Cogenerative Dialogue for Collective Curriculum Leadership

Abstract

Most educational decision making concerning the organisation of learning (environments) and assessment does not involve students. However, it has been shown in a number of situations characterisable as difficult educational contexts, that involving students in curricular planning and enactment improves the working conditions of students and teachers alike. As part of our work on school change, we investigated the praxis of cogenerative dialoguing, a decision-making praxis that involves students, teachers, area and school administrators, and even university supervisors and researchers. Cogenerative dialoguing, based on the principle of solidarity (Roth, Cultural Stud Sci Educ 2:721–745, 2007), aims at identifying problems and areas of difficulty for the purpose of generating solutions that are in the general interest rather than serving the particular interest of specific stakeholder groups (e.g., students, [unionised] teachers, or administrators) (Ritchie et al, J Curric Stud 39:151–175, 2007). In this approach, “shared” responsibility does not mean dividing up tasks and taking charge of one part of the total effort but it means that everyone is responsible for every aspect of the change project. In this chapter, we articulate the theoretical and historical underpinnings of this praxis that enacts collective curriculum leadership; and we exemplify this praxis with concrete materials gathered in a teacher education program in Londrina, Brazil.