Biographies

Heather Knill-Griesser is currently a Teacher Consultant- Primary Division with the Grand Erie District School Board. Previous classroom experience includes extensive primary experience. Heather completed her Master of Education degree as a member of the Grand Erie District School Board-Brock University cohort in October, 2001. Heather has engaged in action research projects for the past 6 years and been leader of the Brant Action Research Network for two years. Previous projects have been published in the Ontario Action Researcher at www.nipissingu.ca/oar

Jackie Delong has been a superintendent in Grand Erie for 7 years. She has had a varied careerholding positions in the board, including teacher, department head, coordinator and principal as well as in local and provincial federations. Her Ph.D. thesis 'How can I improve my practice as a superintendent of school and create my own living educational theory?' is available here and at www.actionresearch.net She is creator and past editor of The Ontario Action Researcher and president of the Ontario Educational Research Council.

Abstract

This paper, in a slightly longer form, was presented as part of the panel on 'The tension between action research[ers] and the presuppositions of the Ethics Board' at Canadian Society for the Study of Education May 25-28, 2002, Toronto, Ontario. In addressing this statement the authors draw on five and six year inquiries into their educative influence as teacher-consultant and superintendent. Both inquiries ask and answer the question, 'How do I improve my practice?' The authors believe strongly in addressing the tensions around ethics and power in a productive and educative process for their own learning and work to support others in their self-studies.

Issues of power and ethics experienced within their own educational inquiries are integrated into an explanation of their educational influence. Their goal is shared with respected theorists in the field of education - to improve student learning through the support and sharing of the knowledge of practitioners (Dadds, 1995; Dadds & Hart, 2001; McNiff, 1996, 2000; Pring, 2000; Stenhouse, 1967; Whitehead, 1989, 1993, 1999).

Situating our Inquiry

In answering this question we draw on five and six year inquiries into our educative influence as teacher-consultant and superintendent. Jackie's Ph.D. inquiry was examined and awarded Ph.D. in July, 2002 as a contribution to educational theory and knowledge. As part of the Grand Erie District School Board - Brock University masters cohort, Heather's inquiry has culminated in a Masters degree awarded in 2001 that emerged from four action research inquiries over five years. Both inquiries ask and answer the question, 'How do I improve my practice?' We have experienced issues of power and ethics within our educational inquiries and integrated these into an explanation of our educational influence. This explanation has been tested for validity with critical friends, validation groups and public forums such as Quebec Council of Teacher Researchers, Ontario Educational Research Council, International Conference on Teacher Research and American Educational Research Association.

We believe strongly in addressing the tensions around ethics and power in a productive and educative process for our own learning and to better support others in their self-studies. In this paper, we want to see if we can hold onto the basis of our educational inquiries into our educational influence. If we allow ourselves to be moved away from our experiences of the meanings of power and ethics in our educational inquiries into the analytic categories of social science concepts of power and ethics, we trust that you will help us to stay grounded in the practice of educational inquiry.

This paper is positioned as an argument formed in response to respected theorists in the field of education who clearly want the same outcomes that we do - improved student learning through the support and sharing of the knowledge of practitioners (Dadds, 1995; Dadds & Hart, 2001; McNiff, 1996, 2000; Pring, 2000; Stenhouse, 1967; Whitehead, 1989, 1993, 1999).

McNiff (2000) recognized the ethico-political nature of research as well as the ethical considerations of protecting participants in the research process:

Research is a human practice that aims to generate knowledge which will have use value in the lives of others. It is therefore an ethico-political process, because knowledge and its use are contested issues...The main issues addressed in ethical considerations are the avoidance of harm, respect for participants' rights to confidentiality, participants' full access to data which concerns them, their right to withdraw from the research, their right to honesty and protection from deception (McNiff et al., 1996, p 136).

Richard Pring (2000) gives much thought to the tensions between truth in research and 'respect for persons':

There lies a difficulty, on any occasion, in deciding what should be the overriding principle, because the principles often clash with each other. To tell the truth may lead to a great deal of unhappiness. Respect for a person's dignity might lead, in some cases, to telling uncomfortable truths but, in other cases, concealing them. The history of ethics is the history of philosophers giving preference to certain general principles over others. Thus the utilitarians attach supreme importance to the creation of the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number. Others subscribe to the supremacy of justice and fairness. Others, again, put 'respect for persons' at the centre of moral deliberation. The ethical dimension of research involves, as we shall see, this complexity of ethical debate (p. 142).

