Evolving identities: exploring leaders’ positioning in the birth of a professional literacy collaboration

Abstract

ABSTRACT This qualitative investigation used positioning theory and discourse analysis as tools to explore the evolution of the first year of a leadership team partnership between a group of university researchers and the leaders of a private non-profit literacy agency (hereafter referred to as Private Literacy Agency). The central goal of this university/Private Literacy Agency team was to provide quality literacy professional development to the teachers at the Private Literacy Agency. Results reveal the complex and nuanced nature of the evolution of the leadership team partnership across three trimesters of the first year of the project. This work contributes to the literature in two important ways. First, much of the literature on PD initiatives reports the positive outcomes of highly adaptive PD endeavours but does not include a nuanced and close-up look at process by which such endeavours evolve addressing both the difficulties and successes throughout the process. Our work addresses this concern. Second, much of the existing PD research focuses on teachers’ participation in professional learning groups with little attention to the roles that leaders in institutions play in the structure, design and enactment of such learning groups at the broader institutional level. Our work fills this gap in the literature.