Zooming in on the partnership of a successful teaching team: examining cooperation, action and recognition

Abstract

This article investigates the cooperation of a teaching team in Swedish upper secondary education over a period of five years. The data collection builds on field studies and partly on a collaborative research approach. Three areas of cooperation have been identified: collaboration among the staff; interactions between the staff and the students; and the partnership between the staff and other stakeholders/local workplaces/institutions. The cooperation has been analysed with concepts from different practice theories and from Honneth’s theory of recognition. The results illustrate: the importance of different kinds of connections of actions for sustainable cooperation and partnership that are socially based and flexible actions as well as action based on rigorous routines; the importance of objects and inscriptions for durable social connections; and how recognition is present and manifested in all successful areas of cooperation. Recognition is not only essential for building and maintaining prosperous ‘external’ partnerships. The results and analysis show how recognition is also a key to durable forms of staff collaboration and for student school connectedness.