Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

CiteULike is a free service for managing and discovering scholarly references - click here to get started.

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Sociology
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Fox, N. J.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

Practice-based Evidence

Towards Collaborative and Transgressive Research

Nick J. Fox

University of Sheffield n.j.fox{at}sheffield.ac.uk

Studies of the application of research in policy and service delivery suggest that the translation of research findings into practice is not straightforward. Practitioners are criticized for failing to base actions on research evidence, while academic research is sometimes condemned as `irrelevant' to practice. This paper argues that this conflict derives in part from an academic model of research constructed in opposition to practice. Reflections on scientific logocentrism (claims to possess unmediated knowledge of reality) and `transgressive' action research provide a critique of traditional research and suggest an alternative, practice-based research model. Three propositions for generating `practice-based evidence' are identified. Firstly, the pursuit of knowledge should be acknowledged as a local and contingent process. Secondly, research activity should be constitutive of difference, questioning the legitimation and repression of particular aspects of the world. Finally, theory-building should be seen as an adjunct to practical activity. Together, these positions dissolve the researcher/researched and research/practice oppositions in traditional research and supply an ethically and politically engaged research. Practice-based research is explored in terms of four moments in the research process.

Key Words: action research • postmodernism • post-structuralism • research methods • social theory

Sociology, Vol. 37, No. 1, 81-102 (2003)
DOI: 10.1177/0038038503037001388
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 SociologyHome page
J. Brownlie
Researching, Not Playing, in the Public Sphere
Sociology, August 1, 2009; 43(4): 699 - 716.
[Abstract] [PDF]

Home page
 Feminist CriminologyHome page
K. Moult
Paradigm Busters or Poor Cousins?: University-Based Research Units Working on Gender Reform in South Africa
Feminist Criminology, October 1, 2008; 3(4): 276 - 302.
[Abstract] [PDF]