Beyond the Divide of Teacher Research and Academic Research

Abstract

This paper explores ways to bridge the separation that currently exists between the worlds of teacher research and academic research. Currently, many teachers feel that educational research conducted by those in the academy is largely irrelevant to their lives in schools. On the other hand, many academics dismiss the knowledge produced through teacher research as trivial and inconsequential to their work. In this paper, it is argued that our vision of educational research should include both teacher produced knowledge and knowledge produced by those in the academy, and take the position that the processes of teacher development, school reform, and teacher education can greatly benefit from occasions when academic and teacher knowledge cross the divide that currently separates teacher knowledge from academics and academic knowledge from teachers. Two specific examples are discussed that illustrate instances where academic knowledge and teacher knowledge have improved teaching, together with the assumptions regarding voice, power, ownership and status which make them successful cases. One case deals with the teaching of mathematics in the elementary school and the other is concerned with the teaching of language minority students. Also discussed are several ways in which knowledge produced by teachers and others who work in schools can potentially benefit academic research and teacher education programs in colleges and universities.