EFL classroom, petri dish, panopticon, and free world: How do they merge through action research?

Action research is a promising and significant research methodology that paves the way for intervention, development and change not only within small groups and communities of practice but also within larger societies. Building on a terse-and-informative description of the four major action research theories (Action Science, Cooperative Inquiry, Participatory Action Research, and Living Educational Theory), this paper argues that EFL classes are essentially micro societies where language socialization takes place; it is argued further that the micro society of the EFL classroom can be (a) a ‘garbage in garbage out’ petri dish at the service of mechanical imparting of linguistic competence to students, (b) a Foucauldian ‘panopticon’ put to ideological use by a despot ruling an oppressed society, or (c) a free milieu aspiring after human development and social change. The paper concludes that action research might be redefined as aristocrat/elitist just-in-case research reformulated as just-in-time change-and-development-oriented ongoing ‘process’ research involving participants/informants as co-researchers or sources of (social) action, but not simply data mines or sources of information.