The transformative power of practitioner inquiry: collaborative autoethnography, norm critique and research circles in Swedish education

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article builds on the social justice and critical and emancipatory dimensions of practitioner inquiry in education. The aim is to demonstrate the potential and challenges of collaborative autoethnography for institutional change, transformative learning and norm critique. Taking Jack Mezirow’s and Paulo Freire’s theoretical framework as a starting point, I analyse four autoethnographic cases conducted by Swedish teachers. I demonstrate the ways in which autoethnography may help teachers realise their own silence and unresponsiveness regarding oppression related to ethnicity, gender, professional role and generational hierarchies in preschools and schools. The collaborative autoethnography also instigates teachers’ realisation of space-time dynamics and other institutionalised constraints and their constitutive power over practices, feelings, understandings and social relations. The transformative learning that has emerged from collaborative autoethnography has led us to recognise the necessity and challenges of conducting empirical analysis, engaging in self-reflection and dialogue, and transforming institutionalised and personal practices and norms. While bringing about institutional change has been challenging, individual and relational transformation has been more achievable. I argue that top-down initiated practitioner inquiry with colleagues and superiors at one’s workplace may be more challenging, and I also argue for the benefits of engaging in practitioner inquiry with people outside one’s own organisation.