All professional practitioners engaging in Living Educational Theory Research, have in common, a desire to develop educational praxis that contributes to bringing into being a humane, peaceful world where each person and community can flourish as they learn to live humanely satisfying, productive and worthwhile lives and help others do so too.

As a professional practitioner engages in Living Educational Theory Research as their professional development, they may have various questions in mind. For example, 'How do I improve what I am doing?', 'Is what I am doing making the difference I intend?', 'Am I doing what I think I am doing?', 'How can I contribute to the growth of values-laden knowledge locally and globally?' The question may, and often does, change in the course of the research. Each person draws on and develops their own particular palette of experiences, knowledge and skills. So, no one paper or book is the 'best' as a reference to help guide all professional practitioner engaged in Living Educational Theory Research all the time.

Here we provide a few references professional practitioners have found of use when developing their professionalism by engaging in Living Educational Theory Research to realise as, fully as they can, their responsibilities for their practice and contributing to the growth of a global knowledgebase for the benefit of all.

Free to access and download

This pdf has all the content of EJOLTs issues from 2008 to 2022 with links to papers. You may need to download the document for the links to be live. Otherwise copy and paste them into the address bar.

Free to access and download

Jack Whitehead is the progenitor of Living Educational Theory Research. For past papers and the most recent of Jack Whitehead's writings on Living Educational Theory visit his website

The best known and most referenced paper on Living Educational Theory Research is:

Whitehead, J. (1989) Creating a living educational theory from questions of the kind, "How do I improve my practice?'. Cambridge Journal of Education, 19(1); 41-52. Access from https://www.actionresearch.net/writings/livtheory.html

Free to access and download

Whitehead, J. (1993) The Growth of Educational Knowledge. Creating Your Own Living Educational Theories. Originally published by Hyde publications. Free to download from https://www.actionresearch.net/writings/jwgek93.htm.

Whitehead, J. (2018) Living Educational Theory (Living Theory) As A Way of Life. Bath; Brown Dog. Free to download as a pdf from Jack's site https://actionresearch.net/ or buy hard copy from sellers such as Amazon or ask your librarian to get it in for you (some university libraries already have it).

Nanwani, S. (2022) Human Connections: Teaching Experiences in Chongqing, China and Beyond. Singapore; Nanwani. Free to download from Jack's site.

Purchase or access through library

Delong, J. & Whitehead, J. (2023) You and Your Living-Educational-Theory. How to conduct a values-based inquiry for human flourishing. London; Routledge.

Whitehead, J. &McNiff, J. & (2006) Action Research Living Theory. London; Sage.

Glenn, M., Sullivan, B., Roche, M. & McDonagh C. (2023) Action Research for the Classroom: A Guide to Values-Based Research in Practice. London; Routledge.