The trials and tribulations of teacher-research: an ethnographic study of the research culture in an English secondary school

Purpose This paper explores the tensions in the field of teacher-research when teachers in one school value disparate research approaches. Ethnographic methods were utilised to study teachers’ research practices in an English secondary school where “controlled research trials” were privileged, but disputed by some teacher-researchers preferring qualitative over quantitative data. Design/methodology/approach The authors draw upon fieldnotes from observations of staff meetings and research training sessions for teachers, as well as semi-structured interviews with key actors. The 21 h of contact resulted in 41 pages of qualitative data that were analyzed thematically. Findings The findings reveal that some of the teacher-researchers recognized the challenges of, and took issue with, the positivist research paradigm promoted by the organization, and acknowledged the benefits of qualitative approaches to teacher-research, including those from the ethnographic tradition. Originality/value A new way of theorizing teacher-research is proposed, which the authors coin “re-search”. Taking the notion of “research” as literally “re-searching” a phenomenon, it is argued that teachers systematically “looking again” at their practice, perhaps utilizing auto-ethnography, would be a desirable foil to the positivist hegemony currently found in the field of teacher-research.