ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a study of the potential of action research in professional education. Vicki started her teaching career in the late 1960s. Her first post lasted for three years in a primary school for children 5 –9-years-old. An autobiographical introduction to her third and final action research report on gender in education gives a partial, but illuminating, glimpse into her past. Vicki wrote, A career of marriage and motherhood was only briefly interrupted by a short spell of war work in a factory, an environment so alien to her as to make ‘outside’ work never a feasible alternative again. She is an intelligent self-educated lady whose true educational potential has never been realized. As the course progressed through its first year, Vicki’s self-confidence, like that of most of her course colleagues, developed though she never overcame her dislike of the large plenary group.
