Professional Self‐knowledge versus Social Justice: a critical analysis of the teacher‐researcher movement1

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Abstract
This paper has two parts. First it explores the development of teacher research on gender ‐ from the Schools Council Sex Differentiation Project which ended in 1983 to recent initiatives in INSET. It argues that teacher research on gender has made important contributions both to exploration of gender inequalities in schooling and to the development of equal opportunities strategies, particularly within INSET. The second part of the paper suggests that there have been important differences in the approaches taken by ‘gender’ and ‘mainstream’ teacher‐researchers. It shows that important concepts within the teacher‐researcher literature, for example ‘emancipation’, ‘neutrality’, ‘positivism’, have had different implications for the two teacher‐researcher groups. Moreover the process of networking of the two groups has resulted in gendered structures and hierarchies (e.g. the membership of the Classroom Action Research Network has been largely male, compared to that of the Sex Differentiation Project which was largely female). One consequence of this is that teacher research on gender has developed independently of the ‘mainstream’ movement and gender as a substantive issue has been largely ignored by teacher researchers. Finally, it is claimed that teacher research is important for feminists because it offers a means of challenging educational inequalities from the inside'. The hope in the future is that all teacher research should embrace the dual aims of enhanced professional self‐knowledge and increased social justice.

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