engaging dialogue: co-creating communities of collaborative inquiry

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Engaging dialogue: co-creatingcommunities of collaborative inquiryB. Dyer a & T. Löytönen ba School of Dance, Arizona State University , Tempe , USAb School of Art and Design, Aalto University , Helsinki , FinlandPublished online: 16 Nov 2011.

To cite this article: B. Dyer & T. Löytönen (2012) Engaging dialogue: co-creatingcommunities of collaborative inquiry, Research in Dance Education, 13:1, 121-147, DOI:10.1080/14647893.2012.640143

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Engaging dialogue: co-creating communities of collaborativeinquiry

B. Dyera* and T. Löytönenb

aSchool of Dance, Arizona State University, Tempe, USA; bSchool of Art and Design, AaltoUniversity, Helsinki, Finland

This dialogical article reflects stories of encounter. The unexpected collision ofour worlds and thoughts, and the familiarities and tensions we came to recog-nize in each other’s experiences when facilitating collaborative research in twocommunities of dance teachers, has given birth to this shared line of inquiry.We have come to acknowledge that our collaborative endeavor to better under-stand our experiences facilitating dance professionals in exploring their culturesof dance teaching and pedagogical practices has offered reassurance, inspiration,even discomfort, as it has led us to newfound awareness of our ways of doingresearch and facilitating inquiry. Our two-year dialogical journey has led us toconsider the chaotic and continually shifting, transformative process of con-structing oneself as a researcher in the midst of converging locations, spaces,time and others. In this article, we consider how perspectives gained from ourexperiences facilitating dance teachers in inquiry, and our conversations abouttheses encounters, might align with, challenge or present new ways of lookingat collaborative inquiry as a mode of research, learning, discovery and change.

Keywords: dance education; collaborative inquiry; participatory action research;professional development; reflexive practice; dialogue; learning community

Overview

Our dialogue has been motivated and shaped by many junctures of thought andexperience. We were introduced three years ago through the persistence of acolleague who urged us we had much to talk to about. We became excited in ourinitial conversation as we realized we were individually conducting similar kinds ofcollaborative research projects oceans apart: Becky in Phoenix, Arizona of theWestern United States, and Teija in Helsinki, Finland. We quickly recognized thevalue of engaging in a shared inquiry that bridged our distinct cultures and contextsthat would explore our experiences and understandings as researchers in collabora-tive inquiry processes with dance professionals. Although distinct goals and pro-cesses emerged from each project, we realized, from a larger lens, both studiesexplored socio-cultural facets of teaching and learning dance.

Our diverse backgrounds – Becky as a university dance professor and somaticsteaching practitioner with experience in teaching dance full-time in the public high

*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

Research in Dance EducationVol. 13, No. 1, April 2012, 121–147

ISSN 1464-7893 print/ISSN 1470-1111 online� 2012 Taylor & Francishttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14647893.2011.640143http://www.tandfonline.com

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schools in the United States, and Teija as a senior researcher in higher arts educa-tion, teaching practitioner in professional development and collaborative processconsultant in dance institutions in Finland – has broadened our understandings ofthe individual positions we occupy inspiring the practices this inquiry aims to inves-tigate. Throughout this lived process of dialogical exchange we discovered themesthat seemed most engaging and relevant across and within our studies. Intersectionsof our experiences and interests spurred deeper investigation of the themes broughtforward in this article.

The dance professionals enrolled in our distinct studies were dance teachersand/or dance administrators. The Arizona project, which is beginning its fourth yearof development with plans to continue indefinitely, involves a group of eight second-ary dance educators who are currently or have previously taught dance full time inpublic and private high schools of Arizona. The Finland project, which lasted a totalof three years and concluded in fall 2010, involved 15 dance teachers and three prin-cipals working in dance schools that offer basic art education. Our joint explorationbegan in spring 2009 shortly after we met in Arizona during Teija’s Fulbright scholarvisit. Dialogue about our experiences as researchers within our distinct inquiry com-munities began during the second year of Teija’s project and the first year ofBecky’s. The opportunity to converse about our experiences and inquiry processesas they were unfolding enabled us to conceive of our situations from different spacesof understanding at a number of junctures and to consider alternative meanings andsolutions to the dilemmas we have encountered as researchers.

During the first year of our shared inquiry we were able to visit and observeeach other’s respective working groups in Arizona and Finland and to continue con-versations as we each collected and interpreted data from our own ongoing studies.Teija participated in one of Becky’s project sessions in spring 2009 where sheengaged in dialogue with participants and discussed her project with them, whereasBecky visited Finland in Spring 2010 and took part in the final, national seminar ofTeija’s project and shared her Arizona project with several of Teija’s teaching col-leagues, doctoral students and her project assistant. Besides these face-to-face meet-ings and discussions around our projects, we shared our experiences via the internetby writing a joint document.

Our work together led us to consider the similar and differing attributes of ourexperiences when scripting environments and creating opportunities for collegialcollaboration within dance education communities At the forefront of the themesthat emerged from our investigation was a researcher’s role and contribution toinquiry processes and how facilitators might enhance community-building tosupport participants in meaningful learning practices and growth.

We will begin this article by articulating the foundations and viewpoints inform-ing our exploration in facilitating collaborative inquiry. Thereafter we will dialogueabout our experiences in designing and facilitating inquiry processes within our twodistinct communities as we illuminate the emergence of our individual projects andtheir developing aims. We will conclude by offering some insights gained from ourcollaborative investigation of our experiences within the two evolving projects.

Perspectives informing our collaborative exploration into the role of a researcher

The foundations of our collaborative inquiry are mainly in the traditions of actionresearch (Heron 1996; Heron and Reason 2008; Reason 1994; Reason 1998) and

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theories of adult learning (Brookfield 1986; Kolb 1984; Mezirow 1990, 1991;Schön 1983, 1987). Also, the phenomenological tradition, and especially phenome-nological sociology (Schütz 1967; Schütz and Luckmann 1973), has contributed tothe development of the methodology. Epistemologically, collaborative inquiry isrooted in the tradition of social constructionism (Gergen 1999; Shotter 2008), as thesocial construction of meaning is important in understanding how human beingsnegotiate meanings and build knowledge through socially shared efforts. Anothercentral element upon which collaborative inquiry relies is the notion of learningfrom experience through repeated cycles of reflection and action. Our joint collabo-rative research project is informed by a view that it is important that reflection isembedded in an ongoing practice, making it likely that what is learned will influ-ence and support practice in a meaningful way.

Soon after venturing into our exploration we encountered the question of therole of the researcher in enhancing the inquiry stances of the dance professionalstaking part in our distinct processes. Diane Wood (2007, 2) has stated that oftenmore time has been devoted to community-building efforts than to critical inquirywithin different professional learning communities. Others argue that efforts to buildcommunity often come at the expense of individuals arriving at critical stances forinquiry. Our experiences within our respective dance communities suggest, however,that the relation between community building and enhancing critical inquiry is inte-gral – even necessary – and that the researcher’s role as a facilitator in these interre-lated endeavors is crucial. Therefore, the aim of our joint inquiry is to shed light oncommunity building within collaborative inquiry processes and thus to understandour own practices of facilitation better.

A dialogue on our experiences as researchers within the dance communities

Through dialogue we came to an important realization: that collaborative inquiry isshaped by a number of factors, including the relationship a researcher has to thecommunity and socio-cultural circumstances.

Collaborative inquiry begins with a researcher’s relationship to a given commu-nity and his/her desire to have an impact on it. His/her negotiated entry into anexisting community or negotiated creation of a new learning community beginswith awareness of issues and circumstances, as we have suggested, as well as aresearcher’s ties to potential participants or stake-holding groups. Interestingly,neither of us understood the significance of a prior relationship to the communityuntil we reflected upon our experiences together. We came to perceive it as anagreed arrangement of one’s interests in the community as well as an act ofacknowledging the motivational concerns of all involved.

The impetus for initiating a collaborative inquiry process often comes from dis-quieted feelings or dissatisfaction rooted in one’s own experience as a practitioneror as a scholar (Bray et al. 2000, 51–52). This was the case also with us andbrought to our awareness when we compared the driving motivational factors forour projects. Teija’s former research on the everyday life in dance institutions aswell as her experiences as a process consultant within those institutions brought tothe fore issues she wanted to tackle through collaborative inquiry. Becky’s challeng-ing circumstances teaching secondary dance and understandings gained in highereducational pursuits led her to perceive of distinct possibilities available to potentialparticipants, instilling in her a desire to facilitate others on similar professional

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quests. Thus, as Bray et al. (2000, 53) suggests, the key question when inviting oth-ers to participate in a process of collaborative inquiry concerns whether the topic ofinquiry resonates with the experiences of the involved parties and impels them toengage in an inquiry, which undoubtedly requires commitment, time and energy.The initiator’s understanding of the situated circumstances, motivations and/or prob-lems is vital for the commencement of the collaboration. As we considered ourindividual findings together in relationship to the processes we facilitated to gener-ate these, we recognized how our intimate knowledge of the dance teachers’ situa-tions beforehand contributed to our abilities to enter into the communities in waysthat were ‘care’-ful, respectful and non-presumptuous.

