Article

Action Research
0(0) 1–17
Communicative space ! The Author(s) 2018
Reprints and permissions:
and working locally: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1476750318786780
A report of a journals.sagepub.com/home/arj

participatory action
research project in a
remote rural school
in Bangladesh
Safayet Alam
National Academy for Educational Management (NAEM),
Ministry of Education, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Abstract
Teachers’ professional development is a top priority in education of Bangladesh, but the
literature reports existing models of teaching are unsatisfactory. This article reports a
participatory action research project in a remote rural secondary school in Bangladesh,
and discusses how a locally focused process enabled teachers to create a communicative
space in which they could explore their understandings of teaching and evolve as a learning
community. It argues that improvement in teaching can occur at local level, despite con-
straints of poverty and lack of resources, when local teachers are enabled to challenge
themselves and each other to better meet the needs of students within their community.

Keywords
Participatory action research, teachers’ collaboration, communicative space,
importance of local context, rural education

Introduction
In Bangladesh’s programme for improving education, a core element is the devel-
opment of teachers’ capacity to create student-centred learning environments

Corresponding author:
Safayet Alam, National Academy for Educational Management (NAEM), Ministry of Education, NAEM Road,
Dhanmondi, Dhaka 1205, Bangladesh.
Email: safayet2002@yahoo.com
2 Action Research 0(0)

(Bangladesh Ministry of Education, 2005). However, research studies repeatedly

highlight both failings of teachers (Podder, 2013) and absence of systems that
might encourage them to critique their own practice and to assume agency in
stimulating students’ curiosity (Alam, 2013; Thornton, 2006). In addition, rural
schools in Bangladesh are reputed to show less student achievement than
urban schools (Alamgir, 2015), and teachers in rural schools often perceive existing
in-service training as centrally developed and top-down and so not aligning with
their experiences and needs. Therefore, effective processes for teachers’ profession-
al development are a high but elusive priority.
This article reports aspects of a doctoral project based in a rural school in
Bangladesh in which teachers incrementally took responsibility for developing
their own capacity for creating student-centred learning. Thus, it offers an alter-
native to the deficit view of Bangladeshi teaching that is dominant in published
literature and it points to a possible alternative pathway for national teacher
development. Therefore, this article focuses on two interrelated aspects of
the project:

• Development of a communicative space and how that enabled teachers to dis-

cuss and critique their work and strategically plan change,
• Importance of a localised ground-up approach to professional development and
its value for Bangladesh.

The community and the school

The school, where the project was undertaken, is situated in the outskirts of
Thakurgaon, the northern district of Bangladesh. Agriculture is the main economic
activity of the community. Most of the people who send their children to the school
are either peasants or day labourers. The majority of the community are Muslims
and some are Hindus. More than 50,000 people live in the greater community.
Though there are differences in religion and economic conditions, historically the
community people share a culture of strong intergenerational relationship. People in
the community are connected with the district town for selling their agricultural
products, getting better health care, and ensuring higher education.
Because of a government decision to expand secondary schooling in rural areas
in 1990s, most of the present teachers and community people spent their labour,
sweat, money, and land to build the school. The school started its journey in 1994.
It follows the centralised national school curriculum. Initially, the teachers served
the school voluntarily with a hope that it would eventually come under the nation-
al revenue budget system, and that happened in 1998. In 2013 the total student
population of the school was 360, of which 195 were girls and 165 boys.
The average teacher–student ratio is around 1:29. This ratio is supportive of man-
aging effective students’ engagement in learning. Including the head teacher, the
total number of staff in the school is 17. Recent Secondary School Certificate
(SSC) exam results suggest that the school has achieved an above average pass
Alam 3

rate. The impact of rural poverty on the community and teachers’ low salaries
mean that teachers have to find supplementary income, either by farming or offer-
ing private tuition, and so have little motivation to try out alternative approaches
to teaching. However, after getting professional development training during
2006–2007, the school has gradually started to rethink its approaches to the
school curriculum, but classroom teaching, as is often the case in rural areas of
Bangladesh was still predominantly authoritarian and reproductive. I understood
that if change was to occur it had to begin with teachers’ own understandings and
intentions, and this led to the choice of a PAR approach and the development of a
communicative space. This also informs my epistemological approach in present-
ing this account.

