ABSTRACT
One of the founding figures of action research, Kurt Lewin (1948) remarked that research which produced nothing but books is inadequate. The task, as Marx suggests in his Theses on Feuerbach, is not merely to understand and interpret the world but to change it. Action research is a powerful tool for change and improvement at the local level. Indeed Lewin’s own work was deliberately intended to change the life chances of disadvantaged groups in terms of housing, employment, prejudice, socialization, and training. Its combination of action and research has contributed to its attraction to researchers, teachers and the academic and educational community alike, demolishing Hodgkinson’s (1957) corrosive criticism of action research as easy hobby games for little engineers!
