Power and resistance, powerlessness and action in school

Action research brings to the fore questions regarding both the power over knowledge building and, consequently, questions on the quality of knowledge. Action research makes visible two dimensions that in this regard are significant. First, the dimension outside-inside where action research more than traditional research voice an inside perspective. This means that those on whom research is conducted receive a greater amount of influence on the problems guiding the research and sometimes become participants in the research process. Secondly, there is the top-bottom dimension, where action research is often associated with a perspective from below. This perspective can, in the hierachies of working life, mean the employees’ perspective, but also the client perspective. In both these dimensions, power and knowledge are intertwined, as it is understood that those people on whom the research is being done get more influence on the research, thereby one must suppose that the quality of knowledge changes. Action research can then not only be close to practice but also to the client. It is also often associated with change, which implies that at times the researcher takes on a more active and intervening role than in traditional research, which at times may mean that established power arrangements are challenged. How then are we to understand action learning, that possibly is something else than action research, within the framework of a power perspective? This is the theme of the ensuing text.