Practitioner Research as "Praxidents" Waiting to Happen
A.J. Schiera, University of Pennsylvania
Practitioner research, as Ravitch (2014) writes in the previous issue of Perspectives on Urban Education, holds the unique possibility of “generating local, practice-based knowledge that is deeply contextualized and meaningfully embedded in a specific milieu” while spurring a “counter-hegemonic way of thinking about and approaching theory-research-practicepolicy connections and integrations” and “push[ing] against traditional expertlearner dichotomies” (p. 5). My academicself strongly aligns with these values and approaches. My teacher-self often felt worlds away from this. Ravitch’s piece has motivated me to write about this gap that I feel in relation to the field of practitioner inquiry, and to explore my own reflections on my practice as a form of practitioner research.