The Power of Collaborative Research in Teachers’ Professional Development

Abstract

This paper focuses on the power of collaboration, professional dialogue, and social interaction in teacher-researchers professional growth. It calls for a departure from the traditional theory-into-practice model which has historically seen university-based researchers generating knowledge or research questions for teachers who, in turn, are expected to respond. New conceptualisations recognise the teacher as knowledge generator and see knowledge production as a shared responsibility of school-based and university-based researchers. A change in the research culture is advocated.

This paper emanates from a qualitative research project, conducted collaboratively by school-based and university-based researchers, that aimed to explore the home literacies of children from socioculturally diverse contexts. The aspect that became a focus of the project was the role of collaboration in challenging and generating new professional understandings about the complexity of teachers work. The paper identifies a fundamental dilemma for the education profession.