Educational Action Research

ISSN: 0965-0792 (Print) 1747-5074 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/reac20

Participatory Action Research: issues in theory and

practice

Robin McTaggart

To cite this article: Robin McTaggart (1994) Participatory Action Research: issues in theory and
practice, Educational Action Research, 2:3, 313-337, DOI: 10.1080/0965079940020302

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 Educational Action Research, Volume 2, No. 3, 1994

Participatory Action Research:

issues in theory and practice [1]

ROBIN McTAGGART
Deakin University, Australia

ABSTRACT Action research is now common in educational and social practices

of various kinds. The renaissance of this valuable approach to social enquiry
has many virtues, but success is somewhat soured by cooption of some of the
techniques occasionally used by action researchers for the technical
improvement of practices, the Implicit values of which are poorly understood
and timidly questioned. Naive cooption is accompanied by both traditional and
new critique. Like most approaches to educational and social research, action
research (or some people's impressions of it) has been subjected to critique by
theorists of the so-called post-modern turn. These critiques have become
prematurely Judgemental, and though drawing on what some see as powerful
theoretical resources, are somewhat oblivious to the breadth and dynamism of
action research theory and practice and dismissive of the achievements of action
researchers who often work in contexts decidedly more risky than the academies
which nurture and reward critique. Action research remains a diverse and
thoroughly Justified and preferred mode of educational and social enquiry,
continuing to address the concerns of both its practitioners and its critics.

Introduction
Fifteen years ago, action research and perhaps even qualitative research
would have required extensive Introduction to a conference such as this. It Is
a sign of marked progress that we can discuss these matters in terms
specific to each methodology and not have to fend off criticisms of each
because they do not attend to the canons of positivistic enquiry. No longer
need we concern ourselves with what was once the dominant and received
view of social science. Gone are the particular cooptions and
operationalisations of concepts such as Validity', 'reliability', 'significance'
and 'causality' which dominated the discourse of social science in our youth.

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ROBIN McTAGGART
Though it is by no means uncontentlous, the term 'action research' is
now one of the commonplaces of professional education, and it is refreshing
to find it in both common and uncommon places. In the past twelve months
I have talked about action research with community medicine specialists,
nurse educators and teacher educators in Thailand, and with business
'trainers', Instructional designers, community development workers and
teachers in Australia. The proliferation of action research marks a significant
shift In both the kinds of relationships researchers from the academy have
with others and In the locus of knowledge production about professional
practice. Proliferation has also led to the diversification and articulation of
action research theory and practice. This has led in t u m to more substantial
versions of action research, but also to versions that seem to have lost their
way.
One of my concerns Is reflected in my use of the term 'participatory' In
the title. In the educational action research literature, this would normally
be unnecessary, as educators have always assumed that participation (or
collaboration) was fundamental to the idea of action research. In some fields,
business management for example, the term 'action research' Is used for a
range of research activities which might better be described as 'applied
research', and which do not expect participation. This is 'action research'
only In the sense that It Is research that Informs 'action', in this case
practical decisions which might be made by anybody. This form of 'action
research' is often conducted by outside consultants whose task may be to
inform management decisions. For this reason, and to recognise the
convergence of two intellectual and practical traditions, that of "action
research' (In the Lewinian tradition) and that of 'participatory research'
which has its origins in community development movements In the Third
World especially (McTaggart, 1991a, b), I prefer to use the term 'participatory
action research', b u t occasionally use 'action research' for brevity. I have
often said that action research is a broad church, movement or family of
highly desirable activities. However, action research Is not simply what
anyone defines it to be. In my view, use of the term Invokes a distinctive
conceptual, moral and practical agenda.
Accordingly, people Interested in participatory action research face
several new dilemmas. These Include how to:
• inform those who are confused about what action research actually is;
• prevent the technologlsation and cooption of action research;
• contest casual dismissals of action research by people who ought to know
the action research literature better;
• engage with the proliferation of discourses about discourses which seem
to be supplanting finding out what action researchers do, where they do it
and how they do it;
• participate In the constructive resolution of genuine Issues arising from
the debate over social research methodology, which include profoundly
challenging questions about the representation of self and social life,
rationality (both Its nature and Its primacy), the ways In which different

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ways of Inscribing the world are always disenfranchising for some, and the
narrative forms of reporting research (if Indeed any 'research' reporting
can be justified at all).
For some, these Issues apparently mean the end of action research, but I am
more optimistic than that because there is a growing literature which shows
that the idea of action research is both engaging and useful for people. It is
certain our ideas about action research and the metaphors we use to
characterise it will continue to change, but that has always been the
Intention of serious-minded action researchers.

What Action Research Is

There is Insufficient space for me here to give a detailed account of
participatory action research. But it does no harm to reiterate some of the
key features of participatory action research because it is all too easy for
people to lapse into thinking that the ordinary things they do meet the
criteria, as Colin Henry so cogently stated in 1991 at the World Congress on
Action Research and Process Management. Most often ordinary ways of
working are not action research, and there is a serious risk of cooption of
communitarian critical discourse of action research in the service of other
ends (Chaudhary, forthcoming; Fals Borda & Rahman, 1991). This is not to
argue, of course, that many ordinary things are not good things.
At one level of analysis, the idea of participatory action research Is
straightforward enough. The first advocate of 'action research' in the English
language, social psychologist Kurt Lewin (1946, 1952), described action
research as proceeding In a spiral of steps, each of which Is composed of
planning, action, observation and the evaluation of the result of the action.
Note that this spiral has created serious confusion about the idea of action
research, the fundamental feature of which is collective reflection by
participants on systematic objectiflcations of their efforts to change the way
they work (constituted by discourse, organisation and power relations, and
practice) (McTaggart & Garbutcheon-Slngh, 1986, 1988; Kemmis &
McTaggart, 1988a).
It is of course a mistake to think that slavishly following the 'action
research spiral' constitutes 'doing action research'. Action research is not a
'method' or a 'procedure' but a series of commitments to observe and
problematise through practice the principles for conducting social enquiry
described in summary here. The historical location of the spiral metaphor is
important. In my view, Lewin was simply trying to suggest that action
research was different from traditional empirical-analytic and interpretative
research in both its dynamism and its continuity with an emergent practice.
The spiral recognises the explicit possibility of acting differently as a result of
progressively learning from experience. These features were obviously more
important than Lewin's simplistic iconography suggested but it is also true
that the 'spiral' is sometimes useful as a heuristic for people starting to
research their own practice.

