ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we return to the idea of critical practice as reflection-inaction and revisit the influential ideas of Donald Schon as set out in his widely-used texts The Reflective Practitioner (1983) and Educating the Reflective Practitioner (1987). In the present authors’ own work Adult Education as Theory, Practice and Research: The Captive Triangle (1989), we incorporated some of Schon’s ideas into an examination of adult education practice and action research as an associated mode of enquiry. In the light of our re-examination of the relationship between theory and practice, and our own experiences in exploring educational practice with graduate students and fellow adult educators, we now believe that there are some problems with Schon’s analysis of reflective practice. It is not our intention to belittle the contribution that he has undoubtedly made to furthering an understanding of practitioner development but rather to build on his understanding by reviewing the claims that Schon himself makes on behalf of ‘reflective practice’.
