Session Information
01 SES 02 A, Action Research (Part 1)
Paper Session to be continued in 01 SES 03 A
Contribution
Although action research has a history of bridging gaps between research and school practice, challenges emerge when aligning a scientific approach with development work in schools and in collaboration between research and school practice. Previous research has problematised aspects such as power relations, epistemologies and changes that might occur in partnerships where teachers collaborate with different partners. However, there is a need to better understand how the process of learning emerges and is affected by the different partners involved in the collaboration. The Swedish Education Act states that all education in Sweden should rest on science and proven experience and this has led to increased demands on schools to undertake research-based activities and apply scientific methods to their development work. However, research show that teachers and principals find it difficult to interpret the policy and struggle to enact it. To facilitate this work, collaboration with and support from researchers and critical friends have been suggested, which in turn pose difficulties in overarching power relations and differences in epistemologies and in what counts as valuable knowledge (cf. Aspfors et al., 2015; Bevins & Price, 2014; Bruce et al., 2011; Olin et al., 2021; Somekh, 1994).
In this study, we follow two teachers conducting action research in an upper secondary school in Sweden, in collaboration with other teachers and a professional development (PD) leader. In this context, teacher learning in situ as teachers develop their classroom practices through action research is explored. Theoretically, a framework about value creation (Wenger-Trayner & Wenger-Trayner, 2020; Wenger-Trayner et al., 2017) is used to describe and understand teachers’ action research as social learning. With this framework, the values enacted and expressed by the participants come into focus and allow us to create narratives about the learning trajectories that occur in practice. Additionally, Wenger’s concepts of boundary objects and brokering help explain how different participants engaged in the collaboration contribute to the learning trajectories. Our aim is to deepen the knowledge on teachers’ action research as social learning in collaboration with a research-based PD leader. Our research questions are: (1) What are the critical aspects of teachers’ action research as a social learning process undertaken together with a PD leader?, and (2) How do boundary objects and brokering contribute to that process?
The primary focus of the theory of Communities of Practice (CoP) is on learning as social participation, and participation refers in his case, to being active participants in the practices of social communities and constructing identities in relations to these communities. A CoP can be described and analysed by three dimensions: shared repertoire, mutual engagement and joint domain. The social dimension – mutual engagement – has been further elaborated and “theorized as value creation in social learning spaces” (Wenger-Trayner & Wenger-Trayner, 2020, p. 6). The notion of ”social learning spaces” allows us to study social learning processes where knowledge and competence from multiple CoPs can be found within a specific social structure in a CoP. To understand social learning systems, Wenger proposes three structuring elements, defined as 1) CoPs, 2) identities shaped by participation in CoPs and 3) boundary processes between communities. Boundaries between CoPs can be used to identify differences in ways of working in CoPs and to serve as bridges between them. Boundary objects are characterised by their ability to enable communication and coordination, as well as align activities between practices, not necessarily forcing consensus. Since competence and knowing within this framework are defined by the members of a community, the process of crossing boundaries can be problematic, why we explore brokering taking place that leads to increased possibilities for learning.
Method
The research design of this study can be described as a case study involving an upper secondary school in Sweden with an approach to school development through action research. Founded in 2014 as an independent school, from the start, it created an organisation to support professional development, including the appointment of a PD leader. The teachers in this school attend weekly meetings (the so-called learning groups) where they, supported by the PD leader, work together using an action research approach – best described as classroom action research (Kemmis et al., 2014) – to improve teaching practices. The study is viewed as both first- and second-order action research (cf. Feldman, 2020) because it contains examples of teachers’ and the PD leader’s collaboration in teachers’ action research (first order) and at the same time, it is the study of their collaboration and doing of action research (second order). Thus, the study contributes with knowledge about the conditions that either facilitate or obstruct learning in this context To explore action research as a case of social learning, the data have been selected through the abductive approach of combining theoretical concepts with the first author’s knowledge as a researcher from the inside (cf. Kaukko et al., 2020). The evidence has been selected from a larger dataset, generated throughout the academic year 2017/2018, to be able to write value-creation stories (Wenger-Trayner & Wenger Trayner, 2020; Wenger-Trayner et al., 2017). The value-creation framework is a theoretical elaboration on the concept of mutual engagement and is also suggested (Wenger-Trayner & Wenger Trayner, 2020) as a method of evaluating social learning. In our analysis, the value-creation framework was adapted and integrated with the action research process to describe the latter as a case of social learning and to identify critical aspects of the collaboration throughout the process The stories and the analysis are based on data from the PD leader/researcher log, transcribed extracts from audio recordings from the learning groups, video recordings of the two teachers’ presentations of their action research and empirical evidence generated by the teachers and combining these data enabled the writing of the value-creation stories.