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ROBIN McTAGGART
The attribution of the notion of action research to social psychologist
Lewln Is somewhat misleading. Some recent historical work by Peter
Gstettner & Herbert Altrichter at the University of Klagenfurt shows that
'action research' did not have its origins In the discipline of social psychology
b u t In community activism. The familiar plan, act, observe, reflect spiral
attributed to Kurt Lewln (1946, 1962) was not the beginning of action
research, even though his biographer claimed that Lewln was the Inventor of
the term (Marrow. 1969). Gstettner & Altrichter have discovered that J . L.
Moreno, physician, social philosopher, poet and the Inventor of the concepts
of 'soclometry', 'psychodrama', 'soclodrama' and 'role play' had a much more
'acttonist' view of action research. Moreno was also the first to use the terms
'Inter-action research' and 'action research'. Moreno had used group
participation and the idea of 'co-researchers' as early as 1913 in community
development initiatives working with prostitutes In the Vienna suburb of
Spittelberg. Altrichter & Gstettner cite the German language writings of
Gunz and have this to say:
Gunz ... sees Lewin and Moreno (who knew each other, and
researchers like Lippitt, Benne and Bradford were studying with
both of them...) in a polarity - and maybe - a complementarity:
Moreno as committed acttonistfilled with intuition and charisma,
and... Lewin, the reserved social researcher of traditional style
interested in logics and precision but on the brink of a paradigm,
change. In his conclusion, Gunz... points to the irony that the
German 'renaissance of action research' implicitly tends to the
Moreno line of thinking rather than to the Lewinian one (Altrichter &
Gstettner, forthcoming, p. 3)
Altrichter & Gstettner go on to suggest that the revival of action research in
Austria is much more likely to draw on the "actlonism" of Moreno than the
somewhat 'technical' portrayals of some Lewinian versions of action
research. We need to revive 'actlonlsf action research here, as we have been
reminded by recent political events.
In practice, action research begins with an Imperfectly understood felt
concern and a desire to take action - a general idea that some kind of
improvement or change is desirable. In deciding just where to begin in
making Improvements, a group identifies an area where members perceive a
cluster of problems of mutual concern and consequence. The group decides
to work together on a 'thematic concern' (Kemmls & McTaggart, 1988a;
McTaggart, 1991a), not simply to do action research or to undergo 'staff
development', and especially not at the behest of 'management'.
The reiterative nature of the Lewinian approach recognises the need for
action plans to be flexible and responsive. It recognises that, given the
complexity of real social situations, In practice it Is never possible to
anticipate everything that needs to be done. Lewln's deliberate overlapping of
action and reflection was designed to allow changes In plans for action as the
people involved learned from their own experience. Put simply, action
research is the way groups of people can organise the conditions under

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which they can learn from their own experience, and make this experience
accessible to others. That Is, action research is not merely about learning, it
is about knowledge production and about the Improvement of practice In
socially committed groups. Two of the ideas that were crucial in Lewin's work
were the ideas of group decision and commitment to improvement A
distinctive feature of participatory action research is that those affected by
planned changes have the primary responsibility for deciding on courses of
critically Informed action which seem likely to lead to Improvement, and for
evaluating the results of strategies tried out In practice (Kemmis &
McTaggart, 1988a,b; McTaggart, 1991a).
hi short, we can say that action research Is a form of self-reflective
enquiry undertaken by participants In social situations in order to Improve
the rationality, justice, coherence and satisfactorlness of (a) their own social
practices, (b) their understanding of these practices, and (c) the institutions,
programmes and ultimately the society In which these practices are carried
out. Action research has an individual aspect - action researchers change
themselves, and a collective aspect - action researchers work with others to
achieve change and to understand what it means to change. Action research
involves participants In planning action (on the basis of reflection); in
implementing these plans in their own action; in observing systematically
this process; and In evaluating their actions In the light of evidence as a
basis for further planning and action, and. so on through a self-reflective
spiral. In deciding j u s t where to begin In making Improvements, a group
identifies a n area where members perceive as cluster of problems of mutual
concern and consequence. The group decides to work together on a thematic
concern b u t to change things they must confront the culture of the
Institution (or programme) and society they work in.
Action research groups are not always homogeneous In composition.
Most often they Involve people from some work site (like a community
development programme) and a support institution (like a university).
Participatory action research engages people from the academy and the
workplace In an entirely different relationship. For simplicity, I will use the
terms 'academic' and *worker' to label the two groups of people typically
engaged In participatory action research, though it is obvious that both
terms are too narrow for the diversity of agencies and people who collaborate
in participatory action research projects. I make the distinction because it
helps to show the common project of participatory action researchers, as
well as the distinctive tasks they may carry out In their own Institutional and
cultural contexts. It, is also appropriate to add a word of caution: the
distinction between academics and workers must not be taken to imply a
distinction ^between 'theoreticians' and 'practitioners' as If theory resided in
one place and its Implementation in another. Such a view is the antithesis of
the commitment of participatory action research which seeks the
development of theoretically informed practice for all parties involved. The
deliberate mix of people from different work contexts is one way of
problematising the work of all parties and of diversifying the value
commitments people must attend to. Justify, implement and problematise.

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ROBIN McTAGGART
Academics and workers In participatory action research are Joined by a
thematic concern - joint concern about a practical problem and a
commitment to Inform and Improve a particular practice.[2] This practice is
not a narrowly conceived technical activity b u t "any coherent and complex
form of socially established co-operative activity" (Maclntyre, 1981, p. 175)
with the intention "that human powers to achieve excellence, and human
conceptions of the goods and ends Involved, are systematically extended"
(Maclntyre, 1981, p. 181). In this sense, practices like education, fanning,
social work and automobile manufacture are distinguished from the
institutions like schools, programmes and factories which are created to
enable and protect them. This broad view of practice and the location of
practices In historically formed institutions enables us to identify the
common and distinct contributions participatory action researchers must
make from their different institutional and cultural contexts. Academics and
workers may join forces to improve the theory and practice of education,
social welfare, agriculture and health, usually in the workers' own work
context.
The common project of participatory action research h a s several
aspects. Each participant, academic and worker, must undertake:
• to Improve his or her own work:
• to collaborate with others engaged In the project (academics and workers),
to help them Improve their work; and
• to collaborate with others in their own separate (academic and worker)
institutional and cultural contexts to create the possibility of more broadly
informing the common project, as well as to create the material and
political conditions necessary to sustain the common project and its work.
That is, participatory action research is concerned simultaneously with
changing individuals, on the one hand, and, on the other, the culture of the
groups, Institutions and societies to which they belong. The culture of a
group can be defined in terms of the characteristic substance and forms of
the language and discourses, activities and practices, and social
relationships and organisation which constitute the interactions of the group
(see Foucault, 1973; Kemmis & McTaggart, 1988a). Changing individuals
and culture, action is accompanied by research - the exploration and
'objectlfication of experience' and the exploration and 'disciplining of
subjectivity' - features shared with other qualitative research generally.

