Action Research A Methodology for Change and Development

180 ACTION RESEARCH
teachers for interpretation and analysis (identifying the group as a whole
with their permission, but not individuals). The meanings the teachers
drew out from these data were centrally important in both developing
research knowledge and planning how to adapt and improve the strategy
next time. We did not clearly specify the role that the teachers would take
in writing (would their increased sense of ownership and the deepening of
their understanding resulting from writing justify the imposition on their
time?), but it was clear that our success in inducting other teachers into
PELRS in year 3 would depend to a great extent on these teachers taking a
leading role at the induction seminar for interested schools, midway
through year 2, and the regional workshops with participating schools in
year 3, as well as providing follow-up support on-line.
Structuration theory and the design of action research in PELRS
The second body of theory that influenced the design of PELRS relates to
the nature of institutions that gain their stability from their established
structures of roles and relationships and the formal allocation of power and
responsibilities (Mills 1959: 29). I have been particularly interested in
Giddens’ structuration theory (see Chapter 1: 20), which explains the interrelationship
between structure and agency as a process of mutual construction
and conformity by participants that, nevertheless, always has the
potential to be open to agency and change (Giddens 1984). More recently,
however, Bidwell (2001) has shown how resistance to change in schools is
often rigidly embedded through oppositions between groups operating
within rigid hierarchies. He argues that at times of strong external threat
(an example of which might be the punitive system of inspections in
England which places schools at risk of being shown to have ‘serious weaknesses’,
or needing to be ‘placed in special measures’) the internal networks
of teachers function as mechanisms that expertly adapt externally imposed
innovations to existing practices.
These theories are powerful in providing explanations of the consistent
resistance of schools to any radical change resulting from the introduction
of ICTs. The core of resistance lies not in any consciously expressed – or
even consciously practiced – negativity towards ICT on the part of heads or
teachers, but in the instinctive maintenance and continuity of roles and
practices. Technology is welcomed but expected to ‘fit in’ to existing norms
and structures. Two examples illustrate this process very clearly:
• First, the early struggle between those who promoted ICT as a
‘subject’ in its own right, and those who saw it as a set of tools to
be used for learning in all subjects, was not played out on equal
grounds. The introduction of computers into all classrooms, their
use in all teaching and the changes in pupils’ learning practices