Editorial

Abstract

This third issue of 2023 comprises 12 articles and one book review and includes authors from 11 different countries. This continues a trend in recent years which has seen a significant growth in the international interest in action research and in publishing in Educational Action Research. The work being reported here draws from the two main disciplines associated with this journal, namely health and education. This include papers which are conceptual or based on reviews of literature, including methodological arguments, but the majority are directly concerned with attempts to change social settings in a manner in keeping with the participatory goals of action research. Spanning the age range from children through to adults and engaging with a range of approaches, from self-study to collaborative forms of action research, they address three main themes: teacher development, participatory approaches to action research, and ethics. And, in keeping with the broad conceptual and practical discipline of action research, there is considerable diversity among them. The first of these themes concerns the use of action research for the professional development of teachers. Because action research is a process of both change and learning, it can be seen as educational in its own right (hence the name of this journal, Educational Action Research). Because of this, and perhaps also because of some of the history of its adoption in many countries, action research has been used not only as an educative process but also in the discipline of education. However, it has a slightly contentious existence in this field. To some it is solely, and perhaps simply, a form of professional development; to others it is tantamount to a form of pseudoscience, a watering down of ‘true’ research. And yet, action research endures as a means of changing education and developing people and places because it provides learners and educators alike with a way to make a difference, to achieve change, and, arguably, to exert more influence over their actions and settings. The first article of this issue addresses this theme from a UK perspective. In ‘The “Teacher Research Group” as a collaborative model of professional learning’, Jones describes how a group of teachers worked in a collaborative action research project to develop their own teaching practices. This led to a transformation in practices resulting from the creative collaboration of university-based and school-based collaborators. Rather than reporting on an action research study, the second paper explores the potential for action research to be adopted in schools in Ethiopia. With authors based in Ethiopia and in Hungary, ‘The practices and challenges of conducting action research in some selected secondary schools of Bale Zone, Oromia, Ethiopia’ by Feyisa, Feyisa, Moreda and Hailu, addresses the conditions necessary for action research to flourish and thus make a difference. The study show that many of these are missing in the participating schools, yet the authors see and argue that action research could yet make a difference, if these conditions were met. This, they suggest, could provide the EDUCATIONAL ACTION RESEARCH 2023, VOL. 31, NO. 3, 405–408 https://doi.org/10.1080/09650792.2023.2233270