Tending to the TAProots: Correcting the Color-Blind Histories of Teacher/Action/Practitioner Research

• In Event: The Politics of Educational Research, Past and Present

Abstract

This paper critically examines histories of teacher, action, and practitioner (TAP) research to suggest such narratives falsely present as race-neutral. Introducing TAP research in such a homogenous, anodyne way may inhibit practitioners from seeing its transformative potential. To rectify this oversight, this paper positions W. E. B. Du Bois within the intellectual history of TAP research, drawing on scholarship of Dewey’s “kindred spirit” to argue that establishing and tending to this overlooked TAProot will enable teacher educators to cultivate scholarly practitioners who are much better positioned to use TAP research to promote social justice.

Author

• Elizabeth Currin, University of South Carolina