How do I create my own educational theory in my educative relations as an action researcher and as a teacher?

Abstract of PhD Submission
James Finnegan

How do I create my own educational theory in my educative relations as an action researcher and as a teacher?

My enquiry is based on four qualitative studies [1994-1997] in a boys secondary school in the Republic of Ireland. I adopt a living educational theory approach to action research in my study.

In creating my own educational theory, I demonstrate how I have become a more reflective educational action researcher in developing and defining an original set of standards of judgement for judging my action research and teaching practices. These include my methodological, educational, and social standards of judgement.

In helping to facilitate an expression of student voices in my teaching, as I seek to improve their learning, I enable my sixth form students and myself to engage in more democratic actions and more egalitarian power relations in the classroom, primarily through the elicitation/creation, greater enactment, and evaluation of teaching/learning communicative activities. In this, How can I help you to improve your learning? is a question worth asking my sixth form students.

My work also shows that I have become a more reflective practitioner as I dialogue with the writings of other educators whilst seeking to relate my values concerning democratic action and social justice to my classroom teaching.

CONTENTS

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Abstract, Contents and Foreword

Part One
Chapter 1 Setting the Scene
Chapter 2 Creating My Own Educational Theory
Chapter 3 My Action Research and Standards of Judgement
Chapter 4 My Four Studies of Singularities - A Summary

Part Two
Chapter 5 How Moving Towards More Democratic Actions in My Classroom
Improved Opportunities for Learning
Chapter 6 Democratising the Classroom - A Dialectical Discussion
Chapter 7 Reflecting Further on Whose Voices Count

Part Three
Chapter 8 Making a Case for More Socially Just Actions in the Classroom
Chapter 9 Responding to Two Challenges Relating to My Dialogue with Other Writers
Chapter 10 Reflecting Further on More Socially Just Actions in the Classroom

Part Four
Chapter 11 My Fourth Singularity Study: A Sixth Form Student's Conceptual Vision in Mathematics Considered in Relation to the Understandings of Vygotsky, Piaget, and Two of My Teaching Colleagues.

Part Five
Chapter 12 Addressing the Issues of Transferability, Relatability, and Generalisability - What's in My Work for Others?

References

Appendices

UTILIZING AN EDUCATIONAL ACTION RESEARCH APPROACH: FACILITATING MORE DEMOCRATIC ACTIONS IN THE CLASSROOM
Paper published in the journal of the Educational Studies Association of Ireland

References for the paper: UTILIZING AN EDUCATIONAL ACTION RESEARCH APPROACH: FACILITATING MORE DEMOCRATIC ACTIONS IN THE CLASSROOM