Entering the communities and establishing purposes

We will continue by describing the backgrounds and aims of our specific researchprojects as well as how we managed to initiate the inquiry processes in both danceeducation communities.

Teija

The motivations for my research project called ‘Moving mosaic – collaborativeinquiry as a way of identifying and transforming the culture of dance teaching’1 wereboth social and personal. My observations of the major changes in the socio-culturalcircumstances of dance education in Finland, in addition to my experiences in con-sulting dance education institutions in diverse settings, spurred my interest in facili-tating collaborative inquiry amongst the dance professionals involved in my study.

The research project started in March 2008 when 15 dance teachers and threedance school principals from three different dance schools in southern Finland gath-ered together to form a collaborative group to inquire into the culture of danceteaching. As I briefly noted, the motivating background for the collaborative inquirywas broad, consisting of changes in the legislation of basic art education in Finland,and accordingly, extensive changes in the nature and demands of dance teachers’work. The new Act on Basic Art Education in Finland has impelled considerablechange in the culture of dance teaching with its new national requirements fordance curricula as well as increased credentials in terms of dance teachers’ educa-tional backgrounds. Also, the increasing number and broadening spectrum of danceeducation has challenged the cultural conventions of teaching dance art. As foundin my former investigations, some dance teachers have experienced the new chal-lenges as a threat to their identity, while to others the changes have meant a profes-sional challenge of promoting growth. Indeed, in this extensive reformation thedance teachers have quite often felt isolated without adequate support to managethe new requirements (Löytönen 2004, 2008).

With the above described changes and challenges in mind, I wanted to tackle thecultural element of isolation in dance education, so I invited three dance schools toexplore collegial collaboration amongst the dance teachers. The three dance schoolsI invited were the Vantaa Dance Institute, the Dance Institute Sonja Tammela inLappeenranta and the Nurmijärvi Dance Institute. The main reason for choosingthese schools was the fact that I have had previous contacts with these dance schoolsover several years as a process consultant. Some of these consultation processes con-cerned overall evaluation and planning of the dance schools’ activities or reflections


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on everyday issues within the dance schools. Others concerned problematic situa-tions in the studios with dance students or with cooperation between members of thecommunity. I believe the consultation processes were successful, but I became moreand more puzzled about the question of relying on an expert consultant in managingthe everyday challenges in work life. For me the question was how to encouragedance teachers’ self-directedness in sharing their knowledge and expertise in danceteaching as well as in different institutional practices within dance schools. As aresult, during this research project I wanted to question my position in order torespect the many perspectives, aims and hopes of the participants. Thus my positionturned out to be a kind of facilitator for the working peer groups and their collabora-tion, and required me to strive towards new understandings of my role within theinquiry community. However, I believe my background with the participants set mein a special position in this project: I was not a total stranger but not an insidereither. Instead, I was in a kind of neutral position with no specific ties or agendas inrelation to the different dance genres the dance teachers represented, or in relation tothe three different dance schools. At the same time, the participants were familiarwith me and my ways of working with them and, in fact, this might have won methe trust of the dance professionals to take part in the project.

Before launching our collaborative inquiry project, I had been working with theprincipals of the three participating dance schools for over a year to plan the pro-ject. The schools have different profiles in dance teaching, and thus, the principalsperceived the potential for a new kind of collaboration between them and thoughtthey would gain some insight into different aspects of dance teaching through shar-ing experiences and best practices. Before starting the project the dance teacherswho represented different areas of expertise and genres in dance art2 expressed anoverall interest in sharing their knowledge in dance teaching as well as in compar-ing their different ways of managing everyday phenomena within dance education.Both the dance teachers and principals were also interested in taking part in such aresearch project that brought to the foreground teacher collaboration, which is agrossly under-researched area within dance education.

During the initial meetings an overall outline of the project was discussed. Morespecific aims and ways of working were talked about in our first joint seminar whenall 15 dance teachers and three principals gathered together with me to plan theinquiry process. The overall purpose of the research project was twofold: first topursue practical collaboration and support amongst the dance teachers; and second,to bring forth some core but unarticulated undercurrents within the present-day cul-ture of dance teaching. Thus, the study aimed to enhance self-understanding as wellas to provide a means for collegial reflexivity within the complex and rapidlychanging circumstances of dance education in Finland.

One of the guiding principles in our collaborative inquiry was the metaphor of a‘moving mosaic’. In this kind of collaboration described by Andy Hargreaves (1994),teachers belong to different informal groups that form dynamic collegial networkswhere the sharing of experiences and ideas and questioning of beliefs and perspectivescan enhance self-understanding and thus professional development. Through thisinformal and open form, I wanted to give space and authority to the dance teachersthemselves in designing their collaboration. An important principle for me was to tryto avoid a form of collaboration that Hargreaves (1994, 191) describes as ‘contrivedcollegiality’. It is the kind of collegiality where collaboration becomes a commitmentnot to developing and realizing purposes and ways of working of one’s own, but to


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implement those devised by others. Therefore, the idea was to foster the dance teach-ers’ autonomy, collegiality and efficacy (see also Nelson et al. 2008; Wood 2007).

My reflective findings grow from a two-year collaboration process that occurredamongst the participants. I, as the initiator of and researcher in this project, had theopportunity to take part in several meetings of the working peer groups, to observedance classes and student performances, to interview the participants individuallyand in groups, to correspond with participants through e-mails, and to discuss dif-ferent emerging themes that the peer groups and I presented in our joint seminars’.

Becky

My previous experiences as a secondary dance education teacher and professor invarious higher education institutions within the United States inspired me to instigateand facilitate the Arizona Dance Educator’s Action Research Project that began inthe fall of 2008. Shortly after accepting a full-time teaching position in an inner citypublic high school over a decade ago, I quickly realized I was not adequately pre-pared to meet the needs of my students. Many of them were not interested in learn-ing to dance and were placed in my classes because they were kicked out of others.Racial and social tensions ran high, and mistrust, intimidation, conflict, fighting andgang activity defined the learning space. My position of authority was continuouslychallenged by a number of defiant students, and many others did not feel safe in thelearning environment. After struggling in the classroom for a period of time, I intui-tively began constructing liberatory, constructivist and critical pedagogical teachingframeworks in an attempt to reach and motivate my students and to survive myclassroom environment, although at the time I lacked an understanding of such theo-retical perspectives. I fumbled without the knowledge, support and vision of col-leagues and mentors engaged in similar endeavors. However, as I began to evolvemy teaching approaches and shift my relationships with students toward more demo-cratic orientations, I became increasingly aware of the meaningful, transformationalpathway I was journeying upon as an individual and teacher (Dyer 2010a).

Since working in secondary education, I have continued these lines of inquirywhile teaching university dance technique, pedagogy and somatics courses. Particu-larly insightful to me have been several qualitative studies I conducted that exploredparticipatory action research as a pedagogical construct for classroom processes andinspiration for building relationships within my dance technique classroom (Dyer2009a; Dyer 2010b). I should note that participatory action research is an ‘action ori-ented approach to inquiry’ (Denzin and Lincoln 2004) that endeavors to counterhegemonic practices by positioning the researcher or facilitator to work alongsidethe participants in sustained processes of inquiry. I was struck by the fact thatalthough many students embraced the freedom and autonomy of such a collabora-tive, democratically oriented learning environment and seemed to thrive in this peda-gogical construct, others found this challenging, while some even resisted andresented the responsibility. The disparity of responses caused me to reflect deeply onmy manners of facilitation and to seek greater understanding of the dynamic charac-teristics of collaborative learning communities and my various roles as the facilitator.