Expected Outcomes
We highlight three critical aspects in the social learning process; (1) the negotiations on competing sets of norms and values: school’s local development area, the action research approach and the teachers’ individual values in relation to classroom practice, (2) adaptations of scientific methods, and, (3) the range of research questions that require a broad knowledgeability of (and access to) a variety of analytical tools and theoretical perspectives to be used in the empirical work. Further, the findings illustrate how boundary objects supported the connection between research and school practice and illustrate in particular how the collaboration in the learning group functioned as a boundary process where two sets of practices (classroom and academic) coordinate and contribute to the study participants’ social learning within the PD practice, bridging gaps between research and school practice. We argue that for action research implemented as a method for PD to be sustainable, participants should be given recurrent opportunities to define values themselves and develop their agency. From the social learning perspective, supporting and facilitating teachers’ action research imply a focus on agency and the emancipatory dimensions of action research. In conclusion, viewing action research as a case of social learning entails creating personal experiences in social interplay and through participation in CoPs. Consequently, for schools that struggle to enact the policy of working on a scientific foundation, one way to ease the struggle is to consider PD through action research, not as a group of teacher researchers making generalisable knowledge claims, but as a group of learning partners creating values that make a difference to themselves and their students. This point of view is also beneficial in terms of avoiding a focus on solutions and ‘what works for whom’, an issue of power that if left unresolved, decreases teachers’ opportunities to develop their agency.
References
Aspfors, J., Pörn, M., Forsman, L., Salo, P., & Karlberg-Granlund, G. (2015). The researcher as a negotiator – exploring collaborative professional development projects with teachers. Education Inquiry, 6(4), Article 27045. https://doi.org/10.3402/edui.v6.27045 Bevins, S., & Price, G. (2014). Collaboration between academics and teachers: A complex relationship. Educational Action Research, 22(2), 270–284. https://doi.org/10.1080/09650792.2013.869181 Bruce, C. D., Flynn, T., & Stagg-Peterson, S. (2011). Examining what we mean by collaboration in collaborative action research: A cross-case analysis. Educational Action Research, 19(4), 433–452. https://doi.org/10.1080/09650792.2011.625667 Kaukko, M., Wilkinson, J., & Langelotz, L. (2020). Research that facilitates praxis and praxis development. In K. Mahon, C. Edwards-Groves, S. Francisco, M. Kaukko, S. Kemmis, & K. Petrie (Eds.), Pedagogy, education, and praxis in critical times (pp. 39–63). Springer. https://doi-org.ezproxy.ub.gu.se/10.1007/978-981-15-6926-5_3 Kemmis, S., McTaggart, R., & Nixon, R. (2014). The action research planner (2014 ed.). Springer Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-4560-67-2 Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge University Press. Wenger, E. (2000). Communities of practice and social learning systems. Organization, 7(2), 225–246. https://doi.org/10.1177/135050840072002 Wenger-Trayner, E., Fenton-O’Creevy, M., Hutchinson, S., Kubiak, C., & Wenger-Trayner, B. (2015). Learning in landscapes of practice: Boundaries, identity, and knowledgeability in practice-based learning. Routledge. Wenger-Trayner, E., & Wenger-Trayner, B. (2020). Learning to make a difference: Value creation in social learning spaces. Cambridge University Press. Wenger-Trayner, B., Wenger-Trayner, E., Cameron, J., Eryigit-Madzwamuse, S., & Hart, A. (2017). Boundaries and boundary objects: An evaluation framework for mixed methods research. Journal of Mixed Methods Research, 13(3), 321–338. https://doi.org/10.1177/1558689817732225 Olin, A., Almqvist, J., & Hamza, K. (2021). To recognize oneself and others in teacher-researcher collaboration. Educational Action Research, Ahead-of-print (Ahead-of-print), 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1080/09650792.2021.1897949 Somekh, B. (1994). Inhabiting each other’s castles: Towards knowledge and mutual growth through collaboration. Educational Action Research, 2(3), 357–381. https://doi.org/10.1080/0965079940020305
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