Download Action research, stories and practical philosophy

Action research, stories and practical philosophy
Professor Morwenna Griffiths and Dr Tony Cotton
ABSTRACT
This paper explores the use of practical philosophy in action research. It describes what
‘practical philosophy’ is and how it makes a connection between ‘theory’ and ‘practice’ –
while never losing hold of either. It begins from the understanding that philosophy is rooted
in social practices with philosophy in educational practices rooted in educational practice.
The paper goes on to explore the use of stories as a way into the diversity of significant
particularities. Finally the links are made between practical philosophy, stories and the
notion of action research. The theme of social justice permeates. It is an example of a
theory-practice connection, and also it provides the underlying rationale for the approach.
INTRODUCTION
I had discovered that different things made me happy when I looked at my experience from when I
did not. The active looking was somehow a force in itself which changed my whole being.
(Milner, 1934, 1952, p. 198)
For us, everything lies in our concept of the world; changing our concept of the world means
changing our world, that is, the world itself, since it will never be anything other than how we
perceive it. The inner sense of justice that allows us to write one beautifully fluent page, the true
reformation by which we bring to life our dead sensibilities – these are the truth, our truth, the only
truth. (Pessoa, 1991, p. 199)
The paper takes the form of a conversation between the two authors. Morwenna begins
the dialogue by introducing the notion of practical philosophy, from a philosophical
standpoint. Tony then introduces this notion to school based stories describing ‘what it
is like to be here’. The theoretical discussion moves into practicalities, with both authors
telling stories from schools. The conversation then turns back on itself to ask in turn,
why we argue this process is philosophy, and why we claim it is action research.
Morwenna: What is practical philosophy?
In one respect the relationship between action research and philosophy is easy to find.
Many influential theories of action research are rooted in philosophy. 'Reflective
practice' is one. Action research is much indebted to Dewey and, through the influential
work of Carr and Kemmis, to Habermas and critical theories of social action. More
fundamentally, action research assumes the possibility of practical knowledge.
Therefore, more or less explicitly, it draws on philosophies of practice with their
concepts of practical knowledge (knowledge how to) as well as propositional
knowledge (knowledge that) or explicit rules (knowledge how).
A continuing question for any instance of practice is: how can (or should) that practice
be informed by theorising? I am interested in philosophy so a particular question for me
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has been: how can that practice be informed by philosophy? In answering that question,
I have come to see that the process is two-way. I first came to see this, not through
action research, but through feminist philosophy. My involvement with feminist
philosophy as it was beginning to be developed in England helped me to make
connections between the practical issues of feminism and philosophical theories. Our
small group of philosophers were quite clear we were not doing 'applied philosophy'.
Applied philosophy takes already worked out philosophical theories and applies them to
the real world. We intended to reconceptualise the world – as was once explained to a
somewhat startled publisher who was thinking our book would apply philosophy to
‘women’s issues’. We argued that philosophy-as-usual was rooted in the practices and
experiences of the men who had formulated it. Therefore, if philosophy has its roots in
practical experiences, then it needs to be reflexive about those experiences. Thus doing
feminist philosophy meant using feminist practices and politics in critical conversation
with philosophy as an equal partner not as the grateful recipient of advice. And
reconceptualise the world is what we tried to do (Griffiths and Whitford, 1986). As have
many other feminist philosophers, drawing on a range of practices and experiences as
well as on a range of philosophical positions. Ethics, epistemology, metaphysics and
rationality have all been reconceptualised by feminists.
I remain interested in feminism, but I am also interested in practices and politics in
education and in social justice more generally. Equally, I continue to be engaged by
philosophy. These interests have affected my understanding of how to ‘do philosophy’.
I have come to call what I do 'practical philosophy', as distinct from 'philosophy of
practice'.1
Practical philosophy aims at being a philosophy that engages with the conditions of all people,
women and men, poor and rich, Others and us. It is a kind of philosophy that is interested in the
empirical world as a way of grounding its conclusions in interaction between thinking and acting.
