Annotated Bibliography of Resources for Educational Reform, Coherent Teaching Practice, and Improved Student Learning
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Day, C. (1991). Roles and relationships in qualitative research on teachers' thinking: A reconsideration. Teaching and Teacher Education, 7, 537-547.
Day considers the relationship that must be constructed between researcher and teacher if research on teacher thinking is to be fruitful. The notion of establishing a caring and ethical relationship is stressed. Day considers a key question to be, What is in this for the teacher(s)? That is, collaborative research should have value to the teachers as well as to the researcher. The researcher moves from being an outsider to being an insider-outsider, and in order to do this, the relationships must become more coequal, where power is shared, knowledge negotiated, and contributions by persons of both groups are valued. Day describes a collaborative researcher paradigm that requires researchers to have "human-relating" skills. He draws on two case studies to explicate the researcher's role in the research. In one case, for example, the researcher described himself as researcher-collaborator-critical friend-mentor. The work described in the case studies was collaborative research where research and staff development were one and the same. The experiences were both practical and emancipatory for the teacher-participants. Day concludes that, "though there are now a steadily growing number of researchers who are going into classrooms, they do not always do so with the purpose of supporting teacher learning." In a truly collaborative approach, teacher learning is a goal.
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