Review of literature
Top-down and examination-oriented teaching and learning is dominant in
Bangladesh (Al Amin & Greenwood, 2018; Rahman, 2013; Sarkar, 2013;
UNESCO, 2011). This dominance motivated my research and its focus on how
communication and collaboration among teachers, and between teachers and stu-
dents, can improve the teaching and learning environment in a rural secondary
school in Bangladesh. While national education policy (Bangladesh Ministry of
Education, 2010) demands educational excellence, higher order thinking, analyti-
cal ability, and application of knowledge to real-life contexts, very limited help is
given to develop teachers’ capacity in these areas.
Thornton (2006) suggests that teacher development programmes in Bangladesh
do not enable teachers to collaborate, reflect on their practice or respond to the
varying educational needs of students. My own experience as a teacher and as a
former national project administrator affirms Thornton’s conclusion. Hoque,
Alam, and Abdullah (2011) argue that, through collaboration, teachers can
review their practice and develop awareness of possible change. To develop this
awareness, teachers and administrators in Bangladesh need to know how to devel-
op space and networks for communication, collaboration, and enquiry.
Penetito (2009) emphasises the value of situated learning, explaining that it
occurs in the relationship between forms of social participation, engagement and
cognitive processes of learning. In this regard, Kemmis and McTggart (2005) sug-
gest that ‘research and action converge in communicative action aimed at practical
and critical decisions about what to do in the form of exploratory action’ (p. 595).
Yet detailed studies of how improvements in practice can be made are rare, and
absent in the rural Bangladeshi secondary school context. Moreover, while there is
potential usefulness in strategic adaptation of western, northern, and other exter-
nal approaches, which are dominant in literature about pedagogical change
(Greenwood, 2018), there is also need to develop epistemological perspectives
and procedures that suit the community needs of Bangladesh.
Researchers who promote indigenous perspectives (Durie, 2001; Smith, 1999)
make three fundamental assertions about knowledge: what we understand as
4 Action Research 0(0)

knowledge is dependent on culture and history; the act of researching people from
the outside without considering their own ways of knowing the world is an act
of on-going colonisation; research should build on what already exists in local
communities to build further knowledge for the well-being of those communities.
These principles informed my approach to this localised participatory action
research (PAR) project. I also draw on the work of Thakur (1908), who identified
need for a Bengali-based approach to knowledge and learning, asserting that first
we need to understand and draw on our own history, language and culture, and
only then can we usefully engage with the knowledge and culture of others.

Methodological approach
The project used a PAR approach and set out to explore how teachers in a rural
school in Bangladesh could develop new pedagogical approaches to meet the needs
of their students.
While some may be inclined to see PAR as a western methodological construct,
its fundamental bases are more universal: it builds on an integration of action with
critical examination of the consequences and future possibilities for action, and it
allows participants to own the investigation and challenges that arise. A number of
scholars have re-interpreted PAR in terms of indigenous perspectives and utilised it
in their local contexts (including Brydon-Miller, Karl, Maguire, Noffke, &
Sabhlok, 2011; Te Aika & Greenwood, 2009). I have sought to explore how
such a participatory approach can be developed, if it is rooted within a rural
Bangladeshi context. An initial basis comes from the very common village prac-
tice whereby people sit down together, take tea and talk, and discuss local pol-
itics, farming problems and family issues. From this practice, I found a ready
transition to the way Kemmis and McTaggart (2005) identify the opening of a
communicative space as a primary goal in PAR, and argue that the creation of
circumstances ‘in which people can search together collaboratively for more
comprehensible, true, authentic and morally right and appropriate ways of
understanding and acting in the world’ (p. 578) is itself a tangible outcome.
The concept of a communicative space provides a western parallel to our
Bangladeshi-orientated processes of sitting and talking and so grounds our
work in our own experience and understandings.
My role was a fluidly emergent one. While I initially intended to be a non-
directive facilitator, the teachers repeatedly disrupted my non-directive role.
I acknowledged that a hands-off approach was indeed contradictory to our cul-
tural habits and I responded as I saw needs unfold, noting that many theorists
reject the notion of neutrality of the facilitator. Smith (2014) emphasises the impor-
tance of the researcher bringing something useful to add to the local community.
Mackew (2008) explores how facilitators need to embrace paradoxes in their role,
finding how to move between listening and telling people what to do. I found
myself carefully navigating between teachers’ honest requests for direction and
my determination to not impose critiques.
Alam 5