My position as a professor at Arizona State University has allowed me tomaintain my ties to secondary dance education, as I teach K–12 pedagogy classesand have supervised student teachers from the university in their practicum experi-ences within the local high schools. During my visits to schools throughout the


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Phoenix valley, many secondary dance teachers expressed their desires to learn fromand support each other in professional development opportunities. After sharingsome of my inner city secondary teaching experiences at an event hosted by my uni-versity, a group of teachers became interested in joining together to similarly sharetheir teaching experiences and ponder their challenges. Although the initial purposeof the project was to create a supportive community and forum for teachers to reflectupon their cultures of dance teaching and the learning cultures they had created intheir classrooms, the teachers quickly realized their interests in instigating changeand transforming their practices. They expressed their desires to evolve theirpractices to better meet the challenges they faced in their classrooms and schools,and to respond to their students’ distinct needs. This interest grew to involve theteachers in collaborative processes I facilitated to explore and ultimately design,implement and reflect upon pedagogical perspectives in their own classrooms thatwere similar to those I had shared with them. Rather than starting from a place thatwas positioned on my understandings, where teachers merely implemented theapproaches I had discovered and developed in teaching contexts similar to theirs,the teachers began with their own set of questions, objectives, challenges and desiresfor their collaborative pedagogical investigation. One teacher expressed her surprisethat I did not ‘tell’ them ‘how to do it’ or ‘show’ them ‘what I had done’. Instead, Iused the understandings gained from my experiences to facilitate the teachers’inquiry in ways that allowed them to discover and explore a number of teaching per-spectives and solutions to their situations that were related to their goals.

The eight veteran and novice teachers bring a range of life and classroom experi-ences. They meet for three hours each month to contemplate their teaching experi-ences and to create pedagogical solutions to the difficulties they experience in theirteaching situations and the challenges their students face, for example, disrespect,intolerance, racism, classism, exclusion, violence and students’ personal strugglesdue to peer pressure, low self-esteem, and lack of adequate guidance, support andpositive role models in their lives. Over the first few months, the community rapidlybecame a pensive dialogical space aimed toward transformative action, as primarygoals developed by the participating teachers included envisioning new paradigmsfor practice, finding more meaningful ways to serve students, and gaining skills andperspectives necessary to more successfully implement culturally responsive andempowering teaching/learning frameworks that nurture personal and social change.The teachers expressed to each other their desires to contribute through their prac-tices to the betterment of society by first fostering positive change within their class-rooms through experiences that encouraged students to reflect upon their social andmoral choices and responsibilities. As the project facilitator, I have been interested indocumenting the experiences and shifting ideas of the participating teachers through-out the process, and in utilizing the various data streams collected to analyze thegroup’s developed processes of inquiry, the growth and advancement of ideas, andoutcomes of the project from more of a distanced and meta perspective.

Principles of working in our distinct projects

Both of our research projects are based on methods for conducting participatoryresearch and facilitating adult learning through experience. An important startingpoint for both of us was to establish a close connection between research and prac-tice, and thus to advance the construction and use of research knowledge within the


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everyday practices of dance education. And so, instead of doing research on orabout dance teaching practices, we invited the practitioners to explore their experi-ences in dance teaching collaboratively with us and for themselves (Heron 1996;Heron and Reason 2008). Participatory research orientations celebrate participationand democracy and strive to avoid manipulative, hierarchical and elitist approachesto the research enterprise. Though our distinctive research projects share the above-mentioned values, there are differences in participative research practices. We willnow continue to discuss the framework of collaborative inquiry in Teija’s project,how participatory action researched emerged in Becky’s project, and how the subtledifferences in methodological orientations took shape in each individual community.

Teija

Despite the fact that collaborative inquiry is rooted in the tradition of participatoryaction research, it differs from this research tradition in some respects. As JohnBray et al. (2000, 38) and others note, the most significant distinction is the differ-entiation between researching a system that may involve gathering data on others,and collaboratively learning from the direct experience of participating in theinquiry. Thus collaborative inquiry is not only a method of research but also a formof adult learning through experience. Another key distinction is that collaborativeinquiry focuses on understanding and constructing meaning from experience ratherthan striving towards change in individual, collective and/or social issues (Brayet al. 2000, 47; McIntyre 2008, ix). These distinctions are subtle yet significant.

Collaborative inquiry is also described as an open process with no dogmaticmethods or mechanistic ways of conducting the inquiry. Instead, ways of workingare invented as the inquiry proceeds. Collaborative inquiry may thus take manyforms, as Kenneth Gergen (1999, 98) states: there are no rules because each formwill depend on the aims and hopes of the participants as well as the researcher.

Despite the open process, there are some principles that have been importantguides in my research project in Finland. These include understanding participantsas co-researchers, focusing on collective reflection on experience, and the impor-tance of making meaning for the public arena. All of these inquiry principles areembedded in the ongoing professional activity of each participating dance teacherand dance school principal in their dance schools (Bray et al. 2000; Erickson et al.2005; Weinbaum et al. 2004).

Based on the above framework, the collaborative inquiry into the culture of danceteaching in Finland could be described as a process by which colleagues gathered ingroups to pursue, over time, the issues that the participants identified as interesting orimportant in relation to their professional practice. This means that the participantswere allowed the time and place to collaboratively explore aspects of their profes-sional practice. The idea was not to foster any changes through specific interventionsand predictable outcomes. Instead the aim was to enable dialogue amongst the partic-ipants for mutual support, meaning making and knowledge creation. This type ofapproach promotes new understandings of oneself, others and one’s own professionalpractice that can consequentially lead to changes in one’s practices.

The notion of co-inquiry is the defining principle in collaborative processes. Itmeans that each participant is a co-inquirer, shaping the issues her or his groupwants to pursue, designing the inquiry process, participating in exploring theinquiry issues, and making and communicating meaning in the public arena (Bray


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et al. 2000, 7; Yorks 2005). In our first joint seminar the dance teachers ponderedhow their work is being presented usually through student performances in nationaland international festivals and conferences. Now they wanted something else. Oneof the dance teachers expressed it in the following way:

That this could be a forum where we do not have to present the success of our workor the best side of us. Instead this could be a forum to bring forth the wholeness ofbeing a dance teacher. (11 March 2008)

The more specific objectives for the ‘moving mosaic’ collaboration included thefollowing: ‘to get new ideas by comparing teaching practices’, ‘to identify weak-nesses as well as personal strengths through collaborating with others’, ‘to recognizethe characteristics of one’s own dance students’ and ‘to attain strength and even a flowto dance teaching’. These objectives could be summed up by citing one of the partici-pating dance teachers who expressed how she hoped the collaborative process wouldenable each to ‘see’ themselves ‘better through the others’ (11 March 2008).

At the end of the same seminar, the participants formed five inquiry groups thatwere constructed based on the needs and wishes of the participants themselves. Theinter-institutional groups consisted of three to four participants with similar teachingsubjects (dance genres) and/or responsibilities in their dance schools. The principalsformed one of the groups. The groups were self-organizing, arranging to meet basedon their perceived mutual needs and aims (see also Bray et al. 2000, 53). So, thiscollaborative inquiry within the peer groups was mainly facilitated by the partici-pants themselves and evolved through the research project.

During their collaboration over two years (March 2008–March 2010), the groupsmet several times to share teaching experiences and their backgrounds as danceteachers, observe each other’s classes and student performances, improvise co-teach-ing, develop teaching materials and deliberate over different topical aspects of theirprofessional practice. As noted by one dance teacher, access to the other danceteachers and other dance schools provided them ‘distance to [their] own danceteaching and [their] own dance school’ (interview, 30 October 2009). The inter-institutional collegial groups, however, not only made it possible for the teachers toview their own practices from a distance, but also the collaboration with colleaguesalso challenged the dance teachers ‘to think about things’ (interview, 6 June 2009).This kind of thinking together with colleagues opened new perspectives to thedance teachers’ own teaching and sometimes made their taken-for-granted assump-tions and habits of practice visible.

The groups invented their inquiry issues as members got to know each otherand explored the possibility of working together. During their meetings, the themesof the discussions shifted and the inquiry issues were modified as members gainedinsight into their experiences and developed an enhanced ability to articulate whatthey were interested in exploring. The inquiry issues included themes such as:

� ideals and values in dance teaching: who defines them and on what grounds?;� the educative dimension in dance teaching;� the dance teachers’ well-being at work;� embodied modes of reflection;� the peak experiences and nadirs in the everyday life of dance teachers; and� the expectations from the principals.


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During the process, I found that inventing, shaping and reshaping the inquiryissues evolved quite naturally, but that they also needed some support and encour-agement from me. For example, the ballet teachers’ group wanted to explore theexperienced juxtaposition between the values of ballet and the values of other danceforms in dance education. They were very excited about the theme but at the sametime they were insecure in how to broaden their topic from assumptions to morearticulated viewpoints. In one of their peer group meetings we discussed possibili-ties for illuminating their chosen theme, not only through their own experiences butalso through other resources such as journal articles and public discussions on theinternet. This helped the teachers plan their exploration of the theme, wherein thefinal version involved drawing meaning from data collected from questionnairesfilled out by the teachers’ dance students.

