about developing practice in ways that did notfit with the wider goals of the
intended pedagogical changes but this shifted later. It was a slow shift to accom-
modate the challenge to past experience, values and beliefs. The evaluation report
concluded that for those involved over two years there was evidence that action
research had impacted
i.‘Upon ways in which they have designed and implemented their own teaching
and learning so that they can describe positive differences that this has made to
pupil outcomes;
ii....Upon teaching and learning beyond the original remit of the action research
project that they have designed and led;
iii....Had some positive impact upon those teachers who have been trained more
recently...and the way in which they can jointly impact teaching and learning
in their shared environments to improve pupil outcomes;
iv. There is much evidence that the experience of the Cambridge training has had
a considerable and positive impact upon teacher’s capacities to think reflec-
tively and reflexively.’(ibid, p. 2)
The South African example concluded that it needed to be a longer term, more
sustainable enterprise and that it had been too one−off as an initiative.
However, motivation was assumed in both these projects. The curriculum
advisers or facilitators in the South African example questioned that assumption
they had made that all teachers would want to engage in such an activity.‘The
biggest assumption we made was to say that teachers would be more than willing
and excited by the possibility of developing their own curriculum within a national
framework’(Robinson and Soudien 2009 : 474). Many teachers did not want to
share their work and did not now how to collaborative in constructive ways. This
was true initially in Kazakhstan. The values of collaboration embedded in the
project did not necessarilyfit easily with a climate of individualism and competition
and there were cultural clashes, but they did alter slowly.
39.8.2 Rooted in the Context, Systems and in Professional
Community
It was stated earlier that the phenomenon is dynamic because all the influences on
teachers’pedagogy are interacting during the process of learning about practice—
the national policy context, the immediate school context and past experience and
preparation. The work brings the participants and policy makers face to face with
the reality of the context and the history relating to implementation. In South
Africa, the authors concluded that‘all of the respondents were critical of the how it
engaged with the realities that teachers brought with them from their pasts, citing
difficult conditions, demoralisation inadequate and unequal resourcing and poor
management ad leadership’(ibid: 473). They raise the very important question,
39 Researching Practice as Education and Reform 591