Teacher Research as a Way of Knowing

In this article, Susan Lytle and Marilyn Cochran-Smith, two university-based teacher educators, argue for a different theory of knowledge for teaching — one that is drawn from the systematic inquiry of teachers themselves. In contrast to a knowledge base for teaching that privileges only the knowledge of the university researcher, the authors propose a knowledge base that includes the emic perspective of the teacher researcher,whose questions and processes are embedded in classroom practice. In their analysis,the authors draw on a wide range of texts written by teachers, including journals,essays, oral inquiries, and classroom studies. Lytle and Cochran-Smith conclude that teacher research, which historically has been marginalized in the field, challenges the assumption that knowledge for teaching is generated by outsiders only; they argue,rather, that school-based teacher researchers are themselves knowers and a primary source of generating knowledge about teaching and learning for themselves and others.