Following the idea of making meaning for the public arena, the ‘movingmosaic’ research project was framed by joint seminars where all the participantsmet and discussed the topical issues emerging from the research project. Duringthese joint seminars, the inquiry groups described their activities and observationsof their professional practices as well as their collegial collaborations. The partici-pants also wanted to organize open seminars for other members of the dance educa-tion community in Finland. These seminars, which took place in May 2009 andApril 2010, were based on workshops organized by the five inquiry groups aroundtheir inquiry themes described above. Along with the dance teachers, I also pre-sented my observations on the cultural elements of dance teaching in each of theseseminars. My presentations were based on my field notes as well as on the tran-scriptions from the inquiry groups’ meetings in which I had taken part.3 However, Idid not investigate the different themes the peer groups explored. Instead I focusedon the ways (discourses) the peer groups made meaning of their professional prac-tice. Hence, my presentations were a kind of meta-analysis of our inquiry processwithin and across the different peer groups. The following short description is anexample of my meta-analysis and how my understanding unfolded during my col-laboration with Becky.

In my preliminary analysis of the ethnographic data I noted a pattern in how thedance teachers discussed and constructed meaning around their experiences in theprofessional practice of dance teaching. Across the different peer groups the danceteachers talked about their own dance teaching practice in relation to or againstsome other field of practice. A very common distinction was made between danceart and gymnastics, where dance art was understood, among other things, as a modeof creativity, self-expression and dealing with emotions while gymnastics repre-sented competition and the showing of tricks. Similar kinds of distinctions weremade within the practice of dance teaching itself. Some of the binaries that surfacedwere teaching dance to young children versus teenagers, beginners versus advancedstudents, teaching ballet versus contemporary dance, and teaching dance art in thepast or in the present. All of these binaries were described by identifying the char-acteristics of one’s own dance teaching practice in relation to the dance teachingpractice within another dance genre: the opposite. From the perspective of socialconstructionist discourse analysis, I interpreted the dance teachers’ discussionsaround the distinctions as the discourse of difference. When trying to understandwhat meanings the discourse might have within the culture of dance teaching inFinland, I shared some of my preliminary thoughts with Becky. By conversing withher especially about the diverse values in dance education and the importance of


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realizing one’s value basis in professional practice, I began to apprehend that bydiscussing distinctions, the dance teachers were actually exploring and identifyingthe values and the accepted contributions they each could offer to the dance educa-tion community. The discourse of difference thus served the need to be recognizedand valued as a particular dance teacher within the professional dance educationcommunity in Finland, and our collaborative inquiry process, I believe, offered thedance teachers a forum for mutual identification and recognition.

Becky

The research perspective for the Arizona Dance Educators’ Project began as anopen and dialogical forum for the dance teachers to share their experiences and per-spectives on dance teaching. However, as processes of dialogue brought the danceteachers to realize their desires to challenge dominant cultures of dance teachingand to instigate personal and ‘social change through the research process’ (Greenand Stinson 1999, 94), the research design transformed into a flexible mixed meth-odology that also involved emancipatory and deconstructionist points of view thatengaged the teachers in a type of participatory action research (PAR). My conversa-tions with Teija about six months into the project led me to perceive that my intui-tive approaches to developing the research in the beginning of the project alignedwith many of the values and orientations of collaborative inquiry, although I wasnot familiar with the research paradigm of collaborative inquiry nor did I follow theprotocols or distinct principles of working that differentiate collaborative inquiry.

For clarity’s sake, it is tempting to distinguish and separate the methodologicalapproach used for this study from other postpositivist traditions. However, thiswould not portray the complexity, fluidity and reflexivity of the evolving structuresignificant to this investigation. The blended postpositivist approaches to inquiry forthis study are not ‘neatly segregated’ or posed against one another in practice(Green and Stinson 1999, 95). Rather, they could be seen to exist within the ebband flow of a ‘flexibly conceived framework’ that requires me, the researcher, muchlike a choreographer, as Green and Stinson (1999, 95) suggest, to remain ‘open toemerging patterns and meanings and to forms that are appropriate to them’. AsTeija aided me in articulating the basis of my research design, I came to perceivehow the research framework I had developed could be seen as a naturalisticapproach that utilized viewpoints and concepts of both PAR and collaborativeinquiry within a larger landscape for inquiry that welcomed twisting evolutions,overlapping approaches and perpetual transformation.

Since Teija has previously described principles and processes of collaborativeinquiry, I will describe those of PAR most pertinent to my process. Participatoryaction research can be viewed as a ‘self-reflective collective self-study of practice’(Kemmis and McTaggart 2003). It involves members of communities doing researchfor themselves in order to improve the conditions of members’ lives and the commu-nities in which they engage. Participants’ needs drive transformation (Debbink andOrnelas 1997, 23), as participants are viewed as agents of change rather than objectsof research in this type of collective inquiry. Although change is encouraged, it isnot imposed. Rather, individuals work to change themselves and collaborate to bringto light thematic concerns they face as a community (McTaggart 1997, 31) throughactive processes of critical inquiry and applying small-scale theorizing to specificproblems they have identified in their specific situations (Denzin and Lincoln 1994).


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In educational settings, the practice of PAR emerges from teachers’ desires andplanned efforts to engage in collective processes of critical reflection and self-awareness, with the goal of developing perspectives and practices that enhance thelives of those involved. It extends beyond its inherent mode of cooperative reflectiveinquiry to include an expressed commitment to examine and utilize experiences ofconcrete practice to inform future action (McTaggart 1997, 6). Emphasis is placedon impelling action; critical inquiry moves the community towards the implementa-tion of desired actions through collaborative processes of discovering needs, creatinggoals and constructing and realizing plans of action. Thus, PAR is a process of trans-formation on both personal and social levels. It involves participants reflecting uponand acting on their values, shared realities, political resistances and collective mean-ings, needs and goals (Willms 1997, 8). It is a move from the way things are to theway things could be. PAR’s deliberate attendance to change and action is whatdistinguishes it from the related approach of collaborative inquiry.

During the first year of the project, we met once a month to discuss what wehoped to gain from the process, to assess individual and collective needs, and todevelop a project focus and related goals. One teacher expressed the sentiment ofthe group: ‘We are participating because we desire to do better and are willing torecognize how we can improve for ourselves and our students’ (17 November2008). We reflected upon the challenges we faced in our classrooms and consideredthe issues that confronted our students that affected their learning and growth asindividuals inside and outside of the classroom. One experienced teacher from aninner city school stated:

My students are really struggling in their lives; they come from very difficult circum-stances. There are so many real and dire obstacles to student learning that I find I haveto address larger life issues and learning before significant learning in dance can occur.Learning to do a perfect leap or plié is not that relevant if a student is hungry, beingabused at home, worried about who will take care of them, traveling to and from theyouth shelter, or even worse, living on the streets. However, I think the reverse mightalso be true; dancing experiences can elevate students above their struggles and cangive them feelings of joy, hope and courage to change their lives. Both approaches areimportant. (9 December 2010)

As I mentioned earlier, the issues identified by the teachers were both social andpersonal and largely related to themes of disrespect, violence, peer pressure, poorself-esteem and lack of adequate guidance and positive role models. After identify-ing the challenging issues, we contemplated what understandings and skills studentsneeded to gain to prepare them for meaningful, healthy lives and to become moraland responsible citizens in their community. For example, the teachers believedtheir students needed to gain:

� greater perspective;� kinesthetic empathy;� understanding towards acceptance of diversity;� a sense of responsibility;� skills of judgment and moral reasoning;� the ability to demonstrate and receive respect;� a sense of commitment and purpose;� self-confidence;


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� social skills and awareness to engage in healthy relationships; and� the ability to draw meanings from their lived experiences.

Through dialogue, the teachers realized their shared aspirations to not only cre-ate a supportive community to reflect upon their teaching experiences and to gainunderstandings of theories that could enhance their practices, but also to ‘walk awaywith very tangible, usable lesson ideas and approaches’ (17 November 2008). Asteachers considered their needs, they recognized their will to experience growth asindividuals and teachers by directly working to transform their practices and class-rooms.