Our passion and commitment for creating our own living educational theories (Whitehead, 1989, 1993, 1999) of our educational practices, as a Teacher-Consultant and Superintendent of Schools, and to supporting others to do the same, can also be understood as a response to the issues of choice in research processes (Dadds & Hart, 2001):

We have understood for years that substantive choice was fundamental to the motivation and effectiveness of practitioner research (Dadds, 1995); that what practitioners chose to research was important to their sense of engagement and purpose. But we had understood far less well how practitioners chose to research, and their sense of control over this, could be equally important to their motivation, their sense of identity within the research and their research outcomes (p. 166).

Practitioners As Knowledge-Creators

Because knowledge and its use are contested issues and ethical considerations (McNiff, 2000) must be confronted, we want to share our learning through a description and explanation of our experience through an ethical review process with the Masters cohort in the Brock University- Grand Erie partnership program, 1999-2001. First, from Heather's standpoint.

In November of 2000, the Brock University ethics committee requested in their form that Heather destroy all her records in three years; that would be in itself unethical in terms of Heather's employment. "Issues related to access to and ownership of data throughout and beyond the life of an inquiry project reflect myriad ethical as well as procedural, interpersonal, and political concerns" (Cole & Knowles, 2000, p. 139). The presupposition of the ethics committee is that it is operating on ethical principles when it seems to be acting unethically in confining and constraining the generation of educational knowledge by practitioner researchers. In a collaborative study, can authorship and ownership be negotiated? Who owns the data beyond the life of an inquiry project?

Heather was also advised to consider the implications of using previously collected data from colleagues without obtaining consent from the people who provided the information. She was advised by the Senate Research Ethics Board (e-mail, Nov. 22, 2000) to outline the steps she would take to minimize the "retrospective deception" that was implied in this lack of disclosure. Heather responded to the Senate Research Ethics Board,

My entry plan upon assuming the role of Teacher Consultant-Primary Division was to survey teachers/administrators that I serve to solicit information about how I might best meet their needs in planning, curriculum, and assessment. I received permission from the Grand Erie District School Board as well as from the Program Co-ordinator. The surveys were done in the interest of doing the best job possible and had nothing to do with any research project. The surveys may prove to be potentially valuable data when I begin my research project.

Each participant will be given the opportunity to review his/her input and the opportunity to withdraw his or her contribution presented. All participants will sign the "attached" consent forms before any research is embarked upon. In the event that data collected under previous circumstances are required, they will be used only after receiving express written consent by the participant (Knill-Griesser, 2001, p. 69-70).

From Jackie's standpoint, she has been seeing the significance of her thesis in terms of its contribution to educational knowledge as she explains her learning in providing the supports in the board to build a culture of inquiry, reflection and scholarship. She frames the integration of issues of power and ethics in three dilemmas. One is in answer to her own question, 'I am wondering if I do integrate these issues when I feel so responsible for the hell that I put the masters students through in order to get the sanction of the ethics committee to do their research.' Another is that she now finds that she has worked to provide a culture of inquiry that can develop a view of research-based professionalism that she believed the university would value and support. She finds that she is mistaken. Her mistake was in believing that as the University legitimated the knowledge created by the practitioner-researchers, they would see that this could place the University at the forefront of the new scholarship of teacher education and educational inquiry. At the time of writing, she has been unable to encourage a university to begin another cohort based on the action research model.

And the third is in the role of the university in ethical reviews where researchers find they cannot research their lives in their classrooms and where researchers speak for others. In the two-year program the cohort members took collective responsibility and supported each other to generate new knowledge that was not necessarily validated but certainly accredited by the "power" of the university. Foucault (1980) made an important distinction between the procedures that decide what counts as truth in a particular context and the battles on behalf of truth. With regard to the first issue of restricting research directions, Geoff Suderman-Gladwell's asserted in the videotape of March 6, 2002 that he could not conduct the research in his classroom that he wanted because of the requirements of the ethical review board. This demonstrates the power relations at work that prevented a teacher-researcher from gaining academic recognition for his embodied knowledge as a professional educator. Instead of doing what he wanted he focused on the conflict he experienced between his desire to engage in an educational inquiry related to his own professional learning and the power relations in the ethical review board and supported by the disciplinary power of the university. This disciplinary power is clearly operating to support unethical practices in constraining the academic freedom of professional educators to research their own educational influence with their students. As far we can understand the issue, it is that the ethical review board is operating with a view of the 'subjects' of research that has failed to recognize the transformations in scholarship in the global academic communities.

