Forgetting the research-action in educational guidance and educational innovation

Abstract

This article is a reflection on the current context of demobilisation in which education professionals accept a very low level of participation in educational decision making. Consideration is given to research into practice, participatory action research, as a way to build critical knowledge about schools and therefore as the form and content of advice, training and support for teachers. The article is based on the analysis of the epistemological and academic conditions that prevent greater development of action research, and defends the idea that knowledge must be a tool of emancipation, not submission. It analyses conditions related to the curriculum, teacher training and professional culture as well as the political, administrative and trade-union conditions that have made it more difficult for action research to take hold in the professional practices of teachers and educational consultants within our educational system. It considers the need to re-examine that situation and redirect the profession towards reconstructing avenues leading to the emancipation of teachers.