Local Engagements Enhancing Practitioner Action and Knowledge for Learner Development and Autonomy within a Collaborative Teachers’ Network

Abstract

This chapter explores socially situated dimensions to teacher learning within a particular collaborative teachers’ network, or special interest group (SIG). The reconstruction of significant episodes in the development of this network reveals how the creation and diffusion of practitioner knowledge about pedagogies for autonomy and learner development can be innovatively undertaken and promoted at the local level as a collective interest on teachers’ behalf (Vieira 2009). These episodes address, first and foremost, issues to do with the inclusion and development of new voices, processes and perspectives in the production of research and writing about learner autonomy, as well as the creation of egalitarian and participatory approaches to small-scale practitioner research projects to do with learner autonomy and development. In that these issues involve access to publication, peers and knowledge across different institutions and educational sectors, the critical reconstruction of these social dimensions raises fundamental questions about the politics of knowledge (Kincheloe 2010) in how practitioners may collectively engage in professional development within a local context. How can access to writing be enabled for practitioners new to publication so that different, local voices can be shared with a wider peer community?