Teachers as researchers: Reflecting on the challenges of research–practice partnerships between school and university in Chile

Abstract

Teachers have tended to be underestimated as experts of their own practice and relegated to a technical role. In this context, action research appears as a form to legitimate teachers as active agents and producers of educational knowledge. This article aims to examine how a collaborative research–practice partnership between schools and universities in Chile fosters teachers’ role as researchers. It adopts a qualitative methodology based on thematic analysis of data collected from questionnaires and focus groups. In particular, it reports perceptions of in-service teacher researchers who conducted research projects between 2016 and 2017 as a part of a researcher–practitioner partnership strategy implemented by a university in Chile. The findings suggest that the partnerships were highly valued among teachers because the partnerships allowed them to develop pedagogical reflection towards the improvement of their practices and required particular awareness and recognition of roles and the relationships between practical and theoretical knowledge. Finally, possibilities for strengthening teachers’ role as researchers and collaborative research are presented at the end of the article.