SPF Board President Lonnie Rowell and Publication Director Eunsook Hong presented a zoom session to a group of teachers in Scotland on January 15, 2021. The session addressed SPF’s mission and publishing with SPF, among other topics. The meeting was organized by the Action Research Grants program of The Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS). The EIS is the largest teaching union in Scotland and is also the oldest teaching union in the world according to the EIS website, https://www.eis.org.uk/Join/Welcome. Founded in 1847, EIS currently has more than 50,000 members. The EIS Action Research Grants program is a funding stream designed to support practitioner action research amongst EIS members. The purpose of the grants is to facilitate both learning and action, and in doing so, offer teaching professionals the opportunity for personal and professional development.
Drs. Rowell and Hong’s presentation, “Educational Action Research and knowledge production: Towards democratized knowledge in education” was followed by a Question/Answer period and discussion with the participating teachers, each of whom has received an EIS Action Research Grant for 2020-2021, and with Rob Henthorn (EIS Professional Learning Coordinator), and Kevin Lowden (Senior Researcher, Robert Owen Centre for Educational Change, University of Glasgow) and Karen McArdle (Professor Emerita, University of Aberdeen), who serve as consultants to the EIS action researchers. SPF is looking forward to publishing EIS action research projects as they are completed.
The January presentation by SPF is part of the Foundation’s 2021 efforts to strengthen collaborations and partnerships globally with organizations and institutions supporting practitioner research toward fulfilling the SPF mission of democratizing knowledge production and dissemination. If interested in additional information on collaboration and partnership opportunities, please contact Lonnie Rowell at socialpublishersfoundation@gmail.com.