From the Editors

Welcome to the inaugural ARNA 2014 Proceedings! You are on the most exciting and captivating page of the Proceedings WIKI. Thank you for being here! This page contains a rich collection of work of ARNA members, Fellows of action research, presented at the ARNA 2014 Conference in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (USA) in May 2014. Its richness is in diversity that honors and embraces differences that matter and bring us together to share, to learn, to grow, to challenge, and to generate new knowledge and additional insights. Its richness enables readers to experience the world from different points of view and to explore new ways of seeing and understanding to make a difference and to serve as the agents of change.

The collection is organized by the ARNA 2014 Conference type of session formats. Specifically, it includes 12 papers, two symposium presentations, six workshop session summaries, two round table discussion summaries, one poster presentation, and three working group summaries written in English and Spanish languages. The authors are the members of the action research global community. They live and work in Australia, Canada, Colombia, Finland, Kenya, Mexico, Mongolia, Portugal, United Kingdom, and USA. While being a diverse group of scholars and practitioners with different backgrounds and from various fields of practice and research, they share passion for action research, social justice, change, transformation, education, environment, livelihood and sustainability of communities, and collaboration, among other key commitments and aspirations. Their work is guided by engagement, reflections, actions, and critical dispositions.

The work that is presented in this collection is unified within the ARNA 2014 Conference main theme “Enacting on our Beliefs – The So-What of Action Research.” The intent is to explore possibilities, to raise questions, to engage in a dialogue, to share ways of doing and seeing, to jointly identify and address issues of common concerns, to influence political discourse, to build relationships of value and meaning, and to discover connections vital to our work as action researchers. It is unlikely that one descriptive summary will give justice to the diverse and diverging views captured in narratives presented here. Instead, we would like to invite you to read, to respond to, and to reflect on the shared stories. We also encourage you to consider getting in touch with the authors to form new working groups and to build new action research partnerships transcending professional and disciplinary, institutional, and geographical boundaries.

As the members of the ARNA Proceedings Editorial Team we look forward to seeing your work presented at the ARNA 2015 Conference in Toronto, Canada and, subsequently, published in the ARNA 2015 Conference Proceedings.

The ARNA 2014 Proceedings Editors:

Elena Polush, Lead Editor, USA

Tara Flynn, Associate Editor, Canada

Heather Leaman, Associate Editor, USA

Jose Martinez, Assistant Editor, USA

Jamie Hill, Webmaster, Assistant Editor, USA