in, and the test is whether or not the actual solution to a problem arrived at solves the problem. (p. 54)

Dealing with Context Centered Knowledge

Precisely because the knowledge is cogenerated, includes local knowledge and analyses, and is built deeply into the local context, comparison of results across cases and the creation of generalizations is a challenge. (p. 54)

Comparison and Generalization

Central to the action research view of generalization is that any case that runs counter to a generalization invalidates it... ...and requires the generalization to be reformulated. (p. 54)

Time to go and clean the bathroom and reflect...



Greenwood G.J. & Levin M (2005) Reform of the sciences and of universities through action research. In Denzin, N.K. & Lincoln, Y.S. (Ed) The SAGE handbook of qualitative research 3rd Edition, Sage Publications, California, USA.