Collaboration: That Awful "C" Word

Abstract

Variables such as free will, experience, reflection, and self-beliefs have consistently emerged over the last two decades as factors affecting collaboration. The purpose of this article was to help confirm the evidence and, more important, to emphasize the power of self-reflection in successful collaboration. Dewey (1933) knew about the power of thinking, and willingly relinquished his claim on reflectivity in a way that others might consider its significance in educational change. The major premise of this article, in fact, is that reflection guides free will and the personality traits involved in collaboration—the purported change agent of the new century. In addition, the acculturation process is negotiated as a possible resolution to the social, political, cultural, and linguistic conflict embedded in collaboration. Toward that end, Bruffee's (1993) model of acculturation, which suggests a radical reordering of majority to minority perspectives, provides a possible resolution to the constituent empowerment delemma that continues to haunt both proponents and opponents of collaborative reform.