(Griffiths, 2003, p. 21)
Thus, practical philosophy is ‘philosophy as, with and for…’ rather than ‘philosophy
about or applied to…’; a kind of philosophy that acknowledges its own roots in the
communities from which it sprang, and which then speaks with (at least) that
community. Thus it is part of a movement from the “conversation of mankind” (in
Oakeshott’s famous phrase) to something more universal: to something inclusive of, for
instance, classroom teachers as well as academics, and young people as well as teachers.
The practical question then arises: how can this conversation be conducted? How can
the experiences and practices of all these people be communicated? How can all their
voices be heard? How can their stories be told so that they enter into conversation with
the abstract questions raised in philosophy?
Tony: ‘Voice’ – a theoretical view
My starting point would be that the only way we can understand our worlds, and our
educational worlds, is through articulating our own stories and through hearing the
stories of the multiplicity of others who act and work with us in educational settings.
However forming the stories that we want to be heard is not a simple task. Elliot Eisner
suggests that the question, "What is it like to be here?" (Eisner, 1991, p. 72) is nontrivial
and that such a question can only be answered by researchers taking a careful and
rigorous approach to qualitative research. The purpose of such work is not to tell truths
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about the world but to open up spaces that allow us all to think about how our worlds
may be changed. As Doris Lessing reminds us, truth is elusive
How little I have managed to say of the truth, how little I have caught of all that complexity;
how can this small neat thing be true when what I experienced was so rough and apparently
formless and unshaped (Lessing 2002, p. 13)
But the search for ‘truths’ supports us in finding arenas in which to work for social
justice and the search for personal ‘truths’ through stories can empower individuals. It
can offer a way of finding ‘voice’ and discovering that others want to hear our story, to
share it and to act with us in writing our futures. However we need to take care that the
stories we produce are those which resonate with others, it is these stories which can
support us in reconceptualising our worlds. It is also important that we are rigorous in
this process. This feels to me like doing ‘practical philosophy’.
Let me try an exemplar. The extract from a monologue below was delivered by a young
woman, ‘Marie’, directly to a video camera towards the end of a research project. She
had found it hard to articulate her feelings in many of the earlier sessions but on this
particular morning asked me to take a video camera out of the room and set it up to
record herself. ‘Can I just say something?’ she asked me, ‘but I just want to tell the
camera’. The full monologue will be told in the session. Here is just the beginning:
I’m just fed up – you know
I’m always getting bad grades – you know
I’m always getting stressed
All the time
I always work hard
People put me under pressure – you know
If I don’t get good marks and all that
People just laugh at me
They say – you’re crap, you can’t get good marks anyway
I would claim this monologue offers a powerful articulation of ‘what it is like to be
here’. It both critiques the policy which positions the actors in schools and stirs us into
action. This action will vary dependant on our positions within our educational systems
but the action aims to support those teachers who strive to engage with the complex
educational problems involved in working and teaching young people at risk of
exclusion from education. Secondly such a ‘narrative’ challenges commonly held
beliefs about the efficacy and effectiveness of ‘one cure fits all’ policy developments.
A notion of ‘crucial descriptions’ has been developed by Renuka Vithal (Vithal, 2002).
For her a ‘crucial description’ must satisfy four conditions. These are conditions of;
transparency – this enables the reader to see through the language of description into
the particular context which enables critique; transformacy – this offers the potential for
such a description to effect transformative change in the reader, both in thought and
action; generativity – this is the potential the description has for generating theory and
informing new practices; and finally exemplarity – this is the extent to which the
description connects the complexity of content with the complexity of theory. I would
argue that Marie’s monologue above meets these requirements. My evidence for this is
the response to the monologue by audiences to which I have told the story. I am
therefore in the hands of the audience in terms of the validity of the story.
This conception brings me back to the idea of social justice. If we feel in control of our
future, if we can understand how our previous work moves us forward and if we feel in
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as much control as we can expect of our future(s) we are moving towards social justice.
