Insiders and Outsiders in Classroom Research: Blurring the Boundaries

Abstract

In this article, the situation of teacher researchers is explored from a sociocultural perspective. Teacher researchers are viewed as an emergent community of educators who position themselves for leadership and change in the traditional, role-based distinctions that divide research and practice. By taking the classroom as the central focal point for researchers and teachers alike, and applying a concept of insiders and outsiders to what happens there, a wide range of actors and issues involved in generating theories and informing practice is made visible. Inquiry, whomever conducts it, is viewed as an active process through which purposes are systematically and intentionally related to issues of setting, time, conditions, actions to be taken, and audience(s). Directions for the future of the teacher research movement are located in a focus on student learning, what we shall choose to count as learning when learning counts, and how we should value the social consequences of learning.