On the second issue of speaking for others, a significant value in Bob Ogilvie's (2001), a member of the masters cohort, research is in pursuing his idea that shared educational theories can be translated into group or collective standards of practice. It may be possible to test his belief through the kind of reflective journal of learning he reports on in his dissertation. The exercise of multiple intelligences and collective responsibility may be more likely to be translated into collective and communicable standards of practice through the kind of action research processes adopted by eleven of the fifteen members of the cohort in the final dissertations. This is a point worth further inquiry. There is a danger that although Bob is complimentary about the action research processes as enabling practitioners to generate their own living educational theories, his dissertation may be contributing to the traditional academic discourse of the Academy in a way that omits the voices of teachers and serves to mask their contributions to educational knowledge. Bourdieu (1990) has put the problem well, when he says:

... social science makes great use of the language of rules precisely in the cases where it is most totally inadequate, that is, in analysing social formations in which, because of the constancy of the objective conditions over time, rules have a particularly small part to play in the determination of practices, which is largely entrusted to the automatisms of the habitus (Bourdieu, p. 145).

Continuing this issue of speaking for others, if we look at Bob Ogilvie's project, 'A Little Rain Must Fall', he refers to Jackie's influence. Although it may appear to be anonymised because she is not 'named', nevertheless, anyone involved in the cohort would recognise her as the 'employer' in:

...so we had the irony of the employer originating the concept and actively supporting and promoting it, while at the same time exerting, simply by having a presence, a measure of tacit restriction on the free flow of ideas and discussion.... Nevertheless, the promise of academic freedom was compromised to a degree, as some members found it difficult to be completely honest in their discussions and writings (Ogilvie, 2001).

Recently, more researchers (Fried, 1995; Hargreaves, 1997; Beatty, 1999, 2002; Boler, 1999) are exploring the emotional dimensions of leadership, aspects that were deliberately ignored in the past. Brenda Beatty (2002) says, "The emotionality of educational leadership has not been explored in sufficient depth in the Educational Administration literature" (p. 1). Jackie has moved on from her initial anger but continues to have reservations (Delong, 2002) about procedures used to 'diminish the instructional involvement from Grand Erie':

To the credit of both partners, recognition of this problem led to diminished instructional involvement from Grand Erie and the adoption of a purely support role. Lingering concerns may remain however, since all of the members who contributed comment in this area refused permission to quote them by name (Ogilvie, 2001).

We believe 'anonymity' is not a realistic expectation for this living educational theory action research (Whitehead, 1989). If a teacher publishes under his/her own name and board, the classroom and students can probably be identified. We have found that students, parents and teachers want to receive credit for their work rather than 'protection'.

The words of Trudy Gath, one of the masters cohort students, in her January 2001 paper tell the story of the ethical review process and her refreshing attitude of taking advantage of any opportunity to learn (her use of bold print):

From my journal:

I feel like I am going to scream and never stop once I begin. I just received a response from the Ethical Review Committee for my research project. The Committee, all high and mighty, says that I need to resubmit my proposal. They sent me a list of fifteen items that need to be addressed before I may have permission to proceed with my work. I see that they expect me to explain, explain, and explain until I am blue about how I can continue to study my own practice.

I am so upset by this because now, I will spend another four hours or so explaining, revising, photocopying, and wasting paper when I could be reading relevant material that pertains to my topic, literature that may help me to improve in what I am doing! I am angry at the fact that I need someone from a committee to give me permission to research my own practice! I am fuming at this setback.

From the above setback, I learned to try to understand the position of the Ethical Board in that they have a job to do to ensure the safety of human participants in research projects. I realize that I cannot be a special exception to the bureaucratic rules that exist. I must exercise "creative compliance" (Whitehead, 1999) and just work around this obstacle. After all, I have managed to overcome many other obstacles before. Regardless, I must push on with my research in my own, very ethical, ways (Gath, 2001).

