Space of action for pedagogues and researchers in action research projects

• The ai m of the presentation is to discuss the possibilities of action research to make profound and long-lived educational changes. We discuss this in relation to an ongoing action research project carried out with pedagogues in a preschool section in southern Sweden. The section is in a phase when they need to review the organisation in relation to inner and outer structure and pedagogy. One challenge that has been identified during the research process is that the section is perceived as being 'isolated' and 'invisible'. This perception relates to the surrounding organisational, juridical and economic structures, which, according to the pedagogues, make it difficult to work with the organisational and pedagogical changes they feel are needed. Based on these results, we want to address the possibilities of change-making in an action research project in relation to power relations between different organisational levels of power (pedagogues, preschool management, municipality management, researchers). We draw on the concept of practice 'architectures' (Kemmis and Smith 2008; Kemmis 2009) to explore how scope for change at the section is shaped and formed by mediating preconditions for practice, that is, how cultural –discursive, material –economic and social –political preconditions shape and give content to the ‘thinking, ́doing ́ and ́relating’ that orient and justify the practices.

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