In recent educational research literature, researchers have addressed the collaborative approach as a means for developing teacher education in terms of issues of diversity and equity (e.g. Hollins, 2011; Jacobowitz & Michelli, 2008).
Hollins (2011) brings up the issue of teacher candidates’ homogeneity: the majority of the teacher education students in the United States have a white, middle-class background with little experience encountering people from cultures different from their own (p. 125). In her study, many of the teacher education students had a similar background in terms of prior education, attending schools and universities with the same demographic composition “where the social discourse and the curriculum content reinforced the ideology of power and privilege” (ibid.).
According to Hollins, the teacher candidates share a similar cultural background and educational path with many teacher educators in teacher training programmes (ibid.). She concludes that:
… the challenge for teacher educators is to develop an approach that will engender habits of mind to mitigate or replace the ideology of power and privilege in learning to teach. This means changing the discourse that has
perpetuated this ideology in professional communities of practice. One approach to changing this discourse is to involve candidates, cooperating teachers, and university faculty in a process of shared observations, collaborative inquiry, and problem solving based on evidence from classrooms with diverse and underserved students. In this dialogue the focus is on the relationship among learning, learners, pedagogy, and learning outcomes. (p. 126)
Accordingly, Jacobowitz and Michelli (2008) propose that developing a teacher education programme in terms of issues of diversity requires a shared and focused vision of the means and goals of that development (p. 684). Creating a shared vision in turn demands collaboration and professional development of teacher educators and other faculty members and this, they argue, is realized “only through common readings, in-depth discussions, and a focused research agenda” (ibid.). It has to be noted that there is a conceptual difference in collaboration and adopting a collaborative approach in research. While collaboration is essential in carrying out developmental work within learning institutions, a collaborative approach acts as a guiding principle of the inquiry process and influences every aspect of it (see Chapter 4 for more on the methodological framework of this study).
The theoretical framework of this study draws from two main sources: learning institutions as mobilizing networks (Davidson & Goldberg, 2010), and the notions of networked expertise and knowledge creation (Hakkarainen, 2013; Hakkarainen et al., 2011). Davidson and Goldberg (2010) describe how, when thinking of learning institutions as mobilizing networks, “the networks enable mobilization that stresses flexibility, interactivity, and outcome” (p. 193). They also see how
“mobilizing, in turn, encourages and enables networking interactivity that lasts as long as it is productive, opening up or giving way to new interacting networks as older ones ossify or emergent ones signal new possibilities” (ibid.). Indeed, in the project at hand, the attempt to build mobilizing networks within and across the involved music teacher education programmes was a goal together with establishing co-constructive views and visions of the future on intercultural music teacher education across national boundaries. Furthermore, establishing mobilizing networks within and across learning institutions such as music teacher education programmes through collaboration, interaction and sharing may foster a networked expertise (Hakkarainen, 2013), an expansive type of expertise that arises “from the tailoring and fine-tuning of individual competencies in relation
to specific conditions of the environment of the activity, and it is represented as a joint or shared competence of communities and organized groups of experts and professionals” (p. 18). In other words, there is a prerequisite of the right kind of circumstances for a mix of people, equipped with creative and adaptive expertise, to gather together so that the process of knowledge creation, a way of “making deliberate efforts to transform prevailing knowledge and practices” (Hakkarainen et al, 2011, p. 71), can begin. This collaborative, creative work creates a set of knowledge practices, “aimed at solving emergent problems and constantly pursuing novelty and innovation” (Hakkarainen, 2013, p. 19). Networked expertise is cultivated in ‘knowledge communities’ where the collaboratively created knowledge practices are “tailored to promoting continuous innovation and change” (Hakkarainen et al., 2011, p. 71). Knowledge practices that were initiated in the course of this project were developed together with the participants and the researchers, and through the methodological design of the study. These practices included co-constructing new knowledge on cultural diversity and required intercultural competence in teaching in higher music education through collaborative discussions and reflection.
According to the findings of two case studies in organizational settings conducted by Hakkarainen and colleagues (2011), “it was quite inadequate to describe evaluating the participants’ expertise individually; the professional competencies analysed were usually defined relationally and frequently involved hybridization across internal (research and developments, design, marketing, manufacturing) and external (customers, subcontractors) practice fields” (p. 83).
Thus, expertise was in many ways shared among the participants and developed through the workplace communities’ shared practices (ibid.). Creative work, such as creating new knowledge, is also, according to Hakkarainen, a socio-emotionally onerous process during which the participants may feel exceedingly vulnerable (p.
23). That is why it is crucial for the participants in collaborative communities to have a safe space within which to work together and produce new ideas.
Gergen (2015) brings out ‘collaboration’ and ‘envisioning’ as the ingredients of innovative thinking in organizations. He sees “the organization as the co-active flow of conversation” emphasising the conversational character of the creative process, where connectivity, empowerment, collaboration and continuous learning are highlighted instead of the personal attributes of the participants (p. 199). The power of collaboration in innovative thinking is more fully realized when an organization reaches out and joins with other organizations in setting up a project
that aims at trans-organizational development (p. 207) as is the case in the Global Visions project as a whole.