Because of government pressure to increase the pass rate in national examina-

tions, I wanted to choose a school that already had strong emphasis on doing well
in examinations but was also prepared to explore the more complex expectations
of the curriculum and to actively examine the needs of students. My initial meet-
ings with the head teacher suggested that this school had these characteristics.
I entered the community and the school through a warm invitation from the head
teacher. In my first face-to-face meeting with him, I learned that all the 12 teachers
wanted to participate in the project. The head teacher informed me that the teachers
thought me an expert in Science and Mathematics and they were very keen to learn
something new from the project. This was their original motivation. Initially, my plan
was to work with six subject teachers. After the first in-person meeting with the head
teacher, I had to leave my initial plan. I decided to be open and work through the
teachers’ enthusiasm. When I first met the teachers in the school, we discussed pur-
pose, duration, and possible working strategies. Through several informal and formal
conversations, we agreed to begin. After his initial gatekeeper role, the head teacher
monitored the teachers’ feelings about the progress and impact of the project. In the
final stage, he evaluated the overall outcome. I use pseudonyms to name participants.
The project lasted seven months: from the end of March to October 2013.
The broad sequence of inquiries fell into three stages around holiday breaks.
Stage one was from the end of March to the middle of May and involved all the
teachers in explorations of their initial understandings of good teaching, and open-
ing up of classrooms for shared observations and discussion. Stage two, from the
middle of June to the third week of July, involved a meeting between teachers and
students and further involved five selected teachers in an intensive workshop
exploring ways that the concept of quality education could be translated into
classroom practice, followed by a period when these teachers explored ways to
implement the actions they had planned and critically reflected on their practice.
The final stage, from the middle of July to the third week of October, involved
individual teachers in further explorations of change in their practice, individual
and group reflections and evaluation and wrap-up of the project.
Although they were separated by time, the stages of the project flowed into each
other in recursive cycles of planning, acting, and critically reflecting.
The data I draw on consists primarily of recorded discussions at regular stages of
the project, together with my videoed observations and reflections in my field jour-
nal. Discussions were in Bangla. Translations are my own, and I have sought to
maintain some of the flavour of local speech and the style of interpersonal
exchanges. Analysis is in terms of emergent themes, focusing particularly on partic-
ipants’ shifts in willingness to examine their own and one another’s practice and in
exploring new ways to shape their teaching and their relationship with their students.

Process of the project

The first collaborative research the teachers agreed upon was classroom observa-
tions with post-class debriefs. There were differing suggestions about observing
6 Action Research 0(0)

teaching and debriefs. Some teachers proposed pair observation and debrief and
others suggested it might be useful to involve the whole group. I reminded them to
consider their workload and not to disrupt the daily class routine. Finally, they
decided for subject-based observation – teachers of the same subject observing
each other, but kept it open for other configurations. The decision by the teachers
to open their classroom doors to each other was itself a brave innovation in the
context of rural Bangladesh and a mark of the extent to which they were prepared
to engage with the project. What was even more courageous was the ways they
were prepared to allow critical discussion by others of what they had done and to
join in that discussion, despite the emotional and attitudinal challenges involved.
Initially the main purpose of our collective observations was to develop a shared
basis from which we could examine and discuss what was actually happening in
classrooms and how the teachers understood their teaching. Over time teachers
began to use their reflections to understand their practice rather than aligning it
with some kind of conceptual template. In the debriefs, we sought to reflect on and
make meaning from what we observed. We gradually came to focus on the kind of
relationship teachers had with students and the nature of students’ participation.

Searching for a way to open up space for professional communication

Although my reception in the school was welcoming, I quickly realised that the teach-
ers had little experience in critically reflecting on their own practice and that they were
expecting me to tell them what to do, in a similar way to what they had experienced in
training sessions. I needed to find common ground on which we could talk more
collaboratively. We talked generally first about what we saw as important contempo-
rary national issues. A few days prior to our first meeting, a multi-storeyed building,
Rana Plaza, had collapsed. More than 2000 garment workers were trapped and died.
This incident touched the emotion of the whole nation, including me and these teach-
ers. They were shocked, angry, and feeling helpless. We explored the implications of the
incident for education and for our role as teachers, examining what we as teachers can
do, and cannot do. The conversation took many directions, but it converged on one
evolving awareness: that we, teachers, our national leaders and Rana, are all part of the
same society, and had all received education from our schools. For example, in
response to my question about the role of schooling in shaping the society, Nahar, a
social science teacher, reflected, ‘The whole society is responsible.’
What was important about the discussion was that it began to open a space
where all of us could share our emotions as well as our ideas and where we
were beginning to find ways to agree, disagree, and together search for more
understanding. The creation of this open space occurred over the first few weeks
of the project through many formal and informal conversations. However,
the creation of this open space was a first and vital step in helping us become a
community that could learn together.
The communicative space was further developed as we talked about motivations
to enter the teaching profession. The teachers talked about the hardships of their
Alam 7