T h e C o o p t i o n a n d C o r r u p t i o n of Action R e s e a r c h
The emphasis on the icons of action research by some of its proponents
encourages it to be seen ass a 'technique' rather than a broad church,
movement or family of activities. This In turn makes Invisible the values it
expresses even when they are explicit in the definitions of action research.
We sometimes find the term 'action research' used as the rubric for activities
such as action learning, for example In the work of 'quality circles',
themselves little more than a post-modern expression of Taylorism In the

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 PARTICIPATORY ACTION RESEARCH
guise of the propagation of 'world best practice' (Watklns, 1992). In these
situations, workers, managers and investors alike are coopted into the
value-system of the organisation, and its fundamental purposes as a societal
institution not called into question. The ordinary expectation among action
researchers is the antithesis of that: a fundamental purpose of action
research is to make practices and the values they embody explicit and
problematic.
Current debates about the internationallsatlon of economics express
this very issue. The ideology of 'economic rationalism' denies and refuses
value problematisation and 'guides' not only the conduct of transnational
corporations, b u t governments and their agencies as well. It does so with
Increasing efficacy and pervasiveness. [3] I use the term 'guides' here in
quotes to make a particular point. Economic rationalism Is not merely a
term that suggests the primacy of economic values. It expresses commitment
to those values in order to serve particular sets of interests ahead of others.
Furthermore, it disguises that commitment in a discourse of 'economic
necessity' defined by its economic models. We have moved beyond the
reductionism which leads all questions to be discussed as if they were
economic ones [de-valuation) to a situation where moral questions are denied
completely [de-moralisatian) In a cult of economic inevitability (as If greed
had nothing to do with it). Broudy (1981) has described 'de-valuatlon' and
'de-moralisation' in the following way:
De-valuation refers to diminishing or denying the relevance of all
but one type of value to an issue; de-moralization denies the
relevance of moral questions. The reduction of all values -
intellectual, civic, health, among others -to a money value would
be an example of de-valuation; the slogan 'business is business' is
an example of de-moralization. (Broudy, 1981, p. 99)
In a recent article in The Age in Melbourne, the politics of this phenomenon
were made explicit:

Archbishop attacks greed

Appalled captains of British industry yesterday heard the

Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, tell them they were
being greedy at the expense of the needy. Making money for its
own sake was wrong, he preached in a service of thanksgiving in
Derby Cathedralfor the achievements of industry. Those who had
awarded themselves hefty pay rises in the recession were failing to
encourage "public support for wealth creation". "When God sorts
out the goats from the sheep," Dr Carey said, quoting St Matthew,
"he tells them, The curse is upon you ...for when 1 was a stranger
you gave me no home, when naked you did not clothe me, when I
was ill and in prison you did not come to my help' I doubt he would
have been impressed by the argument that the goats had been

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ROBIN McTAGGART

waiting for those things to 'trickle down' as a by-product of

economic growth." The purpose of industry was "not to make
profits for shareholders, nor to create salaries and wages for the
industrial community", the archbishop proclaimed. Its purpose was
not even to serve the market, as if the market were master instead-
of servant of human need. No, industry's purpose is surely to serve
people by creating things of use and value to them. The head of the
Institute of Directors, Mr Peter Morgan later criticised Dr Carey's
comments as demonstrating a "fundamental misunderstanding" of
a market economy. (Graham Barrett, The Age, 12 May 1992, p. 7)
The cooption of action research In the service of restricted domains of
valuing is a perennial Issue linked with the status of different ways of
knowing the world. In 1981 Stephen Kemmis, with the support of the
Australlan^Educatlonal Research and Development Commission, organised
the invitational National Seminar on Action Research. Though we look back
these days on that conference with some alarm at our naivety, some of the
debates foreshadowed issues of importance. We were also right about some
things. One discussion centred on the idea of the idea of learning In action
research. Garth Boomer, fresh from the well-known Language and Learning
project, intent on making action research accessible to teachers, argued
strongly that action research was about teachers learning. To many
participants, that seemed to understate the idea of action research. They
wanted action research to contest other approaches to research, so It could
not merely be about learning in an individualistic and private sense, it had
to be about 'knowledge production'. As the work of Paulo Freire (1982), Budd
Hall (1979, 1981) and Rajesh Tandon (1988, 1989) was already beginning to
show In the participatory research movement itself, it was necessary to
accomplish what we might term a 'paradigm shift' or a 'discursive shift' in
order that people's knowledge and the methods they developed for
understanding their experience might appropriately be respected.
When we see modern technicist versions of action research and action
learning, which are oriented, for example, towards 'quality control" or 'staff
development' with both being very narrowly understood, we understand how
an emphasis on 'learning' denies the fundamental liberatory aspirations of
Moreno's work with prostitutes in Spittelburg, Vienna, at the turn of the
century, Kurt Lewin's work with those dlsadvantaged by race and poverty in
post-war United States, and Reg Revans's (1980, 1982) work in the mines of
Sheffield in post-war England where the term 'action learning" first gained
currency. [4] Nevertheless, it is worth keeping in mind that Lewin was
interested in 'rational social management' and that Revans's work was
mostly conducted with managers. "Workplace learning' too often means
applying routine Invented by others, believing reasons Invented by others,
servicing aspirations invented by others, realising goals Invented by others,
and giving expression to values advocated by others. In contrast, workplace
knowledge production means participation in the praxis of invention and
construction of new ways of working, in the Justification of new ways of

