A democratic community of practice: unpicking all those words

Abstract

The No Outsiders research consortium draws upon the Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) notion of a community of practice with a shared focus on ‘researching approaches to sexualities equality in primary schools’. While the word ‘community’, for some, may carry connotations of harmony and even homogeneity, the project proposal anticipated that much of the project development would emerge from dissensus, rather than consensus. In this paper two participants, the senior researcher and a teacher‐researcher, will analyse themes that have emerged through web‐based and email discussions among participants over the course of a year focusing on negotiating these kinds of hierarchical relationships among teacher‐researchers and university researchers. Rather than providing guidelines for establishing and maintaining a democratic community of practice, we examine the complexities inherent in the process. We argue that the negotiation process itself is a crucial aspect of collaboration, and recommend resisting the temptation to expect these negotiations to minimize dissent and reach compromise.

Keywords:

• sexualities equality
• primary/elementary schools
• power relations

Notes

1. The project was designed by Elizabeth Atkinson, the project’s principle investigator, along with the first author, who is the project’s senior researcher.

2. First names of participants are used, with their permission. There are two Elizabeth’s in the project, so we have added the first initial of Elizabeth B.’s surname.

3. Quotes from emails and web discussions are occasionally lightly edited for grammar and spelling.

4. For more information, see http://ec.europa.eu/education/programmes/llp/comenius/index_en.html.

5. One of us has argued elsewhere that Wenger’s use of the extended Alinsu example has reified that particular instantiation of the Community of Practice model, perhaps limiting its imaginative scope (DePalma 2008).

6. The panopticon was designed by Jeremy Bentham but never instituted. Foucault related in an interview that the early nineteenth century prison design projects he studied invariably made reference to Bentham’s panopticon (Foucault 1974).