life in a rural village community, the expectation of their parents that they should
stay and contribute in some way to the village, the lack of opportunity to find other
careers, the low salaries they received and the lack of resources. They also talked
about their hope that they could give something of value to students they teach, the
respect they receive within the community, and the joy they feel when students
understand something new and when they do well in examinations. Some referred
to their own school experiences as the model for their current teaching. Some
acknowledged, in varying ways, that to be an ideal teacher they would like to
know more, to have more to offer their students.
What emerged in these discussions was an acknowledgement that although most
of the teachers had come into teaching through the pressure of circumstances rather
than by choice, they felt a pride in being teachers and, perhaps without analysis of
what it might involve, they would like to be better able to serve their students. This
sharing of personal stories created a foundation of values and expectations for the
explorations we would undertake. It also further developed our preparedness to talk
with one another and together explore the purposes of teaching.

Opening up the classroom door

The teachers agreed to start with observation of one another’s teaching. Nandan
spoke on their behalf:

We are not afraid of or overwhelmed by our affectionate younger brother Safayet. . .

I respect his educational experiences. . . We will try our best to get something from
him. I expect him to share with us.

Nandan’s speech highlights the goodwill of the teachers and also the expectation
that I would provide direct leadership. I felt somewhat uncomfortable with the
assigned role of educational expert, but I welcomed that of younger brother.
I emphasised that our observations would be academic, not evaluative or admin-
istrative, so we could talk directly and honestly.
The immediate outcome of the discussion was that Nuri opened up her
classroom door for us.

Identifying problems
Nuri taught social science to a Grade 8 class. The lesson was on government and
was based on a chapter of the official textbook. A pattern emerged whereby Nuri
would ask a question, students would give chorus answers, Nuri would reject them
and offer her own answer which would then be echoed by the students. A short
example of the pattern is cited below:

Nuri: What specific thing do we require, if we want to do something or administer

any activity?
8 Action Research 0(0)

Many students replied together and it was hard to understand their replies. Nuri rejected
answers by waving her hand and head.
Nuri: We need a system. It can be for a machine as well as for a human being.
A pause in which students were silent.
Nuri: What is the machine of a man?
Students: (six or seven together, softly) Our head.
Nuri: What is the engine of a human?
A student: (strongly) Head of a man.
Nuri: (satisfied, and restating the answer) Head is the engine of a human.

After the lesson, we returned to the small teachers’ common room to debrief.
Kusol, a science teacher, opened the discussion by focusing on content:

Thanks for your bravery in allowing us to observe you during teaching. . . I have some
suggestions. You initiated the learning topic, but students could not capture the
relationship. You could have brought examples from family.

Others joined the discussion, arguing with the idea that Kusol had put on the table.
Then Aaron, an English teacher, offered a comment about teaching purpose:

A teacher must think what to teach before entering the classroom. Who are my
students? Am I going to teach in Grade 1 or 2 or 4? Finally, a teacher needs to
think how to teach.

We then talked about how important it is to think about why we will teach some-
thing, for example, why the concept of government is important for the students.
Finally, the teachers requested Nuri to give a final comment. She looked
depressed and tired, and spoke with a frustrated voice:

What will I say? It is a very hard and true talk for me. I understand my shortcomings.
I will try my best to develop.

While we were moving into increasingly honest and rigorous reflection on the
processes of teaching, it was not without pain. Because she had volunteered her
lesson, Nuri had become the most vulnerable. At this stage, I wondered if we had
pushed her too far. The other teachers had been respectful, but it was her teaching
that we had critiqued and she clearly felt somewhat crushed at this point. She
showed she was resilient, as the episode that follows reveals. Both the raw vulner-
ability and willingness, on all our parts at various times, to face that vulnerability
were recurring features of our work.
In itself, this debrief did not indicate a clear shift to teachers’ belief in themselves
as learners, or in understanding students’ educational needs. Rather it showed
them starting to discuss one another’s practice and finding confidence to give
one another feedback, and to receive it. As a facilitator, I became more aware
Alam 9

that I had to recognise both the constraints teachers experienced in their context as
well their motivation to improve their practice, and that we needed to build on
their current experience, rather than rely on abstract idealism.

Developing a communicative space that allows exploration

At the end of the first month of the project, we were working within a space that
allowed us to explore problems, their causes, and of what might be done.
As the teachers observed one another’s lessons and listened and responded to
one another’s feedback, they began to see themselves as learners and the group
discussions as support structure for their learning. For example, Arman, a physics
teacher said:

I learned a technique through our on-going discussions. If a student says something

wrong, we need to say fine first and then we can help to elaborate the answer differ-
ently by giving a clue. Thus, we can help students to understand.

