The Potential of Deweyan-Inspired Action Research

introduction This article examines the potential of Action Research informed by Dewey’s pragmatism as a research methodology in the social sciences. Not only a philosophical orientation, pragmatism is also a powerful mode of inquiry. When combined with the democratic research approach of Action Research, Deweyan pragmatism has great potential to shed light on educational and other social science questions, forward social change, and enact Dewey’s vision of radical social democracy. Although Dewey’s philosophy, one could argue, has never been mainstream in education and in research, the combination of Deweyan philosophy and Action Research has the potential to revive interest in Dewey’s work and serve as an example of Deweyan inquiry. This article is divided into three sections. In the first, I will provide an overview of both Action Research and pragmatism as a mode of inquiry, while in the second, I will outline a theoretical framework for Deweyan-inspired Action Research based on the scholarship of pragmatic action researchers Greenwood and Levin (2007), as well as Dewey. In the third section, I will address criticisms leveled at both Action Research and Dewey, and suggest that the combination of these two discourses/practices has great potential as transformative social science research.