Creating contexts conducive to flexibility

Abstract

’We've got no option. Everyone else is doing it.’ In the context of the challenges facing continuing and professional education,flexible learning represents both a predicament and a panacea. In this paper I will explore some of the challenges facing educators generally, and how the move toward flexible learning has been experienced in different organisational settings. I will introduce and use the concepts of ‘tribalism’ and territory as ways of both representing and exploring multiple perspectives on those challenges. My purpose is to question some of the assumptions that underlie teachers’ responses to the move to flexible learning, and to suggest some ways of thinking and acting which focus on negotiation and agreement rather than on tradition, as a means for the development ofprofessional identities. My argument is forward looking; it points to interesting and pragmatic possibilities and to some strategically significant challenges which I hope will invite a pro‐active rather than reactive response.