Research that counts: practitioner research and the academy

This article will take up the matter of practitioner research as a shared enterprise between the academy and the field of practice and how little this work has been valued by those upon whom it impacts least. Partnerships between universities and schools in order to develop knowledge and insight about practice are not themselves new, as evidenced by the Innovative Links between Universities and Schools for Teacher Professional Development Project and the many programmes that have followed thereafter. What is new is the higher education context with its quality assessment exercises that scale and rank academic work such that authentic engagement with the cognate field is belittled and demeaned by counting for almost naught.