The paper presents a case study of a community of educational practice formed by the synergy between a natural history museum and a university department of pre-school education, which undertook participatory action research aimed at the creation of innovative museum programs for young children. The case study is evaluated, and the findings show that the community of practice was able to bring situated knowledge into question and interrogate propositional knowledge by means of participatory action research. The authors conclude that participatory action research enabled the community to monitor the implementation of theory with scientific rigor and formulate a new “knowledge strategy”, which in theoretical terms will guide future developments.

Ampartzaki, M., Kypriotaki, M., Voreadou, C., Dardioti, A., & Stathi, I. (2012). Communities of practice and participatory action research: the formation of a synergy for the development of museum programmes for early childhood. Educational Action Research, 21(1), 4-27. Full Text.