In the second year, the project focused on developing a curricular frameworkthat integrated personal and social themes with somatic approaches, transformativelearning perspectives, and critical pedagogical and liberatory approaches to dancestudy. Although I shared theoretical and conceptual ideas and frameworks to inspiretheir thinking and to aid them in structuring their thoughts and teaching ideas, theline of inquiry and evolving curricular frame was developed collaboratively by theteachers as I worked ‘alongside’ them. This type of collaborative relationshipbetween the researcher and the participants is characteristic of participatory actionresearch, where the facilitator collaborates in inquiry with the people she or heseeks to study (Berg 2001, 189). One teacher expressed:

Unlike most research, we are the active participants. We are not merely implementingsomeone else’s ideas in our classrooms and being observed like we are subjects in alaboratory, we are actually designing and conducting pedagogical research that webelieve benefits us and our students directly. . . . The researcher works along with us;we do not work for her. (4 March 2010)

During the third year, the teachers endeavored to more systematically implementthe pedagogical curricular framework they had developed and experimented withthe previous year in their classrooms, as they continued to build and reflect uponthe curriculum. The teachers used various forms of documentation and modes ofreflection, including journal entries, group interviews and discussions, online forumsfor sharing, classroom discussions, student interviews and reflecting on student writ-ings. One teacher commented: ‘Investigating and tracking our experiences and thoseof our students has given us a more informed awareness of our practices and infor-mation about our teaching never perceived before’ (13 November 2010). Atmonthly gatherings, teachers reflected on teaching the curriculum, often sharing stu-dent projects and sometimes writings, and worked to develop new strategies andlesson ideas to address gaps, weaknesses and challenges they had discovered. Theynoted that it was a much easier task to engage students in their curricular themesthrough processes of dialogue and the more creative, improvisational or choreo-graphic realms of dance study than it was to integrate these ideas into teaching stu-dents dance technique. In other words, the teachers struggled to develop embodiedlearning experiences for their students that physically investigated the overarchingthematic strands of the curriculum from more of a movement capacity or technicalpoint of view. For this reason, I found it helpful to introduce the teachers to particu-lar social somatic constructs and approaches, on occasion leading the teachersthrough embodied experiences themselves, in order to facilitate their thinking andcurricular development.


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The dance teachers found that it was through their experiences with others thatthey better understood their teaching practices, values, desires and goals, and foundinspiration and support to transform their practices and lives. One teacher asserted:

This project has given me the courage and skills to teach the things I really believe, tochange the things that don’t fully align with my values, and to teach more explicitlythe things that are most important in life. (13 October 2010)

Although unintentional, the teachers became aware midway through the processthat the learning frames they had created echoed many of the values, purposes andconstructs of the project. To their surprise, the curriculum they were building fortheir students, in many ways paralleled the inquiry processes, modes of self-aware-ness and critical reflection and viewpoints they had explored and gained from theproject. At the core of both experiences – their experiences in the project and thosethey constructed for their students – were their efforts in cultivating ethical, caringrelationships, developing strategies and perspectives necessary to deal with conflict,and collective efforts to build community and create knowledge. An overarchingcurricular perspective was the idea that understanding and valuing oneself throughthe means of engaging in caring and meaningful relationships with others leads toempowerment, responsible citizenship, a desire to impact the world around oneselfpositively, and a peaceful society.

Throughout our process, Teija and I engaged in dialogue that explored thebridges, similarities and differences between our cultures. Our comparisons sug-gested the universality of collaborative endeavors and processes. Yet we were alsosurprised to discover how differences in cultural circumstance could profoundlyinfluence inquiry. For example, when I shared my research with Teija’s doctoral stu-dents and colleagues, they were surprised that the Arizona dance teachers hadthought to overlap such a strong moral and social educational framework with thedance curriculum. They saw this as quite interesting and even innovative. Whenpondering a number of the curricular themes in relationship to their own teaching/learning cultures, they recognized how the thematic content or liberatory emphasistowards social understanding and change did not seem too relevant to their owncontexts of teaching. One doctoral student explained:

In Finland we don’t have as much diversity as in the US and we do not have racialtensions because we are mostly all the same – the same heritage and religious affilia-tions. We have less socioeconomic division. Because we are much more homogenousthere is not as much need to draw us together to discover our similarities in order tobetter understand each other and resolve social conflict. Rather than a focus on recog-nizing our commonalities, our students may need to realize their uniqueness and dis-tinction from others. (April 2010)

As Teija and I pondered this comment and considered how this might apply toour projects and work together, we realized a connection between this viewpointand the Finnish dance teachers’ efforts in identifying and recognizing each other’sunique contributions to the culture of dance teaching in Finland. This understandingwas important to me in contemplating the cultures of dance teaching the Arizonadance teachers worked within in order to sensitively facilitate their collaborativeresearch.


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Emerging ethical issues: facilitating the community with conflicting views

We will now turn towards our joint exploration into the role of the researcher infacilitating collaborative inquiry. Through our two-year dialogue we came toacknowledge the importance of facing conflicts and difference during the researchprocesses. In the following section we will dialogue about challenging momentswithin the two dance education communities. Becky will start by describing ten-sions that surfaced in her project and Teija will follow by describing the difficultevents she experienced in her process. We will also offer some theoretical insightsabout how to manage conflicting moments within collaborative communities andBecky will conclude this section by offering approaches she utilized to help danceeducators face differing perspectives on diverse issues.

Becky

Facilitating the collaborative group for the Arizona project requires great sensitivityand a willingness to relinquish one’s voice for the greater good of the community.One teacher described this as ‘a flexibility to follow the stream of where the partici-pants want to go and the ability to share and disseminate information as well asreceive information that might change your thinking and your direction’ (12 May2010). Several months into the project, I discovered the ethical precariousness ofmy position and influence within the community as I realized I had carried with meinto the process assumptions about the roles I would assume in tending to the inter-ests of the community. After some thought, I recognized my own interests andagendas within the community and came to acknowledge the subtle powers of per-suasion my role within the community afforded me. An initial perception of minewas that it would be of great importance to the teachers to make their efforts knownto their administrators and local community in order for their work to be validatedand to build and secure support for their dance programs and the performing arts inArizona, as each of the participants was also involved in various dance advocacyorganizations and many of their programs were at risk because of state budget cuts.

I secretly confessed how such visibility of my service certainly would do noharm to my own developing reputation at my university and could be used to sub-stantiate my engagement and work in the community. Yet this self-defined, pre-scripted role I had constructed in my mind was actually in conflict with the partici-pants’ fundamental interests for their collaborative inquiry. Humorously, I wasshocked at the time that the teachers lacked interest in pursuing my proposal.Although they believed it possible that such visibility of the project might lead toincreased support and felt this would be a desirable consequential outcome, to mysurprise, they were not really interested in spending their time together as a commu-nity for this purpose. In fact, they expressed that on some level they felt like itmight actually ‘undermine’ their ‘intrinsic motivations’ for engaging in this collabo-rative inquiry by such a contrasting attention to external outcomes. Rather, theysought at this point in the process to focus their energies on the direct personal ben-efits that their participation would yield, such as increasing the ‘meaningfulness oftheir teaching experiences’ and providing for themselves experiences of ‘self-care’,‘nurturing’ and ‘growth’ through their relations with one another. This led me torealize my role in working with members of the group to construct an ethical com-munity of self-care that encouraged caring about the interests of others.


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This experience, I believe, points to the danger of pre-determining and scriptingone’s role as the facilitator, as this might place one in a ‘conflictual position’ inrelation to the group where emphasis is no longer on ‘caring’ for the interests ofthe community by responding to emerging needs and interests but instead onassuming or deciding by oneself what is desirable and best for the community. Myrealization led me to conceive of new possibilities for my personal engagement,growth and self-care within this enlarged participative capacity and to realize addi-tional dimensions of my facilitative role, to embrace the meaningful opportunitywithin this capacity for my own self-care, growth and professional development.This sensitive, reflexive researchers’ stance placed me in a position to participatemore fully, a place that allowed me to learn from others and to ponder critically myperceptions of the experiences I have had within the group. Perhaps as a stake-holder, or sort of insider, I can engage, along with the participants, in my own aswell as their processes of growth and change, as opposed to encouraging teachersto become open to processes of change and transformation while I myself amunwilling or not positioned to learn and grow from other members of the group.

As with any position, there is always another side or perspective. My conversa-tions with Teija about the stance and position of a researcher in collaborativeresearch caused me to ponder the ‘rightness’ and effectiveness of my participatoryfacilitative role as I worked alongside the teachers in participatory action research.As a uniquely positioned member of the community who is both an insider and out-sider, I had to consider the ethics of my powers of persuasion and actions. I real-ized I did not always want to relinquish my voice and presence within the group orto assume an entirely neutral position as a researcher. I was very much an invested,interested party in the inquiry. Yet I have come to understand that this neutralityand distance is necessary more often than not to facilitate the group successfullyalong their developing lines of interest and to allow the dance teachers to learn andconstruct knowledge by themselves and for themselves.

