Class Act Research

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industrial efficiency into schools. Under the guidance of the US Office of Education a number of schools were surveyed their own work and 'objective tests' were developed to determine the quality of teaching [see Norris, 1990].

In contrast, Lewin carried out tests in factories and neighbourhood settings in order to show that there were:

"greater gains in productivity and in law and order through democratic participation rather than autocratic coercion." [Adelman, 1993]

At the heart of such projects was the notion of empowering ordinary people in local communities to do what they wanted done. From the 1950s onwards AR as an element in the approach to social problems has varied in its importance. In the 1960s in particular,

"UK and the US social policy provided exceptionally large budgets for intervention programmes in education, health and housing. These programmes were intended to raise the life chances, achievement and expectations of the poor, otherwise called the ...

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has an internationally based editorial board and publishes refereed papers. There is also a magazine called the Action Researcher which was recently launched with Jean McNiff as editor. The magazine provides publication opportunities for a anyone who carries out AR, not just academics.

2. Evaluation

While he was active in the 1930s, Lewin met and corresponded with John Dewey who wrote about progressive education. He did not, however, have contact with Ralph Tyler who was at Ohio State University during the 1930s and was later a colleague of Dewey at the University of Chicago. Tyler was engaged in the beginnings of evaluation and had ideas which closely resembled those of ...

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