ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the epistemological and ontological dimensions of the role of research in teachers' work. These two interrelated dimensions are the subject of extensive scholarly debate. The chapter focuses on the epistemological debates surrounding the nature of educational knowledge, which is conceptualised as two distinct knowledges, namely, researcher knowledge and teacher knowledge. It explores the epistemological debates which in the West have created knowledge dualisms such as theory and practice, and accompanying hierarchies of knowledge such as researcher knowledge and teacher knowledge. Teachers' knowledge is primarily 'high context' whereas researchers' knowledge, which the chapter explores, is 'low context' and hence generalisable in a way that 'high-context' knowledge is not. The chapter equates researcher knowledge with what teachers generally perceive as theoretical knowledge, that is, knowledge produced in the academy away from the context of practice.