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 PARTICIPATORY ACTION RESEARCH
working and new working goals, and In the formulation of more complex and
sophisticated ways of valuing work, work culture and its place in people's
lifeworlds.
Educator Garth Boomer once described action research as the
"antidote to elsewhereness". It is an apt description because it identifies
action research as a way of combatting the alienation of unrewarding work
and its individualising of discontent. Further, It opens a much wider door to
the collective and introspective critique of the deep sources of our
dissatisfactions - which In turn propel the excessive consumption and
accumulation which typifies Westemism.
Unfortunately the de-moralisation Broudy described is not restricted to
the business world, it has made inroads into the higher education sector as
well, partly at the behest of business Interests, but also because the
'corporatisation' of both state and private Western institutions h a s made
them overly attendant to values to which they once maintained a developed,
informed and critical perspective. Action researchers contribute to this
reductionism In several different ways, by:
• Not drawing enough attention to good case studies of action research. [5]
Unfortunately, though there is a significant literature, the 'models' for
action research practice remain, for some critics, the heuristic icons we
drew years ago for The Action Research Planner. More attention to the
literature [6] of case studies would more usefully help to problematlse the
idea of action research as well as to exemplify it concretely.
• Allowing technical uses of action research to predominate, for example, in
higher education institutions by working to Improve teaching' without at
the same time taking a serious look at the curriculum, its aspirations and
its contexts.
• Allowing concepts like 'action learning' to gain currency uncontested. This
in turn undermines efforts to demonstrate that the deep roots of action
research are both ontological and epistemological and that these roots
mean that action research is a fundamental resource for the production of
reliable and valid, shared and communicable public knowledge In its own
right about how to improve the human condition.
• Allowing the erosion of value domains and forms of life which define what
it means to be h u m a n by not taking a global, historical and future view of
the implications of their work.
• Allowing serious lapses into a paralysing relativism (sometimes inspired by
the most irresponsible excesses of post-modernism) which suggest (i) that
any idea is as good as another; or (ii), that ways of describing the world
are nothing more than the exercise of power.
• Allowing the expressed singularity of purpose of our institutions to
obliterate their broader social, cultural, political, moral and ecological
responsibilities.

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ROBIN McTAGGAKT

• Allowing the intensification of work to distract u s from the aesthetic and

communal celebrations of life, work, knowledge and relationships once
expressed, for example, In the form of chmitauqua.[7]
• Allowing ourselves to make gods of reason and collective rationality as the
sole or even primary source of people's changing, when we know that
people are most likely to change themselves In social contexts which they
find warmly supportive first, and then interesting and challenging.
Hence the struggle for action research needs to be sustained against both
traditional and 'post-modem' criticism.

Criticisms of Action Research

Traditional Criticism
In 1957, action research was criticised by United States educational
researcher Harold Hodgkinson from a perspective formed by the dominant
ideology of the time. He recognised that a 'case for' action research in
education could be made but condemned it with a 'case against action
research' which was presented in two sections, 'method' and 'theoiy'. Under
method, Hodgkinson was sceptical of the rigour of the critique to which
action research had been exposed. Because the action research literature at
the time Included "only three articles of a critical nature", Hodgkinson
concluded that action research must have been accepted "In an unthinking
and passive manner" (1957, p. 141).
According to Hodgkinson, teachers were not familiar with the basic
techniques of research. He thought It significant that they could not even
remember the statistics courses they had taken In college. And he argued
that the teachers' colleges were not very good places to learn how to do
research, because very little research was conducted there. For example, he
claimed that Teachers' College, Columbia, spent only 7% of its budget on
research, other colleges spent only two-tenths of one per cent (In 1945 and
1946). By comparison, the Land Grant Colleges used about 20% of their
budgets for research In the physical sciences. Hodgkinson believed that
teachers could not learn to conduct adequate research because the ethos
and lack of research activity In their training Institutions had failed to give
them the appropriate skills and outlook.
Hodgkinson thought that "research was no place for an amateur" (ibid.,
p. 142), and that because of the professlonalisation of research, many
teachers were afraid to try it for themselves. There was "widespread
ignorance" of "all phases of research procedure" (ibid., p. 142). Teachers and
students read scarcely any of the educational research journals. The blame
lay with the teachers. "Perhaps if students and teachers became Interested
and Involved In 'professional' research, there would be soon no need for
action research" (Hodgkinson, 1957, p. 142). Hodgkinson apparently

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dismissed the possibility that professional research did not (and perhaps
could not) address the problems which teachers found pressing.
The other methodological criticisms of action research advanced by
Hodgkinson were that teachers did not have the time to do it; and that
principals might not be able to sustain the democratic processes needed.
The theoretical arguments against action research used by Hodgkinson
reveal the way in which Its reinterpretatlon led to its lowly status among
professional researchers. Hodgkinson attacked Corey's (1949) notion of
Vertical generalisation' on the ground that the subsequent classes taught by
any teacher would almost certainly not be (statistically) like the class with
which the action research was conducted. In what may have been an effort
by Corey to legitimise action research, he had unwittingly presented it as
amateurish appropriation of the research that professional researchers were
engaged in. Their reaction was predictable.
Hodgkinson worried that teachers might have "greater cause to become
stagnant" because they could then defend their techniques on the grounds of
scientific objectivity, saying that "this is the best way because four years ago
we tested it through action research" (Hodgkinson, 1957, p. 143). These were
legitimate concerns; but the conclusions were not based on a review of
practice nor a careful reading of the proposals.
Hodgkinson regarded action research as a 'common-sense' approach. It
was different from the 'scientific' approach which employed a "valid type of
scientific experimentation":
(1) The scientific method goes beyond the solution of the practical
problem... In other words, the practical problem may be solved in
the area of common sense, but not in the scientific frame of
reference, for here many problems remain even after 'the beans are
cooked'.
(2) The scientific solution involves controlled experimentation... For
this, precise definition, measurement, and control of the variables
must be employed in an experimentalfashion.
(3) The scientific method looks for broader generalisations ... He
[sic] (the scientist) searches for those facts (negative as well as
positive) wherever they may be found, that constitute empirical
uniformities ... Thus the practical solution is merely an intermediate
step and not the end of the road for the scientist
(4) Scientific experimentation is set against an existing body of
generalisations ... he (the scientist) wishes to create a system of
theory. (Hodgkinson, 1957, p. 145-146)
Against these criteria, Hodgkinson thought that action research was only
problem-solving ('easy hobby games for little engineers'); was statistically
unsophisticated; did not lead to defensible generalisation; did not help to
create a system of theory; and was practised (and not very well) by amateurs.
Hodgkinson had not addressed two important issues in this analysis.
The first was whether educational research that did meet the criteria would