Clandinin and Connelly (1994) comment on the ethical dimensions of researcher-participant relationships, stating,

When we enter into a research relationship with participants and ask them to share their stories with us, there is the potential to shape their lived, told, relived, and retold stories as well as our own. These intensive relationships require serious consideration of who we are as researchers in the stories of participants, for when we become characters in their stories, we change their ...As personal experience researchers, we owe our care, our responsibility, to the research participants and how our research texts shape their lives (p. 422).

Methodological Inventiveness

One of our observations from our experiences is the importance of being able to choose one's own research process, what Dadds and Hart (2001) call methodological inventiveness:

We now realise that, for some practitioners, methodological choice could be a fundamentally important aspect of the quality of their research and, by implication, the quality of the outcomes. Without the freedom to innovate beyond the range of models provided by traditional social science research or action research, the practitioners in our group may have been less effective than they ultimately were in serving the growth of professional thought, subsequent professional actions or the resolution of professional conflicts through their research. In this, we find ourselves sympathetic to Elliott's claim (1990:5) that 'One of the biggest constraints on one's development as a researcher, is the presumption that there is a right method or set of techniques for doing educational research' (p. 166).

In her masters project, Heather states her initial experiential narratives became the autobiographical part of her study where the origin of her value system emerged. Her narratives evolved by re-storying experiences and incidents found in her reflective journal. Heather would frequently visit her journal entries looking for patterns as well as "living contradictions" (Whitehead, 1989) that would weave in and out of the emerging texts. Unlike traditional research methods, she did not begin her study with a literature review. "Relevant literature was pulled in more or less continuously as the personal was being explored and particular issues needed to be better understood" (Conle, 2000, p. 195). Explorations of the literature were woven into the narratives and journal entries, integrating the literature into the storylines. Her literature developed a symbiotic relationship with the data that was her life and "the interactions with whom we live and learn" (Carson & Sumara, 1997, p. xxvii).

The masters cohort group contributed to the evidential base of alternative forms of representation(Eisner, 1997) when they were encouraged to find an innovative way of presenting their findings. The tragedy is that those alternative forms were shared with the group and invited guests on July 19, 2001 but not accredited by the academy.

How do we integrate issues of power and ethics in valid explanations of our educative influence as a teacher-consultant and superintendent?

What did we learn from the experience of the ethics review process? Heather says,

I recommend that it is of vital importance that the higher education institutional contexts recognize the growing popularity of action research and work towards generating modified policies and procedures for action research paradigms. I also recognize the importance of negotiation in the form of 'creative compliance', confidentiality, and protecting the rights of individuals participating in research studies. The Research Ethics Board acted as advisors to ensure that I was acting in 'good faith' in my study, as well as to protect the university from pending legal issues (Knill-Griesser, 2001, p. 75).

In revisiting Heather's ethics review reflection in her project, she questions whether the Research Ethics Board caused her to act in 'good faith' in her study. McNiff (1996) states,

Never take anything for granted...Always check back with people if there is any doubt, and, in matters where there is some possibility of misunderstanding, write down what you are hoping to do and get that approved. While you have a duty to protect others, you also need to protect yourself (p. 35).

This was Heather's fourth action research project and in previous reflective research studies she always returned transcripts to participants to ensure the validity and reliability of her data. Her values and living standards of practice as a teacher consultant supported her character traits of trustworthiness, integrity, honesty, and fairness. Heather was aware of the importance of protecting herself and the university from pending legal issues, and again had taken appropriate precautions in previous research studies. She believes her tenth standard of practice "Use creative compliance and professional judgement to solve problems and create 'Win/Win' situations" (Knill-Griesser, 2001, p. 100) helped her to survive the ethics review process.

In her thesis, Jackie (2002) shares the iterative process of her research method:

?the voices of the people in my personal and professional life that have worked collaboratively with me, at times as co-researchers, provide evidence to substantiate my claims. I have known much pleasure in the development of the case studies of Cheryl, a teacher, and Greg, a principal, as I shared the stories with them as they were written. With each new version, we talked at length and their reflections and responses informed and enriched the next version. This collaborative and iterative process has deepened my understanding of my influence and my relationship with each of them and with others.

