Teachers' Seminars Based on the Communicative Methodology

• In Event: 60.083 - Roundtable Session 19
  In Roundtable Session: 60.083-18 - Teacher Leadership for School and Community Transformation

Abstract

This paper explores teachers’ seminars based on the communicative methodology. Particularly, it explains how dialogue between researchers and teachers takes place in these particular dialogic seminars to promote teacher leadership for different educational levels. Dialogue is at the core of many educational contributions since Freire developed the theory of dialogic action. He argued that revolutionary leadership establishes a permanent relationship of dialogue among agents (1968). Along with the dialogic turn in social sciences (Berger & Luckmann, 1966; Habermas, 1984; Schutz & Luckmann, 1973), the process of “de-monopolization” of expert knowledge (Beck et al., 1994) has affected all social and educational spheres. Educational leadership has been influenced by these tendencies towards a major presence of dialogue and “de-monopolization”, both aspects with impact into developments on teacher leadership (Frost, MacBeath, & Jorunn, 2009; Frost, 2006), transformative leadership (Shields, 2010) or efficient leadership (Bennett, Wise, Woods, & Harvey, 2003; Pont et al., 2008; Hallinger, 2009), among other leadership contributions. In the same vein, research methods could also include the relevance of dialogue, being the communicative methodology (Gómez, Puigvert & Flecha, 2011) an example of this. It has been recognised by the European Parliament as a successful methodology for social sciences research providing a suitable framework for transformative research (EU, 2011). Communicative methodology is at the grassroots of the dialogic seminars lead by teachers, in which dialogue has a central role. In these seminars, teachers with researchers agree on a significant book to read and discuss, raising ideas of importance for their educational practices. The teachers’ dialogic seminars analysed in this paper through communicative observations and in depth interviews are organized in Valencia (Spain). The data collection methods and data analyses are also based on the communicative methodology approach, involving dialogues with the teachers participating in the seminars from the research design up to its completion. Data collection implies recording interviews of teachers belonging to different educational levels participating in the dialogic seminars. The analysis is done through communicative analysis and all the data is coded accordingly. The results indicate that teachers’ participation in the dialogic seminars promote spaces for interaction and sharing common concerns, seeking answers to achieve school improvement through solidarity and promoting their teacher leadership. This research is appropriate and convincing since it points out the importance to encourage the creation of spaces for reflection and dialogue, like the seminars described, and highlights its contributions to create teacher leadership across educational levels.

Authors

• Aitor Gomez, Universitat Rovira i Virgili

• Patricia Melgar Alcantud, Universitat de Girona

• Mireia Tintoré, Universitat Internacional de Catalunya

• Maria Padrós Cuxart, Universitat de Barcelona