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make education any better. The second was whether these criteria,
appropriate as they may have been for some kinds of enquiry within and
beyond the field of education, were appropriate or relevant to all (or indeed
any) educational research.
We now see criticisms like those of Hodgklnson as easily countered
because of post-Kuhnian challenges to the 'received view' of the natural
sciences and the trenchant criticisms of positivism from both neo-Marxist
and feminist perspectives. This is not to say, however, that ministry
bureaucrats see qualitative research or action research as anything other
than expensive irritations needlessly complicating their efforts at monitoring
and controlling 'systems'. In this view, the articulation of local issues and the
assertion of the dlstlnctiveness and responsiveness of locale is simply error
variance or system noise. One Victorian Education Ministry 'policy- maker'
illustrates the point of view:
Since the basic questions asked by policy-makers are of a
quantitative kind, such as: 'how many?', 'how much?' and 'how
confident can we be?', there is considerable disenchantment with
responses from increasing numbers of researchers who have been
trained exclusively in ethnography and related qualitative or critical
approaches to inquiry. Policy-makers are simply not impressed
when told by such persons they are 'asking the wrong questions'.
(Rowe. 1992)
These seem to me to be issues for blinkered policy-implementers. Apparently
the content of policy is not a subject for research - do we not need an
understanding of the quality of things before we consider the quantities in
which they are evident? To be fair to Rowe, his paper Is a little more eclectic
In its advocacies than this quote suggests, but it is not the methodological
issue which is so important here. It is the politics of control expressed in this
preferred liaison between managers and system performance measurers. We
should be concerned that the critiques of rational-managerialism which have
gone on for years have had such little impact.

The Emergence of Post-modern Criticisms

Some 'qualitative' researchers of various persuasions see action research as
past its 'heyday', as passe, and generally not as disciplined (in their view) as
the research they do themselves. There is a certain optimism and arrogance
here about the ways In which a sharply tuned theoretic actually relates to
practice. The dynamism of action research is like the dynamism of pedagogy
In this respect - each has to make the best of many contesting discourses
about moral courses of action In concrete situations. J u s t as teachers'
theories of action are seen by some research psychologists as inadequate
expressions of behaviourism on the one hand and constructivism on the
other, so action researchers can expect criticism of their own methodological
spontaneity, eclecticism and practicality. As Clem Adelman (1989) has
reminded us, the practicality ethic Is important in action research practice.

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What kind of research makes educational and social practice any better
is still an important issue, and is relevant to more modem criticisms of
action research of which I think two are worth engaging: (1) empowerment
and discursive imperialism: (2) reflection, subjectivity and experience.

Empowerment and discursive imperialism. Action researchers have often

argued that action research can be empowering, liberating and
emancipatory. Critics say these are false promises. These terms appear in
my own writing about action research, but I can safely say that I have never
patronised people by telling them that I have come to empower, liberate or
emancipate them. The most grand promise I think I have ever made is that
action research might give them a sense of control of their own work. I might
suggest to people that action research might free them up a little to increase
their avenues for action; and I think that kind of claim is easily supported.
Who these days can promise anyone 'empowerment'? Perhaps there is too
much extravagant language in the discourse of action research, but there is
too much pessimism in the world of its critics. Erica McWilliam (1992) has
recently suggested that "Every paradigm, including historically more trendy
but often disappointing action research, has been revealed to be so fatally
flawed that we dare not remain with our feet firmly planted in one paradigm"
(p. 10). Leaving aside the issue of who has been disappointed, her evidence
for the flaws of the action research 'paradigm' are two pieces, one by Clem
Adelman (1989), which simply emphasised practicality over methodological
purity, and one by Jennifer Gore (1991). As Kemmis (1991) has pointed out
in the article immediately following Gore, these can hardly be viewed as
knockout punches for an activity with its feet already secured in several
intellectual and practical traditions. Experienced practitioners of action
research contest Gore's view, and our own students themselves comment on
the ways in which action research has enhanced their practice, confidence,
knowledgeability and Influence in their worksites. Furthermore, do we really
want to say that all research paradigms are 'fatally flawed'? Should people be
encouraged to believe that nothing the research community has to say Is
justified? Do we want to drive the community Into the arms of those who
have not even thought about these problems?
It is true that critical social science and its most valid expression as
action research claims that It is liberating, emancipatory and empowering for
its practitioners. But these terms need to be relativised as one part of the
many discourses which constitute and contest the ground of action research.
One set of the claims about empowerment come essentially from the
Habermasian theory of knowledge constitutive Interests which argues that
empirical-analytic research and interpretative research do not have an
explicit politics and, because of that, unintentionally establish a hierarchical
relationship between researcher and researched. Action research explicitly
contests that position, though this is not to accept that the issue has melted
away.
It can and has been argued that the discourses of action research can
become a power-play of academics over other workers (Gore, 1991). Of

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course, that is possible, as any learning situation invites the taught to
submit to the authority of a text, practice and way..of relating as a way of
engaging the concrete implications of an idea: 'If I believed the de-schoolers,
what would that mean for me and the people I care about". This risk has
been Identified for years in the action research literature, and is engaged in
concrete practice by anyone who knows anything about action research and
works with others on action research projects. For both teacher and taught
there is a 'hidden compromise', a term used by action researchers in the
HDZ Aachen (Brown et al, 1988). But is the mere possibility of a power play
a reason not t o work with people, people who would regard themselves
patronised by the suggestion that they could not walk away from work in
progress if they were being used or victimised? Do we refuse to believe Helen
Campagna when she asserted and evidenced her claim "I changed - this is
how" (Campagna, 1982) and a plethora of other examples?
Quite another set of claims about empowerment comes from the
participatory research movement, and these are not the discursive
exhortations of a methodological literature, but observations from direct
experience from cultures as different as Colombia and India. In the latter
case and probably informed by post-colonialist literatures and political
practice, participatory action researchers are actively suspicious of anything
which might be associated with the critical (or 'Maixlsf) tradition. There the
arguments include respect for popular knowledge within social movements
(Tandon, 1988, 1989), and the demonstrable credibility of traditional
farmers' knowledge of agriculture and crop improvement In their own
localities (Shiva, 1989).
It is unreasonable to think that 'critical pedagogy' or 'action research'
will inevitably cause people to feel better or to be more powerful. It Is normal
for people to feel overwhelmed when they begin to understand what some of
the large struggles are and what their obligations might be for them.
Criticising critical pedagogy and action research because they do not always
feel empowering (or enlightening) seems to me ill-informed. It is the very
purpose of action research to make the discourses of practices and about
practices problematic. In any case, understanding how the world
(institutional or broadly neo-capitalist) works may give one a sense of power
in some realm, b u t at the same time it efficiently strips It away in most
others. Having an emergent sense of control of one's own work is inevitably
coupled to a richer understanding of Just how big the agenda for further
engagement really is. How can that feel unambiguously empowering?
Up until this point I have used the terms 'critical pedagogy* and 'action
research' together deliberately to create the impression that the former
should embrace the latter, though I would argue that the converse is
counterfactual. I fear that much critical pedagogy falls far short of the
aspirations of action research and remains trapped in critical hermeneutics,
strong perhaps on ideology critique and on an analysis of the ways in which
class, race and gender discrimination are embedded in ordinary forms of life,
b u t rather weak on individual and collective action to change things beyond
the immediately accessible context. That is, much of what passes as 'critical

