ABSTRACT
Each of us, if asked this question individually, would undoubtedly answer it from different cultural and positional perspectives. If there is one single pattern that emerges from these chapters, it is that the forms, purposes, methods and results of action research around the world differ widely. As Susan Noffke wrote in preparation for this chapter:
That, more than anything, to me, is a point well worth underlining: Action research has ‘multiple’ meanings and uses. Its ‘potential’ cannot be judged apart from the ‘ideological’ bases which drive its practices, as well as the material contexts. The history and culture surrounding action research projects (and here I mean ideology as well as material and social practices) are great influences. What we need to look for is NOT whose version of action research is THE correct one, but rather, what it is that needs to be done, and how action research can further those aims.