These stories, indeed this thesis, is the story, "restoried" (Connelly & Clandinin, 1999) many times in my life history, focused on these last six years, during the chaos created by economic rationalist policies. I recognize that "there is no one true story; there are many possible tellings" (Denzin, 1989; Mann, 1992 in Marshall, 1995). While they are my stories, I have endeavoured to include the voices of others that have influenced me, taught me and encouraged me to tell this story of my life as a superintendent, a story of a superintendent who is more than a "data gatherer" (Anderson & Jones, 2000)... The visual and the dialogic permeate the story. People and relationships are the focal point of this, my educational landscape. The connections and relationships supported by a culture of inquiry, reflection and scholarship are essential to improving student learning, to the education of students.

Coles (1995) expresses concern that institutional rigidities affect the sensibilities of practitioners, "In some ways our hearts must live...We must manage to blend poetic insights with a craft and unite intimately the rational and the intuitive"(p. 11). Was the ethics review process to receive prior ethics clearance from a Research Ethics Board (which initiated such stress and anxiety) a necessary step in the ethico-political process? Considering respect for persons at the centre (moral deliberation) (Pring, 2000, p. 142), values, and matters of professional protocol, we believe these ethical principles would be followed by professional reflective practitioners.

In Jackie's Ph.D. thesis (2002), she asks, "What problems arose with the ethical review process?"

Setting out on a new course is exciting and creative but often feels like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. Making this innovative program fit into university traditions was an exercise in frustration. Most issues that caused conflict and consternation were easily solved. Having to submit marks in a particular range at awkward and prescriptive times was an irritant but having to follow ethical guidelines that were totally inappropriate for the action research process was the ultimate test of "creative compliance" (Whitehead, 1999). I am shaking my head even now as I remember the tension that I felt at recommending at one Saturday session (Oct 21, 2000) that the group "play the game." This was contrary to my values and I was clearly a living contradiction (Whitehead, 1989). I tried to justify my recommendation with the promise that I would work to get this process amended, knowing full well that that would take much more than my influence (p. 213).

Rather than seek to ignore such issues as the abuse of power, restrictions on academic freedom and lack of democratic forums for accountability and evaluation, we think it is important to face these issues honestly and openly and to seek to reduce the potential abuses of power and restrictions on academic freedom by providing forums which support the values of democratic accountability and evaluation. This is one of the reasons why Jackie requests open evaluations on her influence as a superintendent from principals (Delong, 2002) and Heather surveys "teachers/administrators that I served to solicit information about how I might best meet their needs in planning, curriculum and assessment" (Knill-Griesser, 2001, p. 33).

At issue with the ethical review process is the nature of the subject. Both the subject and the object of the research in the living theory model of action research is the professional educator. Jane Zeni (2001) says, "Most universities and school districts have an institutional review board (IRB) that monitors research proposals using questions designed for traditional scientific experiments. Researchers are asked if their tests are dangerous..." (p. 153). She develops a guide with a series of questions that are more appropriate for practitioner research and encourages us "to continue developing our own professional discourse about ethics" (p. 172). When Marilyn Davis (2001), masters cohort member, was asked by the ethical review committee if she could guarantee that the subjects would be returned to their original state, her problem was that she had improved her practice and changed through that improvement and, therefore, could not guarantee to go back to where she had been. Neither could her students!

Jean McNiff (2000) sees the importance of these experimental cohort partnerships,

I also agree with Chomsky that people can be helped to see what is happening to them by individuals and groups who have the courage to speak out against the dominant culture. In the case of developing a form of organisation theory that will support efforts towards social progress, those people would include academics who have the courage to depart from dominant (sometimes imposed) institutional epistemologies, and work towards generating newer theories that act in the interests of people in everyday workplaces (p. 109).

Together, we recognize that the knowledge from the practitioner-scholar's research challengestraditional forms of knowledge that have been owned by the university academics. It may be seen as a threat to their power/knowledge when the educational knowledge resides in the lives and educational practices of teachers and is revealed through their narratives of their lives. University academics like Dr. Susan Drake, Professor, and Dr. Michael Manley-Casimir, Dean of Education of Brock University, can play an important part in assisting the teachers to gain recognition and academic legitimacy for their educational knowledge. Insights from the theories of social scientists and other university researchers can be integrated within the educational theories of the professional educators, but what the masters cohort has shown is that their educational knowledge cannot be 'explained' within existing theories; they needed to create their own.

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