Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry and Practice

The publication of the Handbook of Action Research is a publishing milestone, drawing together the different strands of action research, demonstrating their diverse applications and showing their interrelations.

Far-reaching in scale and scope, the Handbook informs readers about the latest approaches, both quantitative and qualitative, in social inquiry, and moves the field forward with fresh insights and applications. Throughout, the contributing authors grapple with questions of how to integrate knowledge with action, how to collaborate with co-researchers in the field, and how to present the necessarily 'messy' components in a coherent fashion. The organization of the volume reflects the many different issues and levels of analysis represented.

'This is an excellent book for helping professionals and students on undergraduate and postgraduate research courses. It is an essential purchase for understanding the inter-relationship between the `thinkers' and `doers' engaged in investigating and understanding the society in which researchers live' - European Journal of Social Work

'A remarkable reframing of action research that engages the spirit as well as the mind, in inquiry that matters, shared among inquirers who matter. "Validity" as we once knew it will never be the same after these improvements. Wonderfully provocative!' - Karl Weick, University of Michigan

`'This is truly a significant work. Not only has action research reached maturity, but in the context of the postmodern constructionist debates its scope has been dramatically expanded, its conceptual underpinnings deepened, and its forms of practice enormously enriched. The present confluence of humanism and pragmatism has inspired lively conversations between us; the work has the potential to transform the very idea of social science' - Kenneth J Gergen, author of An Invitation to Social Construction and Mary Gergen, author of Feminist Reconstructions in Psychology