An action inquiry into negotiated learning.

This study employed action inquiry, since its aim was to improve both understanding and practice in the area of classroom negotiation between pupils and teachers, Action inquiry entails practitioner observation, practitioner interaction and practitioner intervention; in this study it was supplemented by an attempt at a phenomenological description of the essential features of negotiation, against which classroom experience could be weighed. Information about classroom interaction was gathered, by the lone practitioner-researcher, both by participant observation and video-recording ('practitioner observation'). The model of classroom negotiation which emerged was tested against the views of other teachers ('practitioner interaction'). Alternative practices, thought by the informants to be effective, were used to make small-scale interventions in classroom practice ('practitioner intervention'). The understanding of negotiation developed in this way was finally interrogated in the light of a separate phenomenological description of negotiation. A key aspect of the phenomenology of negotiation is the dynamic involving communication, strategies of interaction, participation and learning within which people are willing to examine their differences. This was found to be true of classroom negotiation: Pupil and teacher learned of the differences which existed between them in the context of an ongoing interaction in which both participated. However, classroom interaction involves an inevitable disparity of power, which must be recognised and prevented from subverting negotiation. The validity and ethics of the framework developed are discussed, as are the implications of the findings for the classroom teacher and for teacher training.