York St John professor is Routledge Education author of the month

The renowned global publisher of academic books and journals, Routledge, has selected York St John University Professor, Jean McNiff, as its Education author of the month for February 2013.

Jean McNiff is Professor of Educational Research within the Faculty of Education and Theology at York St John University and has written a range of articles and textbooks on different aspects of practice-based action research, independently and collaboratively.

Her most recent book is a third edition of Action Research: Principles and Practice (2013). Abiding commitments include the idea of how studying their practices can help people explain how they hold themselves accountable for their thinking and their work, in the interests of others and of a co-operative and productive world order.

Jean McNiff said: “It is such an honour to be chosen as a Routledge Education author of the month. Writing the third edition of Action Research: Principles and Practice has been important for me. The first edition, written in 1988, began to draw on ideas that were developing in my doctoral studies, about immanence and emergence and connectedness, and the transformational relationships between people, their thinking and their experiences of the world; these ideas have matured over the years, and now incorporate ideas about dialogue and spiritual relationship. I like the idea, drawing on the work of Howard Zinn, of a people’s history of action research, so the book contains lots of small case studies from people I meet and work with all over the world and from different contexts. It is a real privilege to be able to work with them, and a lot of fun. It is also nice to be able to use your writing to critique your own thinking, and each new edition of a book, including this one, represents a critical step forward in the thinking. Life never stands still.”