Although the participants have invited me into their inner circle of explorationas an insider, I find I must resist the urge to stay within it. It is within the momentsof stepping from the outside to the inside, inside to the outside, that I learn the mostand gain the perspectives necessary to facilitate the community with the greatestcare and concern for the participants’ interests. This passageway between insiderand outsider spaces of inquiry has yielded for me the most insightful and informedunderstandings. I have found this to be true of my teaching encounters in the class-room as well. The space of inquiry, or stance, position and location a researcher orteacher occupies in relationship to others deeply shapes the constructed inquiryenvironment and accordingly what might transpire within it. Although profound andmeaningful understandings might result from occupying participatory spaces ofinquiry, ‘participating researchers’ should exercise great care when nurturing theirown growth and transformation within the group.

Rarely have there been moments of tension within the group. However, on oneparticular day we became engaged in a lively, escalating toward heated conversationthat was really a dialogue about values and choices, as the teachers expressed theirsurprise at how seemingly ‘every issue, teaching strategy and conflict’ theycontemplated was really a ‘conversation about values’ (6 June 2009). My skills offacilitation were challenged as I began to perceive how many of the teachers werebattling with their own conflicting valued assumptions that they found themselveschallenging within and between themselves. One teacher responded:


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It is frustrating. I’m conflicted and I’m not even sure what I believe now. This conver-sation is really challenging me. My frustration is not towards you all and your ideasthat differ from mine. More than anything I am fighting myself as I realize some ofthe larger values I hold and knowledge I’ve gained seem at odds with specific teach-ing approaches I feel are effective and necessary in teaching dance. I’m not sure whatto do about this. (19 February 2010)

This brought to my awareness another function I assume as a facilitator of thegroup: that of helping individuals to work towards solving inner as well as intra-conflict, or in other words, inner discord or a lack of harmony within themselves orbetween their various perspectives and practices, and a lack of agreement or senseof compatibility with the ideas of others resulting in intra-conflict.

Although facilitating conflict is not something I had anticipated or prepared for,I later recognized my intuitive approach in helping the teachers to reveal and reflectupon emerging individual and collective discrepant viewpoints, or inner and intra-conflicts. I realized my strategies in addressing this of leading the participants totheorize about their practices and related underlying values and assumptions inorder to move towards more critical yet empathetic understanding. As I led theteachers through processes of mapping their understandings and diverse ‘vantagepoints of experience’ (Hanstein 2003, 2) they discovered tensions and incongruen-cies in their held perspectives and practices that, when thoughtfully contemplatedthrough theoretical frames that were one step removed from their personal experi-ences and emotional responses, led them to broadened interpretations of their expe-riences and increased capacities to resolve conflict towards more meaningful andcritically conscious ends.

Teija

During our inquiry process I also encountered a similar kind of situation. In one oftheir meetings, the dance school principals scrutinized whether this kind of inquirycould bring forth some negative consequences. By this they meant that when thedance teachers from the three different dance schools gather together to ponder theirexperiences on dance teaching, they might start to compare and critically questionhow things are done around the different schools. The dance teachers might, forexample, desire benefits that are valid in one dance school without realizing theyare not always possible in another. This might give rise to frustration and even jeal-ousy, as one of the principals explained. While our collaborative inquiry was basedon the idea of appreciating the issues, questions and purposes of the group mem-bers, it can be questioned, however, in whose interest the inquiry is conducted.Depending on how the inquiry process unfolds or is used, it may serve, for exam-ple, the interest of the institutions, the interest of the individuals involved, or both,as Bray et al. (2000, 31) note.

Indeed, during our collaboration in Finland, we encountered the question ofinterest when some of the dance teachers from one of the dance schools wrote let-ters to their principals or to other responsible persons. In these letters theyexpressed their concerns and disappointments in relation to how their dance schoolwas managed. In this sense, actually the sharing led to action and the dance teach-ers were very self-directive. But this made me, as the responsible researcher, feelquite contradictory. I found the dance teachers courageous and proactive, yet at thesame time the comments by the principals made me question whether they wanted


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to control or normalize our collaboration. This incident was not an issue weexplored in our joint seminars, since it concerned only one dance school and theparticipants did not raise it as a topic to be jointly discussed. However, the principalof that dance school shared her experiences on the incident in one of their peergroup meetings (12 December 2008). Besides pondering viewpoints around theincident, we discussed the nature of our collaborative inquiry. When I asked theprincipals how they felt about the ‘negative’ issues that might surface during ourcollaboration, they were of the opinion that by jointly discussing and naming thedifficult predicaments, the participants might gain insights into the complex issuesaround dance education in Finland, such as the local specificities in financialresources, different traditions, values and diverse ways of working. Moreover, oneof the principals stated that he would be naive if he thought that our collaborationwould be only around common understandings. However, the handling of the possi-ble conflicting issues, he explained, needed careful attendance.

Our joint seminars were the forums for discussing the different viewpoints sur-rounding dance education practices. This was pursued by agreeing in the beginningof our collaboration that each peer group would have an equal and self-designedopportunity to present and discuss their inquiry issues in each joint seminar. Duringthe seminars, I sometimes experienced tensions between the different peer groupsformed by the dance teachers and also between these groups and the principalswhen discussing, for example, the ideals and values in dance education or expecta-tions from different actors. Our seminars, however, were not the place for solvingthe conflicting views, but for recognizing and exploring them from our multiple per-spectives. For example, one of the themes that surfaced during the peer groups’meetings dealt with the foundational nature of Finnish dance schools: as institutionsfounded on individual dance artists’ areas of expertise, or by contrast, as institutionsfounded on collectively shared understandings. When I presented my observationson this theme in our joint seminar, some of the participants opposed the handlingof this theme greatly and expressed that this phenomenon is already passé (27 May2008). However, the participants’ descriptions of their working environments withindance education told another story; that even though the values in Finnish danceeducation mostly lie in student-centeredness and community-based dance education,the participants’ descriptions suggested that individuality in dance teaching is stillexperienced within the everyday life of dance schools.

Thus, when facilitating the discussion around this issue, I was very sensitive tothe marginalized voices. In the moment I felt it very important to draw focus to theparticipants’ diverse experiences and the idea that experiences are partial at thesame time as they are valid. Later when I discussed this issue individually with oneof the dance teachers she deliberated that the collegial collaboration gave them ‘theright to talk about and open up different aspects of [their] professional practice withthe larger dance education community’ (interview, 6 November 2009). Through val-idating the different experiences of their professional work life, it became obviousthat the culture of dance teaching in Finland is not a harmonious whole. Instead itconsists of values that are directing the dance teachers toward different ways ofbeing and acting within their community.

When I shared my thoughts and struggles related to the former experiences withBecky, we came to recognize that collaborative inquiry is not only an inquiryfocused on enhancing subjective competencies or practices, but also an intersubjec-tive cultural inquiry making it possible to de- and reconstruct, in this case, the


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dance teaching profession. The inquiry process then involves the making transparentof otherwise concealed elements and determinants of dance teaching to collectivethought and action. In our case these determinants concerned the unspoken values,responsibilities and expectations underpinning the participants’ professional worklife. Thus collaborative inquiry is highly political (Kushner 2009, 14; see alsoStenhouse 1975) and can expose participating dance teachers and principals to con-flicts and tensions within and across their dance institutions. Collaborative inquirymay, indeed, threaten existing cultural norms, challenge assumptions, unearth unex-pected findings and pose difficult and complex questions (see also Coghlan andBrannick 2006; Smith and Fernie 2009). Who then benefits from, resists, or couldbe wounded by the social, political, professional and personal findings that emergethrough collaborative inquiry? These questions, I believe, call forth an ethic of carein pursuing one’s own good and that of others. It requires ‘care’ ful dialogue andthe cultivation of ‘caring attitudes’.

What I mean by an ethic of care is a situated process based on values of recon-ciliation, reciprocity, diversity and responsibility, and with an awareness of power(Edwards and Mauthner 2002, 23; Noddings 2003; Sevenhuijsen 1998). It is a kindof personally involved care-based ethical relation in which there is no need to‘de-center’ others in order to center one’s own voice and arguments. The meaning-making process is thus constantly and appropriately pivoted so that participants canexchange points of view and acknowledge their diverse experiences, emotions, per-spectives and ideas across differences. Ethics, thus, is about how to deal with con-flict, disagreement and ambivalence rather than attempting to eliminate it. (Edwardsand Mauthner 2002, 25–27.) Hence I argue that an ethically caring community is aprerequisite for critical collaborative inquiry to emerge, and according to my experi-ence, it is based on the possibility of expressing one’s own experiences – evenmarginalized experiences – openly and without fear. The responsibilities of aresearcher as facilitator, as well as the responsibilities of the participants, are thusprofound, and concern not only knowledge creation but also the creation of a com-munity that values dissonance in making sense of the professional practice.