They also wrestled with a number of conceptual and attitudinal issues, particularly
with the tension between a sense of inadequacy and a desire to do better, with
habits of looking at surface features of teaching and a latent awareness that the
learning they hoped for was not occurring, habits of reproduction and hopes for
engagement, and, as the discussions progressed, a growing awareness that atten-
tion was not the same as engagement, and that for engagement to occur both
teachers and students needed to find ways to move beyond reproduction of knowl-
edge. The teachers still continuously turned to me as a mentor. I had to think
about reciprocity. I was asking the teachers to work together to examine their
practice and they were asking me to freely give my advice. We were learning
together and finding authentic ways to critically reflect on our practice and to
plan changes to better meet students’ needs.

Listening to the students

After the initial five weeks of teaching observation and debriefs, we agreed to form
four subject-based clusters – Bangla, English, Social Science, and Science and
Mathematics. Teachers of the four clusters met at different times over the sixth
week to crystallise their initial understandings and make a future plan. I facilitated
the cluster meetings. In the cluster meetings, we examined the possibility of meet-
ing with a representative group of students to talk about their life goals and their
thoughts about education. It needs to be noted that such meetings do not com-
monly occur in Bangladeshi schools. There had been some initial disagreements
within the group about the meeting. Some were afraid that it might become a form
of evaluation by the students and Arman expressed this fear: ‘Of course we have
weaknesses, but we do not want our students to know that. On behalf of the group
I am making it open.’ This honest acknowledgement of vulnerability was a strong
10 Action Research 0(0)

indicator of the growing effectiveness of the communicative space: individuals

could be honest about their thoughts and emotions and were becoming trustful
of others to talk through their concerns. After reservations had been talked
through, the group agreed to ask students about their personal learning challenges.
The students were first shy and politely appreciative of their teachers.

We enjoy everything in our school.

Our sirs give lessons properly, tell us stories and try to make us laugh when they teach.

Then, when they found their teachers were really listening, they began to speak
more openly. For example:

If our teachers teach us with pleasure or tell us something different than what is
written in the textbooks, we become curious. . . When our teachers just read out
from textbooks, we lose our attention.
We learn step by step. If we fail to understand in a particular segment, we cannot
understand anything in the successive process of learning.
Sir, I am weak at trigonometry. When my teacher teaches in class I become fully
attentive and I feel I have understood. But afterwards I can’t remember and I forget
when I go home.
Sir, actually I am in fear of English writing. I can’t remember the meaning of words.
After being told the word meaning, I read and then I understand. But later I forget.
I have problems in science. My teacher explains but I cannot understand. Some words
seem very hard to me. For example, cytoplasm is a very hard word.

We get intimidated to ask teachers questions when we do not understand.

Across the threads of discussion, the teachers also began to ask the students
questions. These included:

Could you give us any idea about what else we could do so that you can gradually
overcome the challenge of English writing and learn the meaning of words?
What can we do to make you more attentive?
What can we do so that you can draw geometric shapes at home?
What do you mean by when sirs teach nicely? Can you explain it by example?

At this stage of the project, the teachers were not just passively listening; they were
asking questions throughout and calling for further explanation from the students.
Their questions indicated their engagement and desire to understand their stu-
dents’ learning needs. Both teachers and students sat together in a single classroom
and simply started to explore a common space where they could share views about
teaching and learning. The communicative space was now expanding. Freedom to
express ideas was evolving into a dialogic process whereby the exchange of some-
times oppositional ideas was forming a basis for further exploration of ways to
genuinely engage with all the needs that were expressed.
Alam 11

The meeting with the students created opportunity for sharing. How this shar-
ing would translate into action would depend on how the teachers would reflect,
collectively and individually, on students’ educational needs and suggestions and
on how they would transform their planning into practice.

Transforming dialogue into action

During the period of the school examinations, the teachers arranged invigilation to
free a group of five to participate in an intensive workshop about what quality
education meant in terms of this school in this community, to translate emerging
ideas into achievable indicators, and to then plan for specific changes in classroom
interaction. The five were selected by the whole group, based on willingness and
trust that they would later share their discoveries. I took part as a participant as
well as a facilitator. I report fragments of participants’ discoveries that indicate
how they used the evolving communicative space. For example, there were dis-
cussions about how to cover the curriculum and yet invite student curiosity:

Kusol: I have been wondering how I will manage students’ questions and whole lot of
other activities. Now slowly I am getting the feeling that it is possible, if I start
working through the students’ questions. If we allow students to exchange their
questions, that would be a different kind of group work; a possible and simple way
to be interactive.

