Crisis, Empowerment, and Learning in Early Childhood

As early childhood teacher educators, we wonder how we create action research experiences that support our intent of empowering teachers as researchers and agents of change. This research uses collage and interview, focusing on questions regarding empowerment, learning, and crisis in the action research process. Our findings demonstrate that empowerment came out of crisis points and, through reflection in and on action, appears inseparable to action research encounters. In particular, action research evokes dissonance, resolutions, and evolution in these teachers’ and participant-researchers’ agency, and meaning is generated out of the metaphors.