Becky

Processes of turning towards each other in an ‘ethics of care’ promote kinestheticempathy and relational practices rising from a concern for others. Our lived, relatedphenomenological experiences allow us to gain understandings of ourselves andothers, and thus to practice an ‘ethics of care’. As my teaching and related researchhas investigated ways of increasing psychosomatic and social understanding throughsomatic and phenomenological approaches (Dyer 2009b, 2009c), I have come tobelieve that not only an ‘ethics of care’, but also an ‘embodied ethics of care’ isnecessary for the growth and transformation of the ‘whole self’, our classroomenvironments and ultimately society. Bresler (2004, 9) suggests the essential role ofthe body, not only in communicating ‘self’ and listening and attending to others,but also in social experience. This kind of embodied attention, responsiveness andcultural sensitivity could be seen as fundamental to not only ethical and caringbehavior, but also to critical thought and responsible choice making. Bodily orembodied encounters ultimately shape modes of thinking, interacting and processesof inquiry within a community (see also Dyer 2009c; Anttila and Löytönen 2010).


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Interestingly, I observed that when the teachers in my project found themselvesstruggling to decipher and make sense of contrasting viewpoints between them orconflicting values within themselves, their language began to shift towards moreembodied descriptions of their ideas. It appeared as if they were searching for moredeep-seated, physical foundations for the beliefs they expressed. This often involvedthe teachers shifting their weight to the edge of their seats, grounding their feet intothe floor and moving expressively with their bodies as they grappled to find lan-guage to verbalize their thoughts and felt understandings. One day a teacher lurchedforward in movement as she apologetically explained: ‘I’m sorry, I have to move toknow what I am thinking. I have to move through it to understand it’ (spring2010). Another teacher responded:

That is what we do; movement is how we make sense of the world. It is how I knowwhat you are saying. I understand others’ perspectives through my own physical expe-rience. My thoughts are much more clear when I am moving. (spring 2010).

Bringing their thoughts into a physical state of awareness and responsivenessallowed the teachers to gain greater understanding of their own constructed view-points and those of others. This in turn yielded more sensitive, critical and respon-sive processes of inquiry within the community. Hence, fuller embodiedunderstandings bred more critically reflexive responses.

One approach I used to help the teachers weigh contrasting or conflicting per-spectives was to have them physically explore a dilemma or two seemingly oppos-ing perspectives, each on different sides of the room in a sort of embodieddialogue, moving from one side of the room to the other as they voiced each per-spective in conversation with the other, eventually moving to a middle space thatheld both perspectives in relation. The teachers improvised as they explored differ-ing voices or embodied points of view, noting the feeling tones that emerged asthey spoke and moved from each perspective. Since all the teachers were familiarwith the Laban/Bartenieff framework, I encouraged them to utilize LMA andBartenieff concepts and terms in addition to rich visual and visceral descriptions toexplore and interpret the various embodied points of view they investigated, and toconstrue meaning from this psycho-physical dialogic experience. I asked themto consider the possible emerging themes of dissonance and/or harmony within theirbodies as they conversed from and between various vantage points. I also encour-aged them to become aware of how the nature of their dialogue might be reflectedin their movement patterns and attributes, sense of inner-connectivity, awarenessand responsiveness to others, and relationship to the world beyond themselves.

This improvisational framework for embodied inquiry was also used to facilitatethe community of dance teachers as they similarly dialogued with each other fromtheir diverse vantage points and moved to a middle space that engaged all of theirperspectives in relation. As the dialogue evolved, the teachers became increasinglyaware of their shared space for critical inquiry and their joint responsibilities withinthe created communal space. On occasion, my observations of their physical,embodied inclinations towards inquiry, meaning-making and thought formation ledme to facilitate the group in physical investigations of their emerging and develop-ing perspectives and ideas, which incidentally often later informed their developingcurricula.


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An underlying perspective of mine, as a facilitator as well as teacher, is thatbodily encounters and explorations of reciprocity and shared responsibility canguide individuals to cultivate caring relationships and an ‘ethics of care’ inside andbeyond the classroom. This leads to social and embodied understandings andabilities that enable one to engage in meaningful, critical inquiry. Through dialogue,the teachers similarly realized the importance of modeling and teaching towards anembodied ethics of care in the classroom:

In order for us to develop kinesthethic empathy and a sense of social/physical respon-sibility and caring in our students we have to model this in our embodied interactionswith students. Without us building a foundation within the classroom community ofcaring behaviors towards self and others, students cannot truly participate in learningthat is meaningful and critical. (14 August 2010)

Coda

What has been most interesting in our developing relationship is how our processesof inquiry together have reflected the attributes of an ‘ethics of care’. Our under-standings have been reconciled in light of each other’s. The reciprocity of our ideasand perspectives has encouraged each of us to contemplate our practices, assump-tions and values. The diversity we bring to this inquiry has broadened the field ofour understandings and has brought us to conceive of other valid perspectives. Theresponsibility we have to each other, as we thoughtfully comment on each other’sideas and nurture each other’s interests in this collaboration, has created a caringattitude towards each other and a carefulness in our attitudes and practices. We havebeen cautious in exercising our power and powers of persuasion as we have notwanted to stifle each other’s voices or argue against one another’s viewpoints, evenwhen they might appear to be in conflict with our own; yet we have at times ques-tioned each others utterances in order to further our ways of thinking and ourresearch.

Our engaging dialogue has offered us an interpretative zone (Wasser and Bresler1996) to explore our ways of conducting qualitative and collaborative inquiries. Inthis zone our multiple viewpoints have been held in dynamic relation as we havesought to make sense of our roles in collaborative research processes and co-creatingcommunities to support these. Our collaboration challenged us to move beyond thestance of a lone researcher towards a more collective way of constructing knowl-edge. Thus we have engaged in a process that resembles the inquiry processes of ourparticipants: social and collective self-reflection for meaning-making and enhancingpractice. This is the essence and defining opportunity of collaborative inquiry andPAR: reflecting upon other’s interpretations of the meanings we ascribe to ourexperiences is a way of transforming our perspectives, and thus our practices.

Thoughtful dialogue about the similar and differing attributes of our experienceshas led us to greater knowledge of our own contexts of practice. At the forefront ofour gained perspectives and understandings is how facilitators might necessarilyenhance community building to support participants in meaningful dialogicalexchange that can lead to careful, caring practices. Using care in buildingcommunities, caring about the communities we engage in, and careful considerationto our social, moral and civic responsibilities and the impact of our practices onindividuals and the world around us: these are the greatest possibilities of collabora-tive inquiry and participatory action research.


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One of the many interesting issues that came to the fore during our dialogueover the two-year period of time was that we both have a very special relation tothe field – that is the schools – in which we initiated the collaborative inquiries. Wedid not invite the schools or participating teachers randomly. Instead we proposedthe inquiry processes to the dance professionals that we knew or had come in con-tact with in some way or another, beforehand. Both of us had been working in theart world of dance for quite some time as practitioners and scholars. Thus, as itwere, we possessed some kind of social and bonding capital to engage with the par-ticipants in exploring their professional practice. Indeed, we believe that our ‘hands-on’ backgrounds helped us to gain respect and trust of the participants in our abilityto facilitate the project to some positive ends. Our existing connections with andunderstandings of these communities, as well as the relationships we had forgedwithin them, created foundations for not only involvement, but also for the natureof our relations as researchers to the participants and hence the emerging qualitiesof the collaborative inquiry and community. This was a very confirmatory observa-tion for both of us: that it is a strength to have a close connection to the field oneis researching.

The background of the researcher is an issue that has not been explored nordescribed in the literature on collaborative research. Thus we believe it is importantto note that the process of collaborative research might be very different when suchfoundations or connections to the community did not exist. However, we were alsodeliberating on the problems this kind of insider position might bring forth – namely,it might create what Barbara Czarniawska (1997, 61) calls ‘home-blindness’: thetaken-for-grantedness of meanings and their modes of construction. It appears to usthat collaborative processes that consider diverse viewpoints of experience may beessential in enhancing an inquiry stance towards one’s own professional practice andscholarship. Such broadening requires engagement with others and their understand-ings, appreciating especially the differences that might emerge. Correspondingly,through our collaborative dialogical process we came to assert that in order for theresearcher/facilitator to remain reflexively expansive, facilitators must as well engagewith others in similar positions and assume a reflexive stance as a researcher or col-laborative inquiry partner, and while ‘attending’ to their own ‘experiencing body’within the community.

