Exploring In-Service Teacher-Researcher Reflexivity: Education Research as Cultural Work

This chapter explores the evidence within In-Service teachers’ (I-STs) (n = 8) publications of their use of the Research Skills Development (RSD) framework as they research and then write about a contemporary educational issue relevant to their educational practice in Australia. The practising I-STs were completing their first semester of a Master of Education program in a course that used the RSD framework. The analysis of the published work of the enrolled I-STs, conducted by a Teacher Educator (TE) identified I-ST reflexivity at the commencement of a postgraduate program of study to understand the value of the RSD framework to support I-ST empowerment as researchers of classroom practice. The implications of this work provide scope for researchers and practitioners to engage in dialogue that counters the sole focus on a technical ‘what works’ view of educational research and opens the potential for I-STs to engage with the cultural role of research to produce new ways to recognise the complexity of the relationship between educational research, practice and thinking in classrooms—to become responsive teachers.