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pedagogy' makes the very mistake Marx and others warned about: the point
is not merely to understand history but to change it - your own as well as
that of others. I think we have to work on our own immediate bit of the
culture if we are to expect anyone to find u s credible. I admit I find that
extremely hard to do. I suspect that's what everyone finds when they begin
to engage in changing themselves.
One interpretation of Ellsworth's (1989) well-known criticism of'critical
pedagogy' is that she has discovered a form of action research. Her
observations of some failings in the use of 'critical pedagogy' are prefigured
in various ways in the action research literature which argues for deeply
engaging participants' life experience and the discursive forms in which they
are expressed. But her observations are important in a more general way
because they do make problematic again the relationship between
well-meaning and well-positioned academics and the relatively powerless.
Are academic advocates the best friends or worst enemies of disenfranchised
groups?

Reflection, subjectivity and experience. In the literature of action research

there is an explicit view that naturalistic, qualitative, interpretative methods
of enquiry will be most useful. Especially in their early engagement with
existing discourses, practices and social relationships, participatory action
researchers draw on the research methods of phenomenology, ethnography
and naturalistic case study {Stake, 1978) - seeking an elaborated and richer
understanding of the 'case' within which they are working. Participatory
action researchers all seek understanding of people's subjective experience of
their institutional situation and at the same time tiy to give working
accounts of the contexts in which meanings are constituted. They also use
the views of others to engage their own experience and to discipline their
own subjective interpretations.
Information is collected in the usual naturalistic research ways, for
example, participant observation, interview, the compilation of field notes,
logs, document analysis and the like. Validation is accomplished by a variety
of methods including triangulation of observations and interpretations,
co-authorship, participant confirmation and by testing the coherence of
arguments being presented. The practice of participant confirmation is often
linked with negotiation about the release and publication of information and
interpretation to give expression to moral commitments about the reflexlvity
of the documentation aspect of the research act in people's lives. New criteria
for validity suggested for post-structuralist enquiry by Lather (1993), which
attend to the voice of participants, the conditionality, situatedness and
incompleteness of observation, and the obligation to attend to reflexivity and
to undermining constraints to action, may be useful for action researchers.
However, it is important to note that the actual research she cites may not
meet the usual criteria for action research.
In action research we speak of the exploration and objectification of
experience and the exploration and disciplining of subjectivity and place
some faith in the role of the collective and 'critical friends' in these activities.

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There Is a need to pay closer attention to the ways In which the construction
and reconstruction of Individual Identity and subjectivity Intersects with
changing and reflecting on work, but again these are not exactly new issues
for action researchers to engage (Mas & Groundwater-Smlth, 1988).
Nevertheless, a relevant criticism of the literature of action research is that it
Is still relatively sparse In this respect - there is still too little teachers'
writing, for example. What there is, is too often in the 'fugitive' literature.
This should not be taken to mean that it is teachers alone who should be
conducting and reporting action research, it is a desirable approach for
everyone engaged in any social practice.
An important concern for action researchers is that we still know too
little about how people make use of their own experience and the experience
of others to inform their work, and still less about how tacit knowledge and
the subconscious interact with Interpretation of experience in real work
situations. The issue Is perhaps less to do with which theoretical
perspectives turn out to be most useful to people, than to do with
establishing conditions of work that encourage reflection and nurture the
supportive contexts which make reflection on action less risky on the one
hand, and action on reflection more politically effective on the other. This
returns us to our own work and the need to be more diligent In our efforts to
understand the ways in which action research does Intersect with and
perhaps Improve people's working lives. We also need to understand the
ways In which action research and the democratisatlon of research Improves
social life more generally.

F o r Action R e s e a r c h
Action research makes explicit study of efforts to change and of the ways in
which theoretical discourses inform (or confound) action In context. One of
the most obvious discoveries action researchers make early in their efforts is
that the grand narratives may be useful in providing some concepts for the
relnterpretatlon of personal experience, but that they may quickly be
supplanted. Some, b u t very far from all, of the theory of action research is
grounded In critical social science (not critical theory), but all action research
aspires to authenticity and systematically re-Invents its own discursive,
organisational and practical forms out of the examination of Its own
experience. This is not to say that the concepts of critical social science are
obsolete or do not need extension, nor that its advocates have not recognised
this (Fay, 1988). Unfortunately the debate tends to focus on what words
mean rather than on the nature of the concrete material struggle.

A Colombian Experience
Colombian Orlando Fals Borda discovered a generation ago that the
knowledge production aspirations of the academy did not Inform social
practice and the fight for social justice. He discovered that Informing social
practice required a commitment to reflection among and with those whom

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research was Intended to help. It involved explicit political commitments,
and a new approach to research. Dissatisfied with academic sociology, he left
the National University of Colombia in 1970 where he was professor and
dean, and Joined the peasant movement for land reform in Colombia.
Fals Borda was dissatisfied In three ways: the theory/practice gap in
the practice of the academy; the subject/object divide implicit in doing
research on people rather than with them; and the Cartesian split which
divorced science from consideration of questions of value:
Such problems started with the mortifying discovery that my
university, in its actual condition, could not widerstand adequately
the ever-present theory /practice dialectics. Like many other such
institutions, it remained in an ivory tower learning by rote without
relating to social and cultural realities. Moreover, it Jell victim to the
fatal belief in science as a fetish with a life of its own, a notion I
was already connecting with Oppenheimer's denouncement of the
atomic bomb. If I still wanted to be a good academician, I had to
work with a different concept of science, more ethical and pertinent
to the daily vicissitudes of the common people, which would place
me on the side of peace and progress, not death and destruction...