I would suggest that Renuka Vithal gives us powerful tools with which to analyse the
narratives we produce. I would also argue that the exploration of narrative using these
tools is both pedagogical and a model of research as praxis. I want to offer the term
‘critical stories’ to describe the work produced through this process. The knowledge
produced can be seen as a form of critical and emancipatory knowledge described by
Morrow as ‘our individual and collective consciousness of reality in order to maximise
the human potential for freedom and equality.’ (Morrow 1994: 146).
It is now time to turn to some stories and voices from teachers and pupils.
Morwenna: stories from the margins
Stories take time to tell, and have their own rhythm. In what follows there is only a brief
foretaste of what will be told at the session. The first story comes from a conversation
between me and Sharon Baillon, a cleaner at the university, when she was asked about
the pleasures and pains of her education. The second two stories will come from action
research projects. They were part of a wider project2 exploring schools’ partnerships
with artists (painters, dancers, sculptors, storytellers etc). One was led by Philippa
Weekes, the deputy head at Seagrave Primary School in Nottingham. She named it
‘Children on the Edge’. The study focused on those children who found it difficult to
join in ordinary classroom activities, whatever the reason. Another was led by Judy
Berry (the head teacher) and Anne Holt (a classroom teacher) at Rufford Infants and
Nursery. They called it ‘Children's Voices and Choices’. This research study
investigated the inclusive ethos of the school, focusing on how it was enhanced by
working with artists.
Here is a small part of Sharon talking to me about her schooling. Her story is of a
capable, lively person hating school and refusing to participate – determinedly staying
on the margins. As a result she was sure she must be boring me, because she thought
she had nothing to say. How wrong she was. She spoke volumes.
I just hated being there all together.
What? From when you were really little? Can you remember going to school to begin with?
Yes. I can remember crying.
Really? How old were you?
Five, six but I had to go because my Mum had to go to work and I hadn’t got a Dad, so I had to.
And how did you feel? Can you remember? Or do you just remember crying?
I just wanted to get home. I just did. I hated it.
Why?
I don’t know. I just found it boring when I got older. I just wanted to leave and get a job to get
some money and I went to three schools and I hated all of them.
…
What can you remember about it, then?
Boring.
But being bored by what?
All of it. Teachers, talking. I had to go in, head for the back of the class and think, “Oh, don’t
pick on me, I don’t know, don’t pick on me”. I would sit there writing my name on the table.
Both of the action research projects investigated how a school might bring children in
from the margins, or, better, prevent them from being positioned there in the first place.
The teacher researchers told moving stories. Here is a short example from Rufford:
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We have thirteen children in there with exceptional special needs. There were only two that
people identified, and that was because one was in a wheelchair and one was on a frame. But
even the lad on the frame had us crying from day one, didn’t he? Because his frame was
removed. He walked! Yes it was absolutely stomach churning stuff. Because we wondered what
was going to happen. Because he came in on his frame and when he started to go down on the
floor – My word! What’s happening? He insisted on doing all the dance routines but on the
floor. Then he was just lifted up, and walked.
Tony: a story from schools on the edge
I want to tell two stories; the first from a teacher working in a school which had been
placed in ‘special measures’ by an inspection team. This meant regular visits from
inspectors who had the power to close the school down if they deemed it not to have
improved sufficiently. This story is taken from a research project working with a group
of teachers from 5 schools in a single LEA. All of their schools where under threat of
closure and they were exploring ‘what it was like’ to be a teacher placed in this position.
The second story is told by a group of 15 and 16 year old students in a school deemed to
be failing. This story tells of their feelings towards themselves, their school and the
local press response to the ‘failure’ of their school.
During the first project I asked the teachers to give their stories titles. The extract below
is taken form a story entitled ‘On Leaving’, a position many teachers in schools in
difficulty find themselves:
The kids were very, very shocked, just a few were spiteful and said ‘traitor’, and meant it because I’m
moving to the school just down the road. One group I will never forget because they just threw their chairs
back and said, “Oh well, that’s it then.” Then they just got up and walked away and they actually left me.
