Personal and intellectual influences leading to Lewin’s paradigm of action research

Abstract

The idea of action research and social change was the last conceptual topic to engage Kurt Lewin’s attention and energy prior to his untimely death in February 1947. In this article we commemorate the 60th anniversary of his 1946 paper ‘Action research and minority problems’. In the present article, eight principles of action research which were extracted from Lewin’s writings are presented and discussed. We attempt to show that the action research paradigm derived from four aspects of Lewin’s personal and intellectual background: his personal history as a Jew and an immigrant to America; his field theory and its meta-theoretical principles; a deep commitment to the idea of democracy; and his theory of social change.

Making a difference: Linking research and action in practice, pedagogy, and policy for social justice: Introduction

“…Consequently, this has brought about a similar awareness of and commitment to the need for engaging in collaborative community building for meaningful pedagogy, policy, and practice toward social transformation. There are various labels applied to such participatory and action-oriented research (Acker et al, 1991;Argyris, 1996;Barber, 2006;Bargal, 2006Bargal, , 2008Blumer et al, 2007;Byrne-Jimenez and Orr, 2007; Campbell and Groundwater-Smith, 2006;Cutler and Hayward, 2007;Dick, 2004;Fawcett et al, 1995;Gatenby and Humphries, 2000;Hatch et al, 1993;Katsui and Koistinen, 2008;Keck and Sikkink, 1998;Kirby and McKenna, 1989;Pinto et al, 2007;Rahman, 1991;Small and Uttal, 2005;Stoecker, 2009). These include action research, action-oriented research, community-based participatory research, collaborative action research, feminist participatory research, feminist action research, and some forms of public sociology.…”

Read Between the Lines; the Emancipatory Nature of Formative Annotative Feedback on Draft Assignments

“…Lewin's theory of change reinforces the small group as the ideal situation for behavioural change when additional forces enact to break the habits of resistance and social habits (Bargal 2006). The power of the group and the students' own peers exert pressure to overcome inaction towards cognitive re-framing (Lewin 1951).…”

“…Kurt Lewin's stateside work over fifty years ago on experimental psychology and social systems developed in parallel with the Tavistock Institute in London (Holter and SchwartzBarcott 1993), with his early work published in the Institute's journal Human Relations (Bargal 2006). Lewin identified a need for a dynamic research methodology which could keep pace with humans' capacity and need for invention post World War Two (Lewin 1947a, p. 6).…”

“…Most notably AR's eclectic and flexible approach is practicable because it remains situated in the context of the researchers own practice (Small 1995;Kemmis 2006). AR's problem orientated process therefore includes interrelating steps of planning, action and fact finding with particular importance placed on evaluation to identify areas of methodological change (Bargal 2006).…”

Stasis and change: social psychological insights into social-ecological resilience

“…Several principles guide action research (Susman and Evered 1978, Bargal et al 1992, Bargal 2006, but the fundamental premise is that of a cyclical problem-solving and learning process in which research, i.e., planning and fact finding, leads to action, i.e., intervention, followed by the evaluation of action to inform research, further action, and so forth. The coupling of theory and practice ultimately means that both theoretical and practical issues can be simultaneously solved, not to mention the fact that methodological rigour can be upheld (McKay and Marshall 2001).…”