Review Essay: Utopia Made Practical? Action Research Comes of Age

This large and important work gathers together an enormous variety of action research processes, applications and skills in its 45 chapters. Following a useful section of chapter outlines and an introduction by the editors, a section on "Groundings" offers a number of value and epistemological positions. This is followed in turn by three other sections and a conclusion. "Practices" provides descriptions of many of the varieties of action research. "Exemplars" contains case studies. "Skills" offers readers a glimpse of some of the competencies action researchers draw on in their work. The quality of the individual chapters is high. In the introduction and conclusions the editors describe their purpose, identify some themes, and offer a commentary which points towards a way forward for action research. The result is a rich collation of current thinking about a family of action oriented research approaches which is growing in popularity. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs020122