Teachers as Researchers

by Joe L. Kincheloe

Published 31 March 1991
Recently, numerous educational thinkers have written about the process of deskilling in the pre-service and inservice education of American teachers. Deskilling involves taking complex tasks and breaking them down into highly specified actions which can be performed by low skill workers. If teachers are to resist this deskilling, they must be empowered. The best way to gain such empowerment is to develop the ability to teach oneself - and acquaintance with the concerns and methods of qualitative research is a good starting place. Kincheloe views the teacher as both consumer and producer of knowledge about education, and attempts to engage teachers in the debate about educational research.