Conclusion

This chapter explores themes from throughout the book, including professional identity, how we know what we know, culture and capacity and restraints on the sector. There were many other themes that occurred to us as we edited the book, but sadly there were too many to include here. We hope you, the reader, as well as enjoying specific chapters that you can relate to your own work, have picked up on themes that interest you from across the chapters. We have tried to encapsulate the main ideas from each chapter in this concluding chapter, but we are conscious that much remains unsaid. We hope this book, therefore, offers the beginning of a conversation for some readers, thinking about themes such as leadership, professionalism, collaboration, shaping pedagogy and being aware of the things that frustrate these (to coin Patrick and Christine), such as performativity/managerial issues which have challenged some of our authors. That said, there is much richness to unpack under the four themes we have identified. In order to add our own voices to this conversation, we also offer one possible view for the future of practitioner research in the sector.