Teachers' classroom-based action research is sometimes misunderstood by those who undertake it and support it, in three respects. First, it is wrongly assumed to fall into either positivist or interpretive paradigms (or perhaps a mixture of both) or to be critical. Second, there is little understanding as to why action research is necessarily self-reflexive, collaborative and political. Third, there is a view that classroom research studies are not suitable for dissemination because they are not generalizable. Drawing on the work of Heron and Reason, I outline a view of how teachers are positioned in their classroom to explain why teachers' classroom-based action research cannot be underpinned by positivist, interpretive or critical paradigms, is necessarily self-reflexive, collaborative (albeit in a weak form) and political and is suitable for dissemination to teachers, working in similar contexts.