Test

Action research

Action research is a form of collective self-reflective enquiry undertaken by participants in social situations in order to improve the rationality and justice of their own social or educational practices, as well as their understanding of those practices and the situations in which the practices are carried out… The approach is only action research when it is collaborative, though it is important to realise that action research of the group is achieved through the critically examined action of individual group members. (Kemmis and McTaggart 1988: 5-6)

Social process

Learners inevitably participate in communities of practitioners and… the mastery of knowledge and skill requires newcomers to move toward full participation in the sociocultural practices of a community. “Legitimate peripheral participation” provides a way to speak about the relations between newcomers and old-timers, and about activities, identities, artefacts, and communities of knowledge and practice. A person’s intentions to learn are engaged and the meaning of learning is configured through the process of becoming a full participant in a sociocultural practice. This social process, includes, indeed it subsumes, the learning of knowledgeable skills.

(Lave and Wenger 1991: 29)

…Frog!

Although people believe they value sustainable development, local economic pressures dominate their thinking. After all, people (at least those who are already affluent) find it obvious that their neighborhoods have become far cleaner, presumably because they have already adopted the right approaches…. FROG! generates solid economic growth yet this will probably be unsustainable because no one takes care to address sustainability as their ambition.

Virtue

The virtuous habit of action is always an intermediate state between the opposed vices of excess and deficiency: too much and too little are always wrong; the right kind of action always lies in the mean. Thus, for example:

with respect to acting in the face of danger,
courage {Gk. [andreia} is a mean between
the excess of rashness and the deficiency of cowardice;

with respect to the enjoyment of pleasures,
temperance {Gk. sophrosúnê} is a mean between
the excess of intemperance and the deficiency of insensibility;

with respect to spending money,
generosity is a mean between
the excess of wastefulness and the deficiency of stinginess;

with respect to relations with strangers,
being friendly is a mean between
the excess of being ingratiating and the deficiency of being surly; and

with respect to self-esteem,
magnanimity {Gk. megalopsychia} is a mean between
the excess of vanity and the deficiency of pusillanimity.