There were also discussions about the need to actively teach students to
ask questions:

Aaron: Nandan sir has mentioned earlier that some students might not write ques-
tions. . . We need to watch closely and very gently ask some little questions.

As the workshop drew to an end, the group reflected on the productivity of work-
ing collaboratively.

Kusol: We need facilitation like the way we have been working here. Perhaps this is
why the curriculum never reaches us. The government sends it to us, and we lock it in
our drawers.

After the workshop, I left the field for a time and the five teachers individually
trialed the changes they had decided on in their own classrooms. They then
reported on their discoveries.
Kusol reported he felt challenged initially, but having begun to experiment
within his own classroom, he was beginning to see desirable results:

As a teacher, I would have never gone as deeply as the students provoked by bringing
me their written questions. The students engaged their brain critically and they went
12 Action Research 0(0)

through line by line and point by point. And they have got the benefit. I am satisfied
that they did it successfully.

He then shared what he saw as an unresolved challenge:

The questions are good for those with talent but tough for the weaker ones. I need
to be more helpful to the weak students [although] when their peers are throwing
questions and participating in discussion, they are also thinking how to ask questions.

Nandan reported a shift in classroom relationship but acknowledged that he had

further exploration to do:

Actually, I have to go much closer to the students. . . Of course, I will continue [but]
I will continue this approach in my own way.

Polash invited all the teachers to observe his social science class. After the class,
students were invited to talk about their reactions to the lesson. Their feed-
back included:

Sir, the way we have been asked to bring questions was new. We had to think what we
actually want to know.
Sir, if we do not practice at home, we will not be able to ask question.
Sir, the main point is that there is no limit to learning. There are many instances when
we cannot answer critical questions.

Polash himself reflected:

As a whole, this is a new approach. Though we got training, we had never been asked
to try this way. Actually, the teacher is not the only knowledgeable person. As long
as I am in the teaching profession I have to believe that I can learn from the students.
If I work through the students’ questions I can learn.

Arman invited observation of a physics lesson. At the end, he shared his thinking
about the changes in teaching style with his students:

As a teacher, I am alone, but you are forty students in the class. Some of you understand
very quickly, some take time. Those who are good can bring different examples. I as a
teacher can bring only one example. When you share your examples, we can all learn.

He later talked with me about what he considered his most significant professional
development:

They asked me some questions for which the answers were unknown to me. I had to
explore them. I read reference books and I took help from you. Not only that, I also
Alam 13

had to explain in the classroom. So both the students and I got the benefit. The most
important learning for me was that I had thought they understood when they were
silent, but when they submitted questions I realised I had been wrong in my thinking
and that there were gaps in their understandings. . .. But this does not mean that
my delivery will be 100% effective. I can get confidence [through practice] and feel
comfortable in teaching. To me this would be the most pleasing aspect.

Relationship between local context and evolution of

communicative space
The project as a whole had a wide range of outcomes, not the least of which were
the continuing engagement of the teachers in interrogating and changing their
practice and the emergence of a culture of students asking questions. These out-
comes are similar to those proposed, but not often achieved, in the national train-
ing programmes that are being developed by donor-appointed consultancy firms.
What made the difference, I argue, is that in this case we worked from the ground
up, acknowledging local constraints as well as the perceptions and understandings
of the teachers involved. As I came to realise through the project, working within a
local approach to knowledge is not only about awareness of the responsibilities
contained within Islam or Hinduism, though these are a constant and largely
unspoken influence on the teachers and the community as a whole. Nor is it
only about using local ways of speaking, though this is important because it
makes big ideas accessible. Primarily it is about talking about the things that
matter to the people involved, such as the tragedy of Rana Plaza, their concerns
about their low wages and their desire to honour their parents and help the chil-
dren of their community, and about accepting the realities of their current practice
and their current understandings. It is also about accepting that new, critical
thinking and change in practice can come from the local people themselves as
they gain confidence in exploring possibilities.
The developing of opportunity to talk about their own and one another’s con-
cerns, the evolution of a ‘communicative space’, needs to grow out what already
exists locally. This careful and honest attention to local place is currently missing
within our national training plans, and that is most apparent when these rely on
initiatives of fixed term consultancy firms.
One of the significant elements in this project was the way my facilitative role was
shaped by the transactions within our communicative space. Sometimes I was called
on to listen without making judgement, sometimes to overtly give advice. I found
that sometimes I needed to begin from different bases than I planned. I learned how
to argue when I thought it was needed. But I did not give advice or argue as an
outsider; I did so as part of the community that was operating within the evolving
communicative space. I have come to understand that is how trust developed in this
project: not through contracts or trust-building exercises, but through all of us being
willing to stay within the space of respectful but honest communication.
14 Action Research 0(0)

When we reflected on the project at its end, Arman emphasised the importance
of its collaborative nature:

You could have imposed the approach we used in the final stage, right from the
beginning. In that case, we would have thrown it out after you leave the school.
But you kept patience, and now we cannot leave out what we have learned ourselves.
This is a big learning for me.