Because we believe there to be great opportunity for learning when collaborat-ing with others engaged in similar endeavors, it was important for us to demonstratethis through the process of writing this article together. Many of our understandingsand shared perspectives have been shaped, refined or called into question as wehave read and responded to each other’s writing. Each time we revisited the tran-script we discovered new meanings and ways of thinking about our positions andwork. Within the act of writing this article, we have continued our collaborativeefforts to socially construct knowledge from our individual and shared experiences.Every sentence was informed by the previous and the next: ‘My perspectives havebeen shaped by hers, and hers by mine’. We have understood in our relationshipthat the sum of our individual understandings is less than the understandings wehave created together. This is the essence of collaborative research.

As we compared our processes in the midst of them, we recognized that Becky,in line with participatory action research, moved to help the participants create abroad thematic focus for the inquiry that was open to shifting, whereas, Teija beganfrom a very open space, aligning with the principles of collaborative inquiry where


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only the general structure informing the process was determined ahead of time: thepeer groups as the main space for the inquiry process and the joint seminars forsharing inquiry issues. During our dialogue, we came to realize that perhaps itdoesn’t matter where the focus begins if the researcher is sensitive to the partici-pants’ inquiry issues and creates structures to further the emerging interests through-out the process. In other words, through sensitively facilitated inquiry, theparticipants will essentially move towards their deepest interest. By jointly analyz-ing our experiences and challenges in facilitating collaborative processes, we under-stood that a primary premise and requisite for this process is a caring communitythat appreciates diversity and is fluidly evolving, shifting and collectively reflective.Therefore, the design for collaborative research must evolve to address the progres-sive needs and interests of the group and structures must be designed to realizethese emerging interests.

Based on our joint exploration, we have also come to understand that collabora-tive spaces are fragile, subject to disruptions; for example, by strong personalities,situational forces, scripted roles and expectations, diversity in perspectives and/ordiscomfort. This understanding, we felt, was a relief for both of us: collaborativeresearch processes are not free from conflict and tension. Through our experienceswithin our distinct projects we conceived that facilitating collaborative inquiry notonly concerns facilitating knowledge creation but also concerns furthering personalrelations and collective processes of inquiry to become a learning community. Thisinvolves appreciating learning from each other, respecting different points of views,surfacing and testing assumptions and ideas, and engaging with self and others in asort of responsive somatic awareness and responsibility. Grounded on our jointexploration into co-creating collaborative communities, we assert that holding theinquiry together, at its core, is caring. Embodied sensitivity and care-based ethicalrelations towards self and others is a prerequisite for an inquiry stance that is self-reflective, appreciative, socially conscious and meaningful. Hence, we propose that‘care’-ful attendance to complex incidents and to difference as well as negotiatingconflicting views are foundational to collaborative communities. A collaborativecommunity thus requires practicing an embodied ethics of care; we maintain thatthe role of the researcher as facilitator is crucial in enhancing the creation of thiscommunity.

The intention of this article has been to draw attention to the issue of facilitatingcollaborative research and to raise questions surrounding the necessity of commu-nity building in this endeavor; this process has also led us to realize the resultantneed to address conflict. Our interest in this topic was inspired by our own experi-ences as qualitative researchers. We have critically examined our individual inqui-ries jointly and considered how perspectives gained from our experiences havealigned with, challenged or presented new ways of looking at collaborative inquiryas a mode of research, learning, and personal and social change. One of the greatestbenefits of our conversations was the opportunity for each of us to learn as welistened to one other theorize about the perspectives we had expressed related toour practices and our experiences within our projects. The purpose of our studywas not to evaluate each other’s efforts and processes, but rather to understand howwe each have been led to perceive our facilitative roles in collaborative inquirycommunities and what we have learned from this joint investigation. Our dialoguehas also created a type of validity checking for our inquiry processes as we havebeen persuaded through our interactions to see what we were not capable of seeing


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beyond on our own. We have found our collaboration with each other to provideopportunities for us to analyze and reflect upon our projects and roles within themfrom new and expansive perspectives. Our collaboration has thus offered us anattitude of ‘outsidedness’, that is a critical stance toward our scholarly practice,which Czarniawska (1997) regards as important when exploring the field of yourown. Our emphasis in this collaboration was learning from each other by exploringeach other’s perceptions of their processes and experiences facilitating inquiry.However, if we were to conduct another similar study together, we believe wewould gain other valuable knowledge by spending more time in each other’scommunities as well as immersing ourselves in each other’s data and interpreting ittogether.

The international nature of our collaboration has brought to the fore an interest-ing notion: that dance teachers in diverse educational communities are strugglingwith similar kinds of challenges when trying to respond to the needs of theirstudents as well as to the needs of their larger environments. Our unexpected meet-ing has not only offered us a forum for exploring our ways of conducting participa-tory research, but it has also offered us an assurance that reflective collegialcollaboration is vital in making sense of the multi-layered, multi-dimensional andeven messy culture of dance education worldwide. We acknowledge the challengesof distance in international collaborations, even the tensions that might occur whenfaced with each other’s differing cultural viewpoints. However, it is within thisspace of difference, distanced from one’s own, that one is led to better understandone’s own cultures of dance teaching and one’s individual values as a facilitator.The similar kinds of research endeavors we have launched oceans apart suggest thatcollegial collaboration is a possibility for furthering professional development indiverse dance communities and cultural surroundings.

We do not claim to have found the answers for creating and facilitating commu-nities of inquiry. Instead, by sharing our experiences and our joint inquiry processwe want to engage readers to think about issues relating to their own processes offacilitating collaborative research. Our cooperative study on the role of theresearcher has opened our eyes to perceive what it means to jointly make meaningof experiences. The new awareness this process has afforded us leads us to believethat researchers who want to engage practitioners in collaborative learning processesneed to have similar kinds of collaborative learning experiences themselves, as eachdialogic encounter inspires future conversations, rippling outward into largerdiscourse and practice.

Notes1. This research project was funded by The Academy of Finland and The Finnish Work

Environment Fund.2. The backgrounds of the participants were diverse representing different areas of expertise

in dance: ballet, contemporary dance, children’s dance and new dance forms as well aschoreography and improvisation. Some of the teachers had an ongoing or former careeron stage and some were responsible for administrative assignments at their danceschools. Most of the participants had master’s or bachelor’s degrees in dance or danceeducation, but some had started teaching after a career on stage or after intensive dancetraining for several years. Many of them knew each other in advance through their mani-fold professional activities. During our process all the participants worked full time asdance teachers or principals. Besides the project being part of their workload, they also


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received some funding from their dance schools to participate in the project, mainlytransportation costs.

3. The field-based ethnographic data (field notes, diary notes, memos, pictures, video andaudio-recordings) is all in Finnish and translated into English by myself.

Notes on contributorsBecky Dyer (PhD, MFA, MS) is an assistant professor in the School of Dance at ArizonaState University where she teaches Laban/Bartenieff Praxis and Somatic Studies, dancepedagogy and contemporary postmodern dance technique. Becky is a certified Laban-Bartenieff Movement Analyst (CLMA), ISMETA registered somatic movement therapist(RSMT), ISMETA registered somatic movement educator (RSME), and holds a secondarydance education certification. Her research focuses on dance pedagogy, somaticepistemology, transformative learning perspectives and somatic approaches to teaching andlearning. She has published articles in Research in Dance Education, Journal of Dance andSomatic Practices, Journal of Aesthetic Education, Somatics Magazine/Journal, andauthored two chapters of the book, Current selected research in dance, Vol. 7.

Teija Löytönen holds a master’s degree in education (University of Helsinki) and earned herdoctorate in dance with a study of discourses in dance institutions (Theatre Academy inFinland). Currently she is a senior researcher at Aalto University School of Art and Design.Her particular research interests include higher arts education, teaching cultures in artseducation as well as collegial collaboration in relation to professional development andknowledge creation. She has published in several refereed journals, such as Dance ResearchJournal, Lifelong Learning in Europe and Aikuiskasvatus (Adult Education) and presentedher research in various conferences. She is affiliated with CORD (Congress on Research inDance) and NOFOD (Nordic Forum for Dance Research).

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engaging dialogue: co-creating communities of collaborative inquiry

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