It became clear to me that... sociological investigation should not be

autistic but a rite of communion between thinking and acting
human beings, the researcher and researched. The usual formality
and prophylaxis of academic institutions had to be discarded and
give space for some down-to-dirt collectivisation in the search for
knowledge. This attitude I called vivencia, or life-experience
(Erlebnis)...

I had been told to watch out for my values and biases so that a
true scientific attitude would always be respected. No doubt this
well-meant advice took cognizance mainly of the Newtonian
tradition of science and technology based, as is known, on
operational rationality. But as we questioned this rationality from
the ethical and heuristic standpoints... we discovered another line
of reasoning, duly acknowledged by Galileo, Descartes and Kant
themselves, among others, that belonged to another level of
science: that of common people's knowledge based on practical
reason and communicative sociability. (Fals Borda, in press,
pp. 2-5)
When he left the university he joined forces with the participatory action
research movement of the peasant farmers of Colombia. He did not want the
distilled wisdom of methodologlsts, he wanted to learn from people who
actually did political work and found that ordinary people's objectlfication of
their experience through collective reflection was political in instructive
ways. Of course, we can now see that the kind of theoretical work which may

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have informed Fals Borda's thinking was that of the great epistemological
patriarchs, and that this may make a difference to the way in which new
knowledge is Introduced to people to help them understand the possible
causes of their dissatisfactions and perhaps problematlse their current ways
of working and valuing. But perhaps it is just as easy to overestimate the
grand narratives of feminisms, post-structuralisms and post-modernisms as
it is those of the critical tradition.
Fals Borda reported that information gathered systematically by the
peasants of Colombia recovered the history of their struggles. Significantly,
in the light of recent post-modernist and post-structuralist claims to this
idea, he found that the spectre of a "science of the proletariat" based on
Marxist ideas "soon disappeared like a phantom" and was replaced by a local
"theory-ln-action". The peasants "soon discovered that they were gaining
political clout" (p. 5). Fals Borda indicated that their work had the potential
for a new paradigm for social science: "a more complete, satisfying, and valid
type of science, committed for people's progress" (p. 4). His personal
transitions between political work and the academy combined a sociological
discipline with a political role with new meanings and significances. He
described the role of the new research methodology in these terms:
"Participatory action research assisted in this transition with constant
bearings on science-making with an ideological-ethical orientation".

An Australian Experience
The Aboriginal people of Yirrkala In Northeast Amhemland have been
articulating an Aboriginal conceptualisation of participatory action research
for several years. In a paper with the title 'Participatory research at Yirrkala
as part of the development of YQlngu', Yirrkala Aboriginal teachers Raymattja
Marika and Dayngawa Ngurruwutthun, and Batchelor College Area Lecturer
Leon White summarised their participatory action research as operating in a
context which:
• Makes explicit that our learning /researching community at Yirrkala requires
an environment in which collective responsibility constitutes the main theme
of our work ... so that we contribute to the development of our community
itself.
• Locates our research in a cooperative working community that has got
ownership and control of the work... to bring us to a position where we can
step back from our practice and reflect on the things that we do.
• Is based on an understanding of the fundamentally important role that
negotiation plays in the research process. Our work always requires
negotiation between the respective groups ...so that our Ngalapal [elder
thinking people] are sure we are not doing things for ourselves as
individuals.
• Rewards us through that negotiation by giving us recognition as learners in
our community ... to develop further skills and knowledge from Ngalapal...

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in order to maintain our culture and pass it on to the other learners that will
follow us.
• Give us respect as teachers because we are humble as learners ... and that
we value learning about our Yolngu reality.
• Is built on explicit understandings of reciprocity as expressed by 'bala lilt'...
Bala lili means giving and then getting something back.
• Establish common objectives - our starting point is always to negotiate the
right place to start... The process of establishing our common objectives gets
us to share ideas, critically analyse each other's suggestions from a Yolngu
point of view, and agree to the plan. This helps us and the Ngalapal reflect
on the things that we do before we make new plans, and establish new
directions to go.
• Assists confidence building as part of this process ... In our planning
meetings we work to develop each other's active participation. In our formal
education way Yolngu are expected (even tested) by being required by
Ngalapal to perform in public. Because of this we have developed guidelines
for the behaviour of observers ofYuta Yolngu at ceremonies and times when
people are being 'tested', particularly when someone makes a mistake ...
Confidence building through participation also helps us to understand and
appreciate our Yolngu cause. (Extracted from Marika etal, 1992)
Such writing supports the claim that action research has something to offer
In Informing and substantiating people's educational and political work, and
that both forms of work go hand in hand.

Some Diversions from a Global Project

The Importance of engagement In political as well as in substantive work has
long been recognised in the action research literature. There have been some
technicist diversions In the field especially In the USA. but these have been
due to misinterpretations of the historical and social context of Kurt Lewin's
work, but perhaps also due In part to Lewin's own institutional affiliations.
He was engaged In the academy of social psychology which was itself gripped
by behaviourism and the political technicism it implied. Lewin himself seems
to have remained somewhat detached from the social movements which gave
action research its earlier Impetus and rationale.
Current moves under the post-structuralist, post-modernist and
post-critical rubrics seem dismissive of the social movements which attend
the development of action research and which have attempted to give
expression to Aristotelian and neo-Marxist forms of critical social science.
Everyone ought to be aware of the risks of utilising metatheoretical discourse
in the direct engagement with social life, but there are more serious risks of
casting the baby out with the bath water when the concrete achievements of
social movements which began with 'critical' perspectives are ignored. There
Is something unfortunately patronising when one makes the judgement on
other people's behalf, that certain theoretical discourses are more useful to
people, and that theoretical discourses themselves are more useful than

