‘Fourth generation action research, as envisaged by Kemmis and McTaggert (1986) embodies educational transformation and emancipation through using critical reflection and social critique as key research processes. In this article, I argue that reconceptualist action research offers a space in which early childhood practitioners can practice reflection as an ethico-political act, and in doing so work with more effect for equity in early childhood. Central to this possibility is the capacity and desire of early childhood professionals to consciously reflect to ‘free’ themselves from knowledge and practices that fix a true and certain way to think, act and be as an as early childhood professional. Learning how to risk traditional knowledges and traditional practices supports the pursuit of freedom and thus allows ethical practice to be genuinely tranformative.
‘… for what is ethics, if not the practice of freedom, the conscious [réflechié] practice of freedom’ (Michel Foucault in conversation with Rabinow (1997, p. 284)).
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