Power, positionality and practitioner research: Schoolteachers’ experiences of professional doctorates in education

The growth, internationally, in professional doctorates over the last 25 years has been well documented as are the forms, fields and disciplines that such doctorates embrace. Yet relatively little is known about the professional tensions teachers encounter, in relation to their positionality, when carrying out doctoral research in the schools where they work. This paper draws attention, not only to the contribution the Professional Doctorate in Education (EdD) makes to research as a whole, but to the significance of teachers as invaluable members of the research community. Findings will be presented from interviews with 30 senior teachers from schools in England who are carrying out practitioner research as part of their doctoral studies. The paper draws attention to how power relations in the research process ferment the structural and agentic concerns of the participants in this study when discussing their researcher positionality. The scholarly significance of this study is its contribution to knowledge of how schools are increasingly becoming both sites of research and research-rich environments. With its focus on researcher positionality the paper draws attention, not just to the tensions and dilemmas these participants encounter on their doctoral journey, but to the importance of teacher researchers and their role in research knowledge production.