Session Information
32 SES 01, Deliberative Inquiry on Educational Freedom. A Workshop Based on an Example of ‘Research in Organizations’.
Research Workshop
Contribution
Deliberative practices are those activities and processes where participants are thoughtfully and thoroughly weighing arguments, discussing options and collaboratively making decisions about particular and urgent questions in communities or organizations. Not only more legitimate and better informed decision-making but also the transformation of the preferences of the participants are possible outcomes of such activities and processes (Button & Ryfe, 2005). Moreover, through deliberative practices participants are able to manage wicked problems (Carcasson & Sprain, 2015), problems that are ill-formulated, involve uncertainty and confusing information, have many decision-makers and affected parties with different and conflicting values and promise ramifications for the whole system (Ferkany & Whyte, 2012 in (Carcasson & Sprain, 2015). In a research project of the Teacher Training Department of the Flemish University College Leuven-Limburg, we explore deliberative inquiry as a specific deliberative practice and as possible method of doing co-operative, qualitative research in organizations.
In deliberative inquiry deliberation and inquiry are intertwined. As a policy and action-oriented form of inquiry (Harris, 1991), it seeks to change policy and practice through consultation between people and political systems such as government and local power structures (Savin-Baden & Major, 2013). It’s a way of co-operative inquiry, a form of second-person action research in which all participants work together in an inquiry group as co-researchers. So this is not research on people or about people, but research with people (Heron & Reason, 2008), done with and by stakeholders of a community or organization.
In our project, these stakeholders are teacher trainers, educational developers and student-teachers. The project leaders, teacher trainers, educational developers and student-teachers are all belonging to the same organization: a Teacher training department with professionally oriented bachelor programs. All are engaged in the investigation and clarification of an issue of mutual concern, namely the wicked problem: ‘is educational freedom necessary?’. The interrelatedness of the notions ‘education’ and ‘freedom’ and the meaning, implications and conditions of educational freedom are at stake because of the complex juridical interpretation of educational freedom and the consequent practical situation in Flemish schools.
A helpful process model for our investigation is the deliberative cycle of Carcasson (see f.e. (Carcasson, 2012) which outlines four related tasks of deliberative inquiry: deliberative issue analysis, convening, facilitating deliberative engagement and reporting.
In this workshop we will focus on deliberative issue analysis. By gathering people around an issue at stake -what could be the meaning of educational freedom? – and by engaging in a short deliberating exercise, we shall construct together a common question. Finally we shall reflect on the possibilities and obstacles of deliberative inquiry as a method for research in organizations.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Button, M., & Ryfe, D. M. (2005). What can we learn form the practice of deliberative democracy? In J. Gastil & P. Levine (Eds.), The deliberative democracy handbook. Strategies for effective civic engagement in the 21st century. (pp. 20-34). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Carcasson, M. (2012). The Cycle of Deliberative Inquiry: Re-conceptualizing the Work of Public Deliberation. Between Scientists and Citizens, 85-97. Carcasson, M., & Sprain, L. (2015). Beyond problem solving: Reconceptualizing the work of public deliberation as deliberative inquiry. Communication Theory. doi:10.1111/comt.12055 Harris, I. (1991). Deliberative Inquiry: the arts of planning. In E. C. Short (Ed.), Forms of Curriculum Inquiry (pp. 285-307). New York: State University of New York Press. Heron, J., & Reason, P. (2008). Extending epistemology within a co-operative inquiry. In P. Reason & H. Bradbury (Eds.), Action research: Participative inquiry and practice. (pp. 366-380). London: Sage. Kakabadse, N. K., Kakabadse, A., Lee-Davies, L., & Johnson, N. (2011). Deliberative Inquiry: Integrated Ways of Working in Children Services. Systemic Practice and Action Research, 24(1), 67-84. doi:10.1007/s11213-010-9177-1 Savin-Baden, M., & Major, C. H. (2013). Qualitative research: The essential guide to theory and practice. London: Routledge.
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