How context shapes practitioner research and professional learning in schools in Singapore and NSW

Abstract

The New South Wales (NSW) Government Department of Education and Communities and the Singapore Ministry of Education have encouraged teachers to engage in practitioner research as part of their professional learning agenda because it is perceived as a powerful means of investigating and improving educational practice. Drawing on a Schatzkian perspective, where social life is understood as being tied to a context, or ‘the site of the social’, we examine teachers’ experiences as practitioner researchers in NSW and Singapore. We also argue that practitioner research has been remodelled and re-interpreted differently in different contexts and that cultural context is a potent constituent of the practice architecture that prefigures practitioner research. Using data collected from interviews with 42 participants comprising academics, policy makers and teachers, we specifically illuminated those contextual/cultural characteristics respondents identified as factors that actively shape teachers’ experiences as practitioner researchers.

Keywords:

• teachers
• professional learning
• practitioner research
• action research
• contextual/cultural characteristics
• comparative education

Acknowledgements

This research was funded in part by the University of Sydney Postgraduate Research Support Scheme, a Thomas T Roberts Fellowship, the Outstanding Research Student Award and the Trevor Miller Memorial Fund.