Action Research and Teacher Education: the use of research in a classroom for the transformation of reality

Abstract

This text aims to provide reflections on an education-investigation experience within a continuing education course for teachers of public schools in a municipality located in the region of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The object of this course involved the use of classroom research as a pedagogical tool, which was developed in an action research perspective. The participants of the course were challenged to develop investigative skills on daily school life, based on the construction and development of a research project focused on the concerns related to their contemporary teaching practices. The analysis of the modes of reception and appropriation of those involved in the research, and expressed in the materials produced, suggests how difficult it is to exercise the passage from naive to epistemological consciousness through criticality. This element reinforces the importance of the process of reflection-action-reflection in the teacher’s education and his/her performance.