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548 A.-C. Wennergren and K. Rönnerman
research in teaching, Zeichner and Noffke (2001) examine various traditions of practitioner
research, and their differing purposes, that have been developed during the
twentieth century. The outcomes of many such projects have been positive, as practitioner
research can be a way of questioning one’s own practices and changing them
as a result of ongoing studies. In the process of changing practice, the practitioner’s
understanding of it also develops and deepens, and thus teachers become producers as
well as consumers of knowledge (Zeichner & Noffke, 2001). A key element in such
projects is the relationship between researchers and teachers. But there is also a risk that
action research can become detached from its emancipatory aims, as Carr and Kemmis
(1986) emphasised in their classical book and reduced to a method for in-service training
comprising little more than a box of research techniques (Carr & Kemmis, 2005).
In Sweden, practice-based research is emphasised. Such research is supposed to
relate to teachers and connect to teacher education, teachers’ practice and teacher
professionalism. The main idea is that research should be useful in practice and lead
to a better connection between academic research and improvement work in schools
(cf. McLaughlin & Black-Hawkins, 2004). This can be achieved by starting from
the teachers’ own questions related to teacher professionalism in research that
involves teachers as integrated participants in the process. According to the National
Curriculum in Sweden (National Agency for Education 1 ), teachers and schools have
the responsibility to develop teaching and the learning environment, and to improve
the school as a whole. This development should derive from the schools’ own context
and visions. To support such research, the National Agency for Education funded
projects that were conducted in cooperation with universities. One way of understanding
practice-based research is to use action research for the purpose of challenging
and improving teachers’ practice.
In this context, a national school improvement project involving five compulsory
schools in Sweden, located in different parts of the country, was started in 2002. The
project was designed as a collaborative project based on action research; it was
conducted over a three-year period with the overall aim of improving classroom
communication for hard-of-hearing pupils. Pupils in those schools need hearing aids
and/or technical equipment in order to be able to listen in the classroom. The traditional
technological solutions had contributed to an inflexible arrangement of the
learning environment. In order not to risk misunderstandings, pupils preferred to
speak to the teacher, rather than to their classmates, which led to a relatively passive
approach among students in the classroom (Ahlström & Preisler, 1998; Wennergren,
2004b). A monologic view of classroom communication had been established in
classrooms and taken for granted as the only way to communicate (Wennergren,
2006). Viewed from a participatory and collaborative approach, everybody involved
in the project understood it as offering a possibility for teachers to explore the way in
which their practices were shaped and constrained by wider social structures, and also
allowing participants the opportunity to consider whether they could intervene in
order to release themselves from these contradictions (Greenwood & Levin, 1998).
Swedish studies indicate that, through action research, teachers acquire greater
consciousness and self-confidence; they learn more about their work and they change