I would argue that if this can happen in one school, it can happen in others. What
we need to develop in Bangladesh is not necessarily new, different teacher devel-
opment projects, but rather an orientation towards engaging teachers in actively
talking about and gradually, collaboratively critiquing their own practice. We also
need to give them opportunity to trial changes in environments where they feel
supported and not afraid to make changes, as Nandan said, in their own way.

A communicative space that grows

In the beginning of the project, I had seen the development of a communicative
space as a first step in engaging participants in critical reflection on practice, like
the first cycle of a somewhat mechanistic model of action research. It turned out
that an expanding pulsating model would be a better image of how the commu-
nicative space grew. As I have outlined in this brief account of the project, it
extended to allow an unstructured, open forum between teachers and students, a
radical event in a Bangladeshi context. It further stretched to allow not only stu-
dent questions, also far too uncommon in Bangladeshi classrooms, but also class-
room dialogues between teachers and students about the usefulness of questions
and the limitations of the teacher’s knowledge.
In the final evaluation of the project, along with the 12 teachers the head teacher
articulated that he noticed teachers were becoming less shy in inviting students’
questions, and that students were gradually overcoming their own shyness. And
Nuri, who had been constricted in her role as authoritative teacher during our first
observation, stated that she now engaged so deeply with students’ questions that
she would forget about time. ‘I want to be able to give the students more time’, she
said. ‘Now I am experiencing this [different] kind of dissatisfaction.’ Both state-
ments highlight the change towards student-centredness that were occurring
throughout the school, and also indicate that the communication process had
become part of the school culture. Nuri was not one of the five in the workshop
who had evolved the strategy of encouraging student questions; she picked up
what her colleagues shared and tried it out in her own classroom. And the head
teacher who had largely stood aside from discussions, in order to limit his author-
itative influence, was listening to what the teachers believed they had achieved and
was honouring it.
Alam 15

Conclusion
To conclude, I examine implications for improvement in educational practices in
Bangladesh. The communicative space that developed enabled both teachers and
students to reflect on teaching and learning. Through dialogue and reflection, they
developed an awareness of the consequences of their decisions and a commitment
to continue engagement with each other and to improvement of practice.
Therefore, their practice became grounded in increasingly better understandings
of each other’s needs and intentions. This was particularly evident in the way the
dialogue between teachers and students led to teachers’ commitment to promoting
students’ curiosity in the classroom.
The development of communicative space fosters the development of ethical
citizenship in Bangladesh. By recognising the value of their colleagues and their
contribution, teachers become more capable of professional dialogue that can
enable a groundswell of improvement in both the style and content of teaching,
a democratic rather than policy-dependent means to improve education.
When their voices are heard in the classroom, students evolve understanding
of themselves as active contributors to society with a responsible role to play
in creating change. This project revolved around the creation of respectful relation-
ships and that experience in itself is a necessary component in developing
understandings of citizenship that are active and empowering as well as critical
and dialogic.
A further implication of this study for education development in Bangladesh is
that it shows the value of grounding teacher development within the localised
experiences and aspirations of teachers themselves. If the act of researching
people from the outside without consideration of their own ways of knowing the
world is an act of on-going colonisation, then it is important to enable teachers to
investigate their own practice. If research is to build on what already exists in local
communities to build further knowledge for the well-being of those communities,
then the evolving of spaces for honest and increasingly multi-directional dialogues
is vital, so participants can come to recognise, use and develop what already exists
and can better understand what well-being may involve.
The challenge remains for us in Bangladesh is to turn such aspirations into
practice. We need to find ways to create communicative spaces at the national
level and at the level of our local grounded communities.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, author-
ship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication
of this article.
16 Action Research 0(0)