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naturalistic and phenomenologlcal accounts of the efforts of others to

change. Van Manen (1991), for example, has made an explicit and
long-standing attempt to locate action research in a phenomenological
tradition, cogently using Langeveld's work to illustrate the moral
embeddedness of the particular pedagogical (and we might say action
research) moment.
In other words, even If the whole neo-Mandst discursive project were
abandoned (a wholly unlikely project), participatory action research would
live on in the communities and forms In which it was found to be useful. It
would still be research, and it would still find adequate eplstemological
justification. As Joseph Schwab (1969) reminded us in the 1960s, practices
are Informed by many different, incomplete. Imperfect, competing theories
which were invented for particular substantive and institutional purposes.
No body of theory is or can be the lone driver of participatory action
research. This is the very nature of practical reasoning. The important issue
for people in the academy is what turns out to be useful to those responsible
for what Habermas has called "wise and prudent action" in the concrete
situations they are in, and will continue to be in.
There clearly are problems with helping people 'theorise' or 'describe'
their practice in terms they cannot comprehend or engage. Much action
research advocacy, and I think advocacy for critical pedagogy too. Is
painfully aware of the difficulties of introducing language which helps people
to see themselves and their condition differently. But advocacy for different
voices and different drummers needs to be kept in perspective. The
much-crlticlsed 'grand narratives' have yielded powerful, though clearly not
all-powerful nor all-seeing, perspectives. Why, after all, are Marxist ideas
taught in business schools? Was Marx no longer relevant when his early
scientlsm was exposed? How can we believe the advocacies for multiple
readings and multiple voices from writers who give us all their own words?
What action researchers will most probably find useful are narrative
accounts of reflection and action written by others in similar situations. We
can expect the claims to understanding and knowledge in these sorts of
accounts to be different from those In the academy, but they are not less
valid.
I think we need to be extremely careful about the anarchistic, nihilistic
and relativistic tendencies in the new debates In social theory. In concrete
terms, their naive politics do not lead to anarchy, nihilism or relativism, but
like the abstract expressionism which is their historical antecedent, they
open the door to fascism, not feminism nor indeed anything better than the
best of critical social science.
It is patently clear that we need to do better every day If we are to save
education and ourselves without sacrificing our children, the Third World
and the planet. The best and worst aspects of Westernlsm constitute our
ways of thinking, working and relating to each other. As Kemmls (1992, p.
xxxlil) has argued, we need to work practically and theoretically to help
people to analyse their suffering (Fay, 1975, 1988), to articulate the
conditions that disfigure their lives (Hall, 1986), and to use these processes

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of enlightenment to help develop social movements which can change the

conditions of social life which maintain Irrationality, injustice a n d Incoherent
and unsatisfying forms of existence. The changes will be far more
fundamental t h a n many of u s are likely to feel comfortable with. This
twenty-first century reformation Involves making Western culture less
economistlc, less patriarchlcal, less individualistic, less exclusively
Judaeo-Christlan, less ethnocentric, a n d less complacent about the weak
role played by Western democratic a n d jurisprudence systems in protecting
people a n d their rights. Further, it requires reversal of t h e subordination of
moral idealism by materialism a n d a more egalitarian and less
environmentally destructive society. We need to bring these ideas to people's
attention If they have not already heard them, a n d to help them a n d each
other to take new forms of informed action. Though It cannot be, and h a s
never pretended to be, a panacea for all ills, participatory action research In
its many guises seems a n indispensable part of that process.

Correspondence

Professor Robin McTaggart, School of Administration & Curriculum Studies,

Faculty of Education, Deakln University, Geelong, Victoria 3217, Australia.

Notes
[1] Keynote address to the Methodological Issues in Qualitative Health Research
Conference, Friday 27 November 1992, Deakln University, Geelong, Australia.
[2] The use of the term 'practice' can be confusing. Maclntyre used It In the broad
sense to embrace all kinds of work under the rubric of something like 'education'.
This sense of 'practice' Includes theory, organisation and practice In Habermas's
(1972, 1974) terms and Foucault's (1973) language, life and labour terms
(discourse, organisation, pracUce; language, relationships, activities). Obviously,
the term 'practice' Is sometimes used for situation-specific patterns of deliberate
activity. The context ought to make It clear here in which of these two general
senses the term is being used.
[3] See Rothbard (1988) for an historical and depressing encapsulation of this in the
USA, and Pusey (1991) for Its Australian manifestation.
[4] Revans himself decried efforts to call him the Inventor of the term regarding such
attributions as a sign of profound Ignorance of the history of Western thought
(Revans, 1980).
[5] Though there are many, for example, those done at Deakln University for the
Human Rights Commission by Colin Henry (Henry, 1992a,b: Henry & Edwards,
1986; Henry et al, 1985); Arphom Chuaprapalsilp's (1989) work in nurse
education, our own work in Aboriginal education (Bunbury et al, 1991; Marika et
al, 1992; McTaggart, 1991b); an extensive list in participatory action research
(Fals Borda & Rahman, 1991); In British education the Ford Teaching Project
and several subsequent publications (Hustler et al, 1986, Nixon, 1981); and
others (Alder & Sandor, 1990; Beasley. 1987; Coventry et al, 1984; Kemmis &
McTaggart, 1988b; Victorian Youth Advocacy Network, 1990; Baldry & Vinson,
1991).

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[6] There Is of course a danger of overvaluing the text as an agent of change. For
example. North American educational philosopher Harry Broudy has argued the
Importance of Imagery In leamtng. action and generalisation:
Less attention has been paid... to ... the generalising potential of images, whereby
a highly complex structure can be apprehended directly through an image. The
idea of holiness, for example, Is the theme of numerous works of art and many
theological tracts. Who is to say that gazing sensitively at pictures of the
Crucifixion or the Madonna will not convey the idea of more adequately and
perhaps even more accurately? Acres of words are needed to explicate the Import
of heroism, while one picture; such as the raising of the flag at Iwo Jtma, or a song
such as the national anthem conveys it Immediately. (Broudy, 1987, p. 13)
[7] See Robert PIrsig's brilliant Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974),
essential reading for all aspiring action researchers.

References
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Baldry, E & Vinson, T. (Eds) (1991) Actions Speak: strategies and lessons from
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Broudy. H.S. (1981) Truth and Credibility. New York: Longman.
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Bunbury, R., Hastings, W., Henry, J. & McTaggart, R. (Eds) (1991) Towards Aboriginal
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(Eds) The Action Research Reader (2nd edn), pp. 148-150. Geelong: Deakln
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Carr, W. & Kemmls. S. (1986) Becoming Critical: education, knowledge and action
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Chaudhary, A.K. (forthcoming) Towards an eplstemology of participatory research, in
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Chuaprappalsilp, A. (1989) Improving learning from experience through the conduct of
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