The Unavoidable Intervention of Educational Research: A Framework for Reconsidering Researcher-Practitioner Cooperation

Abstract

As a framework for stimulating further, empirical investigation, I describe three different forms of direct researcher practitioner cooperation: data-extraction agreements, clinical partnerships, and co-learning agreements. Each form reflects different social arrangements, inquiry and reporting strategies, and operating assumptions, and each form also has different implications for supporting educational research and reform. Distinctions between these three forms illustrate some of the unavoidable ways in which educational research projects are social interventions in the lives of project participants. This prospect raises questions about how researchers and practitioners could be better prepared to design them as such.