In 2018, the Fully Inclusive Practitioner Research (FIPR) Network officially began through support from a competitive Research Network grant with the Association of Applied Linguistics (AILA). This website is an outgrowth of this collaboration.
The aim of this Research Network is to bring together researchers, practitioner researchers, practitioners and scholars around the world who are involved in forms of fully inclusive practitioner research, in order to theorise practice, challenge established orders, and to build new opportunities for research collaboration, coherence, and co-production. The intention is to include all forms of fully inclusive practitioner research in applied linguistics, language education, and beyond.
Much practitioner research is conducted by teachers, teacher educators and learners in classrooms around the world, rather than by academics, and so there are generally fewer platforms for people to meet, or for knowledge exchange to happen between geographically disparate groups. A network can help with establishing a platform for creative dissemination of ideas, and theory-building across cultures and disciplines. It can also provide expertise and support for those who are just beginning in inclusive practitioner research. We propose that in facilitating communications between our various groups, engaged in research spanning countries, continents and cultures, we will be able to explore praxis in different contexts and disciplines, (e.g., architecture, business studies, engineering, healthcare, medicine, psychology, science communication), as well as education, making this an interdisciplinary as well as an intercultural enterprise.
We are particularly interested in working collaboratively to investigate the connections between different frameworks, such as Exploratory Practice, Lesson Study, Reflective Practice, and Collaborative / Exploratory / Participatory Action Research.
The Exploratory Practice framework of principles, which emphasise curiosity-driven puzzling, working for understanding, and quality of life, and positions learners and teachers as co-researchers, is explicitly included as a main strand of the network. This encourages alternative ways of thinking about learners, teachers, and professional development.
As a network, we wish to explore the opportunities for collaboration between learners, teachers, and researchers, challenging traditionally accepted roles and playfully questioning established identities.
Our questions include:
We take a critical perspective, highlighting the challenges of different contextual constraints, probing assumptions of voice, agency and ownership when conducting inclusive practitioner research, and foregrounding issues of local/global knowledge in disseminating research via publishing or other means.
Our main aims:
We intend to achieve these aims by connecting researchers, teachers, learners, and teacher educators from different countries via face-to-face or Skype meetings and on-line discussions and webinars. In this way, we intend to engage in critical explorations of ways in which learners, teachers, teacher educators and researchers are positioned, and to launch investigations into cultures (small and large) of education.
The aim of this Research Network is to bring together researchers, practitioner researchers, practitioners and scholars around the world who are involved in forms of fully inclusive practitioner research, in order to theorise practice, challenge established orders, and to build new opportunities for research collaboration, coherence, and co-production. The intention is to include all forms of fully inclusive practitioner research in applied linguistics, language education, and beyond.
Much practitioner research is conducted by teachers, teacher educators and learners in classrooms around the world, rather than by academics, and so there are generally fewer platforms for people to meet, or for knowledge exchange to happen between geographically disparate groups. A network can help with establishing a platform for creative dissemination of ideas, and theory-building across cultures and disciplines. It can also provide expertise and support for those who are just beginning in inclusive practitioner research. We propose that in facilitating communications between our various groups, engaged in research spanning countries, continents and cultures, we will be able to explore praxis in different contexts and disciplines, (e.g., architecture, business studies, engineering, healthcare, medicine, psychology, science communication), as well as education, making this an interdisciplinary as well as an intercultural enterprise.
We are particularly interested in working collaboratively to investigate the connections between different frameworks, such as Exploratory Practice, Lesson Study, Reflective Practice, and Collaborative / Exploratory / Participatory Action Research.
The Exploratory Practice framework of principles, which emphasise curiosity-driven puzzling, working for understanding, and quality of life, and positions learners and teachers as co-researchers, is explicitly included as a main strand of the network. This encourages alternative ways of thinking about learners, teachers, and professional development.
As a network, we wish to explore the opportunities for collaboration between learners, teachers, and researchers, challenging traditionally accepted roles and playfully questioning established identities.
Our questions include:
- What are the possible applications of fully inclusive practitioner research?
- What is the impact of inclusive practitioner research in educational cultures locally, nationally, internationally?
- Who does research?
- Who has power, and who is disempowered in research?
- Whose voices count when theory-building and theorising pedagogy? Why?
- What does this say about current trends in applied linguistics, language education, and society more generally?
We take a critical perspective, highlighting the challenges of different contextual constraints, probing assumptions of voice, agency and ownership when conducting inclusive practitioner research, and foregrounding issues of local/global knowledge in disseminating research via publishing or other means.
Our main aims:
- To identify the epistemological challenges that practitioner researchers face, as well as the innovations they offer, in applied linguistics
- To track the impact that inclusive practitioner research is having in/across applied linguistics and educational cultures
- To develop the potential for multi-disciplinary, cross-cultural, inclusive practitioner research
- To continue theory development of inclusive practitioner research, especially but not exclusively, Exploratory Practice
- To identify research projects already under way in the various member countries and strengthen international links between groups working in similar topic areas
- To seek out new opportunities for collaborative, relevant, and inclusive practitioner research in applied linguistics and language education
- To share methodologies and ideas, and promote creative ways of disseminating inclusive practitioner research that supports teachers, teacher educators and learners
- To promote the good research and scholarship that has already been done, and to develop new areas of interest
We intend to achieve these aims by connecting researchers, teachers, learners, and teacher educators from different countries via face-to-face or Skype meetings and on-line discussions and webinars. In this way, we intend to engage in critical explorations of ways in which learners, teachers, teacher educators and researchers are positioned, and to launch investigations into cultures (small and large) of education.
EP Collaborations in Turkey - Photo © Judith Hanks / Kenan Dikilitas
