The Complexities of Implementing Classroom-Based Action Research in a Remote School in Indonesia

Abstract

Despite almost a decade since the introduction as a professional learning model for teachers in Indonesia, the growth of Classroom-Based Action Research (CBAR) is very limited. The CBAR process in Indonesia has relied heavily on one-off-top-down and non-school based professional development.This study was conducted in a small town in the Eastern Flores regency of the East Nusa Tenggara province, Indonesia. The study involved English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers at one public secondary school in a rural and disadvantaged context who worked with the researcher to attempt to implement a school based approach to CBAR. Four phases of the study were conducted: Getting started; Workshops; CBAR in action; and Post CBAR through an imagined, intended and enacted methodological structure. In this study I adopted a Foucauldian approach as a theoretical perspective, as well as applying Foucauldian theories to the data analysis.Drawing on a variety of data sources including: meetings and interviews; workshop sessions and classroom visits; and reflective journals and field notes, the study identified three major discourses circulating within the CBAR project. These three discourses are used to explore understandings of reflective practice, subject positionings, and collaboration.The Foucauldian approach to analysis focused on discourses and the idea that individuals have multiple identities as a result of multiple subject positionings, and their relationships are influenced by the discourses that operate within a specific context. These discourses create the nexus between power and knowledge and impact on how the CBAR worked in this context, how the participants positioned me and themselves, how they positioned themselves and their colleagues, and were positioned by their colleagues, in their effort to implement the CBAR project.Through the exploration of the discourses of reflective practice, it was found that being a critical practitioner was not easily translated into a remote and disadvantaged context in Indonesia. An analysis of the discourses of subject positionings indicates the participants’ multiple constructions of me and my multiple constructions of them continued throughout the study due to the complexities of the situation. There were often ‘pull and push’ subject positionings where I attempted to get the teachers to do research but their limited abilities, autonomy, and resources as well as their practice/tradition rooted in the mandates/policy from the central government created problems. There were also tensions and struggles in their inability to complete research without my assistance and constant request for help, and my tensions and struggles to avoid providing and giving more assistance.Through the investigation of the discourses of collaboration, it was found that the implementation of the project as a collaborative work is a site of tension for both the participants and myself caused in part by the multiple identities that we took up. There were tensions and struggles between the participants and myself in trying to achieve a collective understanding of the concept of collaboration, being engaged in collaborative activities, and maintaining a consistent understanding of what it meant to work collaboratively.The overall findings of the study suggest that implementation of CBAR in rural and remote areas of Indonesia requires new understandings of professional learning to be shared by all stakeholders. While CBAR can be used as a professional learning model in this context, there are some conditions that have to be satisfied in order for it to be successful. Above all it is important for the researcher/facilitator to be flexible and to understand the multiple subject positions constructed by participant teachers and researchers and how these affect the use of CBAR as a professional learning model. The assumptions and expectations that CBAR is pedagogically innovative and that the need for critical reflection is theoretically sound is difficult to justify in this context.