Reconstructing teaching professionalism in the new modernity: An agenda for new action narratives ¹

The reflections developed in this text on the reconstruction of professionalism in teaching are located within a historical and social dimension, given that it is only within the boundaries of the coordinates of the spirit of historic time and the present culture (Zeitgeist) that proposals for professional reconstruction can be fully understood. Bearing this in mind, we can see the need to proceed, yet again, to the task of this reconstruction due to the fact that society has evolved from the first to the ‘second modernity’, with the resulting crisis in the educational models of the recent past. With the aim of highlighting the new forms of professionalism in this new setting, action research can play an important role. Nevertheless, for this role to be played in depth it is necessary to analyse and draw appropriate conclusions from two major aspects: the understanding of action in education and the understanding of research, in relation to the current academic canons in social sciences. © 2006, Educational Action Research.