The Crucial Role of Teachers’ Dialogic Practices in an Educational Action Research

Abstract

This paper focuses on the dialogic practices of a group of teachers that conduct educational action research (AR). It discusses the requirements necessary for dialogue to enhance the critical orientation of AR. Drawing on two areas of scholarship, dialogue studies and post-structural discourse analysis, the authors made a critical discourse analysis on the dialogic practices of a group of teachers and post-graduate students who conducted AR. By investigating the extent to which the participants in an AR challenge and problematise their personal tacit knowledge, the authors reached certain conclusions concerning specific factors that constrain teachers' involvement in dialogue practices that could support the critical orientation of their research. Using their findings, the authors formulate a proposal for analysing teacher- researchers' dialogic practices, as a process that could really empower them during teachers' education courses.