Working with the different selves of teachers: Beyond comfortable collaboration [1]

Abstract

This article reports on work with one teacher which illustrates the importance for those in universities who seek to serve teachers' development interests of: (i) recognising that action research is about assisting teachers in revisiting existing personal solutions and confronting them; (ii) being aware of the different (and sometimes conflicting) personal, ideological and educative selves that, together, constitute the teacher's world; and (iii) being prepared to move beyond the comfortable collaboration which often characterises accounts of higher education–school partnerships, recognising that change involves non-rational, as well as cognitive processes. © 1998, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.