Principals and teachers as partners in critical, participatory action research

This article reports on a two-year study of one principal's professional learning practices in 'Transform,' a professional learning program in Edmonton Catholic Schools, Alberta, Canada. Transform was designed to be a bottom-up, morally-oriented professional learning approach in which principals and teachers worked as partners on critical, participatory action research projects. This article examines the research question 'How are principals shifting from technicallyto morally-oriented professional learning practices in their schools?' and explores one theme - co-creating social spaces for risk-taking - to illustrate how principals shifted from being managers of teachers' learning to being partners with teachers in researching and refining classroom practices.