References
Alam, S. (2013). Operational curriculum and citizenship: An exploration of what happens in
the Bangladesh secondary school classrooms. In J. Greenwood, J. Everatt, A. Kabir, &
S. Alam (Eds.), Research and educational change in Bangladesh (pp. 17–33). Dhaka:
Dhaka University Press.
Al Amin, M., & Greenwood, J. (2018). The examination system in Bangladesh and its
impact: On curriculum, students, teachers and society. Language Testing in Asia, 8(4),
1–18.
Alamgir, M. (2015). Rural urban disparity in education persists. New Age Report, May 31,
2015. Dhaka: New Age, The Outspoken Daily. Retrieved from http://newagebd.net/
124884/rural-urban-disparity-in-edn-persists/
Bangladesh Ministry of Education. (2005). Project proforma. Dhaka. Retrieved on
February 13, 2010 from http://www.tqi-sep.gov.bd/
Bangladesh Ministry of Education (2010). National Education Policy-2010. Retrieved from
http://www.scribd.com/doc/58413771/National-Education-Policy-2010-Eng-PDF-
Final#scribd
Bangladesh Ministry of Education (2005). Project proforma. Dhaka. Retrieved from http://
www.tqi-sep.gov.bd/
Brydon-Miller, M., Karl, M., Maguire, P., Noffke, S., & Sabhlok, A. (2011). Jazz and the
banyan tree: Roots and riffs on participatory action research. In N. Denzin & Y. Lincoln
(Eds.), The Sage handbook of qualitative research (4th ed., pp. 387–400). London: SAGE.
Durie, M. (2001). A framework for considering Maori educational advancement. Opening
Address. In N. Durie (Ed.), Hui Taumata Matauranga (pp. 197–211). Wellington, New
Zealand: Huia Publishers.
Greenwood, J. (2018). The where of doctoral research: The role of place in creating mean-
ing. Environmental Education Research, 24(1), 129–144.
Hoque, K., Alam, G., & Abdullah, A. (2011). Impact of teachers’ professional development
on school improvement-an analysis at Bangladesh standpoint. Asia Pacific Education
Review, 12, 337–348. DOI: 10.1007/s12564-010-9107-z
Kemmis, S., & McTaggart, R. (2005). Participatory Action Research: Communicative
action and the public sphere. In N. Denzin, & Y. Lincoln (Eds.), The Sage handbook
of qualitative research (3rd ed., pp. 559–603). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
Mackew, J. (2008). Facilitation as action research in the moment. In P. Reason & H.
Bradbury (Eds.), The Sage handbook of action research: Participatory inquiry and practice
(2nd ed., pp. 1–22). London: SAGE.
Penetito, W. (2009). Place-based education: Catering for curriculum, culture, and commu-
nity. New Zealand Annual Review of Education, 18, 5–30.
Podder, R. (2013). English Aural-Oral Skills Assessment Policy and Practices in Bangladesh
secondary schools. In J. Greenwood, J. Everatt, A. Kabir, & S. Alam (Eds.), Research
and educational change in Bangladesh (pp. 53–67). Dhaka: Dhaka University Press.
Rahman, S. (2013). Changing teaching perceptions and culture of professional practice: A
case of secondary science teachers’ professional learning in Bangladesh. In J.
Greenwood, J. Everatt, A. Kabir, & S. Alam (Eds.), Research and educational change
in Bangladesh (pp. 153–171). Dhaka: Dhaka University Press.
Sarkar, M. (2013). Bangladeshi Science teachers’ perspectives of the promotion of scientific
literacy. In J. Greenwood, J. Everatt, A. Kabir, & S. Alam (Eds.), Research and educa-
tional change in Bangladesh (pp. 135–152). Dhaka: Dhaka University Press.
Alam 17

Smith, L. (2014). Social Justice, transformation, and indigenous methodologies. In R

Rinehart, K. Barbour, & C. Pope (Eds.), Ethnographic worldviews: Transformations
and social justice (pp.15–20). London: Springer.
Smith, L. (1999). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples. Dunedin:
University of Otago Press.
Te Aika, L., & Greenwood, J. (2009). Ko tatou te rangahau, ko te rangahau, ko tatou: A
Maori approach to participatory action research. In D. Kapoor, & S. Jordan (Eds.),
Education, participatory action research, and social change: International perspectives (pp.
59–72). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Thakur, R. (1908). Shikkha (education). Kolkata: Bishwavaroti.
Thornton, H. (2006). Teachers talking: The role of collaboration in secondary schools in
Bangladesh. Compare, 36(2), 181–196.
UNESCO (2011). World data on education (7th ed.). Bangladesh, Retrieved from http://
www.ibe.unesco.org/links.htm

Author biography
Safayet Alam is an assistant professor in Physics in the Directorate of Secondary
and Higher Education, Ministry of Education, Dhaka, Bangladesh. In 2016, he
obtained the PhD degree from the University of Canterbury. Currently he is work-
ing as an assistant director at the National Academy for Educational Management
(NAEM), Dhaka, Bangladesh. His research interest is in the area of curriculum
studies, pedagogy, neoliberalism and education and participatory action research.