…
In my next lesson with them they were really gentle and sweet and said ‘We really don’t want you to go. Is
there anything to stop you? Can’t you just ring up and say you don’t want to go?” That was hard, that was
really hard. I’m still worried about them.
I have previously analysed this story in depth (see Cotton, 2001). The same teacher, in her
analysis described the solution as ‘all it takes is a little bit of vision and a lot of care’. This
comment returns us to a theorisation of social justice as ‘care’.
The second project employed a range of drama techniques to allow young people to
describe what is what like for them in a school deemed to be failing. The extract below
is taken from an extended piece of video. In the video the young people interrogate the
reporter who wrote for the local newspaper. The report described how the Inspection
team had placed their school in ‘special measures’. The headline to the piece was
‘Another city school slammed’.
Student: You wouldn’t like it if your daughter read this stuff about her school. You wouldn’t
like it if she was ashamed to go to school, if she hated going to school, if she felt bad about
herself, not because of her school but because of what you had written.
Reporter: No – I probably wouldn’t. But what is it you think we should have done differently,
how should I have written it?
Student: I don’t know. You can’t ask me that. I’m not a reporter.
This sees the school students placing the responsibility for their feelings of
powerlessness at the doors of the media - a move which allowed them to articulate their
own feelings very powerfully.
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I will tell these stories in full during the session and I would ask the reader to revisit the
criteria offered earlier as one form of analysis. I also ask the reader to ask themselves
how they ‘feel’ about these stories as exemplars of ‘what it is like to be here’. However
it is not enough to simply tell stories. As researchers of education we must ask ourselves
what does the telling of the stories ‘do’.
Tony: what do stories do?
I think there is an additional problem for us as writers of research, the question here is,
‘What can we say about what we do and what does what we say, do?’ The Foulcauldian
notion of archaeology helps me here. (Foucault 1972) Archaeology explores how
‘things said’ come into being, how they are interpreted, transformed and articulated.
The aim of such an archaeology is to expose the ideology present within current practice
and through this description offer a view of possible futures. So this suggests that the
exploration of educational settings must be a collaborative activity engaging those who
live and work in the settings as well as the researcher. This gives a much deeper
understanding of the current context within the setting and offers areas for intervention
and action by all engaged in the research. For me it also suggests that an aim in writing
should be to engage readers in active collaboration. As Maggie Maclure suggests:
Rather than aspiring to clarity … a more appropriate obligation for discourse-oriented,
deconstructive writing would be to seek to engage readers – in the sense of catching them up in the
movements of the text. This obligation would not relieve writers of their responsibility to consider
the effects of power and exclusion that might be implicated in their writing. On the contrary, since
power and politics are implicated both in clarity and complexity there is a need for continuous
reflection on the possible effects of one’s writing, even one can never predict absolutely what those
effects will be. (Maclure 2003, p. 118)
Morwenna: what do stories do?
There are three things stories can do which are relevant to this article. Firstly, the theme
of social justice permeates. As Tony said earlier, to exercise voice is to have an
opportunity of participating in democratic control. For young people this may simply be
at classroom level: to express an opinion which is taken seriously. But sometimes it is
difficult to articulate a perspective, especially in public. It can be especially difficult if
the language of rational debate is required. Stories are another way of communicating a
point of view. Secondly, if an expressed viewpoint is to have an impact, the audience
must be engaged with it, as Tony says in the previous section. Thirdly, voices can be
disruptive of theories, including philosophical theories. This is a powerful impetus to
rethinking those theories, including philosophical theories. I will give a brief example.
Stories like those alluded to in this article have helped me rethink the philosophical
concept of public space. This concept of public space draws on Arendt (1958). It is a
space of relation, a space where people can express themselves and get joint actions
going. It is not merely a place where anyone can go, like a shopping mall or a cinema.
