In the first part of the paper, the author discusses his observation that teachers perceive any form of theorizing in schools to be intellectually dependent on educational researchers. Teachers assume that their access to educational theories depends on a group external to themselves and that theory has little practical value in the classroom. In the second part of the paper, the author discusses four existing research paradigms currently employed in the study of the process of schooling in society--functionalist, phenomenological, action-research, and social reproductionist. The functionalist model of systems analysis is attractive to many because it views social processes as self-regulating systems and appears to provide the foundation for a truly empirical-analytic science of society, free of value bias. In Alfred Schutz's phenomenological analysis model, social processes are viewed as the constructions of autonomous individuals. Habermas' educational action-research model is based on the assumption that social processes rely on the existence of subjectively shared rules of interpretation for translating social norms and values. Social reproductionist theory attempts to show that subjective meanings expressed in social action are biased by their economic function. The action-research model best supports educational research as a science aimed at improving schooling, thus maximizing the theoretician practitioner relationship. (LH)