Respecting the struggle: Deciding what to research and why

Abstract

In the spirit of making connections, I begin by referring to the keynote talks by ErikaMcWilliams and Bill Green. They both link to what I am addressing here – thecircumstances of education research knowledge at this time in history. Both authorstake up the issue of knowledge-building through research in education and how toregard it productively and hopefully as we move forward.McWilliam challenges us to rethink the linear-cumulative educational process modeland to take up the analogy of the knight’s move. She encourages us to think abouthow education researchers can build knowledge within tessellated partnerships asmethodological alliances from outside as well as inside education. Bill Green spellsout how building educational knowledge can be thought of as an impossible, neverfinished enterprise. Yet, rather than regard this condition as a negative, he construesit as the place for action. His focused meditation on “practice” encourages us toembrace the communicative gap between teachers and students as a site of action,learning, and possibility.I mean to add a third dimension to their treatises on education knowledge by focusingon its production and dissemination as constructive acts by interested people. That isto say, I will spend some time looking at the work we do as researchers. I will lay outa framework to give us pause to consciously reflect on how we create knowledge andfor whom.Talking about my scholarship to Australians is more than a bit nerve wracking. It israther like bringing coals to Newcastle because Australian scholars have fueled myown development. Two scholars in particular were early defining influences: BronwynDavies and Annette Patterson. A study in the 1980s by Bronwyn Davies and KathyMunro (1987) showed me how I could see classroom activity from the point of viewof a student ethnically and culturally positioned as a minority and an outsider. Not onlythat, the study illustrated how to view as quite sensible from the child’s perspective