A Living Educational Theory (Living Theory) approach focuses attention on the experiences and implications of living values that
carry hope for the flourishing of humanity. These values are the life-affirming and life-enhancing values that give meaning and purpose to the researcher’s life.
They are clarified as they emerge in the course of researching questions such as, ‘How am I improving what I am doing?’
They form the explanatory principles and standards by which improvements in both practice and knowledge-creation are judged.
The approach stresses the importance of extending the influence of these ontological and relational values and understandings in explanations of educational influence.
In a Living Educational Theory approach to research and a human existence, individuals hold their lives to account by producing accounts
of their living-educational theories; that is ‘explanations of their educational influences in their own learning, the learning of others and the
learning of social formations, in enquiries of the kind, 'How am I improving what I am doing?'’(Whitehead, 1989).
A Living Theory researcher can use methods and draw insights from a range of other methodologies and theories, such as Action Research, Narrative Enquiry, Self-Study,
Participatory Research, Autoethnography, Ethnography, Grounded Theory, Critical Theory and Case Study, as well as various quantitative methods. Researchers new to
Living Theory research might visit an introduction and read the Advanced Bluffer’s Guide.
Living Theory Group
