From the Editors Desk: Feeling Exposed and Rudderless. Colleagues from Teachers College reflect on struggles of action research

Next in my short series of introductions to upcoming publications in ARJ ... in which I also add some reflections on what I see as implications for the work described coming to scale:

Laura Smith and colleagues from Teachers College, Columbia University, USA, Lucinda Bratini, Debbie-Ann Chambers, Russell Vance Jensen and LeLaina Romero bring a window to the awkward difficulty that university-based researchers experience when doing action research – they/ we often feel exposed and rudderless. By examining episodes from three different PAR projects they illustrate challenges as well as what can be learned from them, especially by university based researchers.
From the point of view of growing to scale, Laura’s and her colleagues’ work is in the category of “how to do action research.” On the editorial board we have been very attentive to making such articles available. We recognize that it is not obvious how to do participatory work, especially given the conventional training that graduate students receive. And to be honest the work is not easy, it is multidimensional. Novice action researchers ideally have apprenticeship and practice opportunities. For those who can’t immediately locate a mentor, we hope that such articles help fill the gap. Please find their work: http://arj.sagepub.com/content/early/2010/06/28/1476750310366043.abstract