Reconceiving with action research: working within and across communities of practice in a university/community college collaborative venture

Three teacher educators worked at a US community college with two adult education staff on a grant-supported project bridging high school dropouts from adult education to employment. The teacher educators' apparently simple task of facilitating grant participants' engagement with action research became confusingly challenging. The consultants engaged in 'second-order' action research to frame their process of reflective practice, thus deepening their understanding of the project's complexity, the marginalization of adult education, and their adult education colleagues' and other grant participants' reflective practice. This shift in understanding, powered by their continuing reflective practice, precipitated a transformation of their theoretical framework. They moved from questioning the nature of their roles to a more complex understanding of their experience and identity as movement among and within overlapping communities of practice.