Three years ago I had argued for the importance of public spaces for social justice in
education (Griffiths, 2003). However, I had then not considered how people learn to
enter and participate in public spaces in the first place. The action-research I have since
been engaged in together with teachers enabled me to understand this better – indeed to
see that it is an issue at all. I am now able to see that it may be necessary to learn to
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enter a space before a voice can be found or a move made towards finding a voice. I
also see that voice and agency may need to be learnt in one (safer, more attractive, more
compelling) space, before they can be exercised in other spaces. It may be, to take this
further, that without the experience of exercising voice and agency, it may be difficult
for a child – or an adult – to believe they have the capacity to do it at all.
Morwenna and Tony: why is it philosophy?
Philosophy is an approach which questions the assumptions and concepts embedded in
human thinking and understanding. It is not exempt from this process. It has also
always put itself in question. There will be no general agreement about what philosophy
is. As explained earlier, practical philosophy arose from putting into question the
universality of orthodox philosophy. Thus, practical philosophy is a philosophy in, of
and from human practices. It begins from the understanding that philosophy is rooted in
social practice with philosophy in educational practices rooted in educational practice.
Thus, in education we cannot do philosophy as an activity separate from explorations of
education’s fluid, dynamic contexts and culture dependent practices.
In a paper as short as this one is impossible to do more than allude to a process. In the
section above, an example was given of Morwenna rethinking her understanding of
public space drawn from Arendt. She is in the process of going back to this in relation
to a conception of education which focuses on the knowledge and wisdom that must be
learnt if we are to learn to live together politically in the world marked by plurality and
global injustice. This philosophical project will draw on works of philosophy but it will
be indebted to Sharon, Philippa, Judy, Anne and others mentioned in this paper. This is
a philosophy in which stories can challenge philosophy-as-usual.
Practical philosophy may also start from practice. Philosophy begins when people
reflect systematically on their own perspectives. The stories that Tony retells arise from
just such a process. These, too, are practical philosophy, for the young people and for
Tony: a philosophy which starts from the practitioner or from the agent within the
situation being researched. Who knows if the young people will turn to books of
philosophy? Tony is in the process of rethinking social justice, drawing on Rawls and
Nussbaum while he reflects on the young people, the stories, and his stories about them.
Tony and Morwenna: why is it action research?
These discussions always remind us of similar debates about art. And as with those
discussions there will be no agreement. Some readers of this paper will be thinking
‘Well, of course it is action research!’ and others will be critical of the process as it does
of not match their personal definition of action research. However we claim that we are
talking about action research. The discussion so far has been a description of how we
work with people to explore the contexts and situations in which they work from both
their point of view and taking account of the viewpoints of others.
For us action research should start from the practitioner or from the agent within the
situation being researched. It engages the teacher, it engages the learner in a rigorous
exploration of ‘what it is like’ to be them in a particular situation at a particular time.
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Action research should also lead to action – we would argue that the process outlined
above changes our worlds as we live them and changes our future possible worlds by
engaging us in analysis and description of our actions.
The CARN outline statement describes action research as a process which
improves the quality of professional practice through systematic, critical, creative inquiry into the
goals, processes and contexts of professional work.’ (CARN: 2005)
The framing of the stories is a critical and creative act which is measured using our
colleagues as a critical audience. As I suggest above, the very creation and telling of the
stories improves the quality of our work, in describing our world we change it.
Rigorous theoretical work is needed to describe our practices in a way which has an
impact on those who listen to our stories. Equally, the stories of practices are needed if
philosophy – the love of wisdom – is to illuminate, explain and question the world as it
is for us.
Notes
‘Philosophy of practice’ is sometimes called ‘practical philosophy’: e.g. in Dunne (1993), Hogan and
Smith, 2003) – and in some English translations of Gadamer.
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The research explored and developed an apprenticeship model for learning in the arts. The report can be
found at: www.ntu.ac.uk/research/schoolofeducation/Creative-Partnerships/12947gp.html
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