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The area of teachers as researchers is one which has been given quite a lot of attention,
as has the relationship between teachers and researchers, which is not always a
comfortable one. Partly as a result of spending a year working on a research project in
which I took both roles, I am interested in exploring the interactions between the role
of teacher and the role of researcher in a very personal way. My interest is in trying to
look at my own actions and reactions within both roles, and seeing how one can
inform the other. As my daughter attends the school in which the project is running, I
now find it impossible to ignore the role of parent (and particularly that of parent-asteacher)
in this context. What follows is in the nature of an exploratory discussion,
rather than any well formed theory or argument. Interspersed in this paper are a
number of 'fragments': short pieces of writing (printed in italics) recording incidents,
conversations, reflects which have informed my thinking on this topic, but which I
have not yet worked on in detail.
Background: the research context
The experience I have had recently had working in school was part of the Primary
Laptop Project, a long term project exploring the effects of high levels of access to
portable computers on children's mathematical learning. For one academic year we
had the following research model for our work in school. Two lectures (myself and
Dave Prattl) were combining study leave (research) and CATE leave (teaching). We
worked in two classes, alongside the class teachers. For each class, one lecturer taught
maths and science (3 half days per week). During these lessons, the other lecturer
acted as researcher. The class teachers were generally present during the lessons,
sometimes working alongside the 'teacher', and sometimes acting as a
second'researcher'. In the remaining time each week, the lecturers worked on other
aspects of the project, partly in school. We were in school both as teachers and as
researchers, but also to some extent as parents (Dave's daughter was in one of the
classes that I taught). Two other factors are relevant to the overall situation.
• The school generally has very good relationships with parents. Several of
the teachers have their own children attending the school, and there are a
large number of paid and unpaid 'helpers', most of whom are parents.
• Before this stage of the project, we had already been working with the
class teachers involved over a period of two years. In this time we had
•. Address for correspondence: Mathematics Education Research Centre, Institute of Education,
University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL
1 It is been impossible to work on these ideas without involving Dave. I have discussed the contents of
this paper with him: and he is broadly in agreement with my account of our joint experiences.