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Action Research for/as/mindful of Social Justice
Citation for published version:
Griffiths, M 2009, Action Research for/as/mindful of Social Justice. in B Somekh & SE Noffke (eds), The
SAGE Handbook of Educational Action Research. 1st ed. edn, SAGE Publications Ltd, London, pp. 85-99.
https://doi.org/10.4135/9780857021021
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):
10.4135/9780857021021
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The SAGE Handbook of Educational Action Research
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Download date: 09. Aug. 2022
The SAGE Handbook of
Educational Action Research
Action Research for/as/
mindful of Social Justice
Contributors: Susan E. Noffke & Bridget Somekh
Print Pub. Date: 2009
Online Pub. Date: July 19, 2009
Print ISBN: 9781412947084
Online ISBN: 9780857021021
DOI: 10.4135/9780857021021
Print pages: 85-99
This PDF has been generated from SAGE knowledge. Please note that the pagination
of the online version will vary from the pagination of the print book.
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Page 2 of 19 The SAGE Handbook of Educational Action
Research: Action Research for/as/mindful of Social
Justice
10.4135/9780857021021.n9
[p. 85
↓
]
Chapter 7: Action Research for/as/mindful
of Social Justice
Morwenna Griffiths
This chapter examines and explores the potential of action research to enhance social
justice in education. It discusses different approaches and practices within the field of
education in relation to epistemologies and principles underlying research for social
justice. Implicit in many characterizations of action research is the potential to work for
justice – in small-scale projects or for larger social and educational ends. At the same
time, disquiet has been expressed by many action researchers about the co-option of
action research for merely instrumental ends, or for purposes of social control rather
than of social justice. The chapter addresses the question: when and how far is action
research coherent with aims for social justice?
Action Research and Politically Committed
Research
Arguments rage over the issue of politics in action research. The term ‘politics’ here
means a concern with power relations, decision making and action in large- or small-
scale social worlds. Thus a concern for social justice is a political one. All sides claim
the moral high ground. There are those who would see particular kinds of politics as
basic to good action research, and others who would not want their research to be
political at all. I myself take the position that all research which enhances social justice
is to be welcomed, and indeed that it is a moral and/or political obligation for action
researchers at some (but not all) points in their action research careers.
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Page 3 of 19 The SAGE Handbook of Educational Action
Research: Action Research for/as/mindful of Social
Justice
[p. 86
↓
] One reason that arguments rage is that most proponents of action research
have strong ethical and/or political commitments which underpin their reasons for
espousing it. However, the array of commitments underpinning different approaches
do not necessarily coincide, and even where they overlap there is a difference of
emphasis. Noffke (1997) has usefully suggested one way of distinguishing different
approaches. She distinguishes those that are primarily concerned with the professional,
the personal and the political. She takes care to stress that each of these will inevitably
include the other two, and indeed, should do so (Noffke and Brennan, 1997).
The 1980s saw a burgeoning of overlapping but distinguishable approaches to action
research that are, broadly speaking, concerned with social justice. Cochran-Smith
and Lytle (1999) provide a useful account of the different intellectual traditions within
teaching and teacher education which gave an impetus to teacher research including
action research. It is a movement which continues to refer to these traditions. Some of
them are self-consciously rooted in intellectual movements that construct research as
a form of social action related to democracy, the production of knowledge and social
change. Accounts of such research include terms with highly political connotations,
such as ‘power’, ‘transformation’, ‘joint action’, ‘radical’, ‘social re-construction’ and
‘emancipation’.
Social Justice as a Kind of Action
Some terms which attract general approval are what are called ‘hurrah’ words.
Examples are ‘freedom’ and ‘fairness’. Such terms mean different things to different
people, depending on their various political and moral commitments. Therefore it is
particularly important to be clear about their meaning.
In some ways, ‘social justice’ is bound to be a hurrah term because, put most simply,
social justice characterizes a good society. It is an idea with a long history which
influences its current meaning. Aristotle's conceptualization of social justice remains
hugely influential on all subsequent Western political philosophy. Indeed his formulation
remains relevant and useful today. In Politics, he first explains how individuals come to
have a common interest, and then goes on to use the idea to define justice (Aristotle,
1980):
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Page 4 of 19 The SAGE Handbook of Educational Action
Research: Action Research for/as/mindful of Social
Justice
People … are drawn together by a common interest, in proportion as
each attains a share in the good life. The good life is the chief end both
for the community as a whole and for each of us individually. (III, 6,
1278b6)
…
The good in the sphere of politics is justice, and justice consists in what
tends to promote the common interest. (III, 11, 1282b14)
This he goes on to discuss in terms of distributive justice, that is, the right distribution of
benefits in a society.
[p. 87
↓
] The themes of the individual and the community, and a fair distribution
of benefits remain central to modern discussions of social justice. In contemporary
philosophy and political theory, conceptions of social justice are dominated by John
Rawls (1971) who provides a theory of justice as fairness. This theory is based on
the social contract and distributive justice. His work remains an important source of
modern thinking about justice. However, it is firmly rooted in a Liberal understanding of
the legacy of the Enlightenment, especially its belief in rationally achieved consensus.
This legacy has been subject to critique and reconstruction by other strands in political
thinking during the latter half of the twentieth century.
Hannah Arendt introduces a focus on political action. For her the ‘realm of human
affairs’ is not static. It is the sphere of actions, the bios politicos (1958: 13). The concept
of ‘natality’ is central to her argument. As new people are born and enter the realm of
human affairs, they ensure that society is never static. Rather, the situation changes in
unpredictable ways. She says (1958: 190):
Action … always establishes relationships and therefore has an
inherent tendency to force open all limitations and cut across all
boundaries … [which] exist within the realm of human affairs, but they
never offer a framework that can reliably withstand the onslaught with
which each new generation must insert itself.