Presentation at HEA-funded workshop 'Developing a research-led culture within post-92 education departments'. This event will brought together colleagues from across the sector with an interest in research leadership and building a research-led culture. The event facilitated a discussion through which participants could explore/identify key elements that form barriers, as well as those that support, the development of a research-led culture. This presentation is part of a related blog post that provides an overview of the event: http://bit.ly/1pEyxCI For further details of the HEA's work on active and experiential learning in the Social Sciences see: http://bit.ly/17NwgKX

1. ‘Re-imagining Communities of
Practice: from the descriptive
to the prospective’
Dr Rob Smith
Centre for Research and Development in Lifelong Education
(CRADLE)
University of Wolverhampton

2. Marketised forms – the re-introduction of fear as a feature of
our times
 Homo economicus: neo-Hobbesian competitive and self-
interested individual
 Commodification of education; product view of curriculum
 Knowledge production reduced to performativity, shaped by
managerialist positivism
 Marginalisation of qualitative research and practitioner voice
All militate against participatory research & collaborative research
and scholarship.
The Context

3.  Partnership: was looking for another word but this one
will have to do: but it could say – the development of
long term (i.e. at least longer than an annual
qualification cycle) relationship in which trust can
develop
 Perspective: beyond the institution, e.g. West Midlands
Post 1992 Forum – the key is that people are brought
together to meet people from other institutions
 Purpose: in collaborative research the participants need
to be united by purpose. The writing becomes woven in
with this, an articulation of it
How do we research
collaboratively in such a context?

4. Points of departure: the research needs to connect and be
borne out of the experience of the researchers: a spark of
outrage, disgust, even irritation is needed
Practice/practise: Recognise that working like this forces a
confrontation with academic practice that connects directly
back to Hobbes. The REF and academic career discourses
shape identities in HE and collaborative research and
writing cuts across this as it is no respecter of boundaries
and ‘status’. This is a purpose that needs to be made
explicit.

5. What’s the problem with using
‘community’?
Old meanings: common language, sharing a common set
of values, a similar background from a specific location
The city / modernity happened
New (loss of old) meanings: unlike individuals,
dispersed, a range of values and different backgrounds
BUT unified by purpose: that they are against the
complex systems that they believe are destructive of the
relationships, ideas and values that they cherish. Risky
and forward-looking - prospective - looking for the
possibilities of shared purpose and solidarity.

6. Working with and alongside practitioners and others to make
research accessible – social meaning-making.
Using these parameters – collaborative research is the
purposeful occupation, digging and cultivation of the
knowledge commons.
 Literacy Study Group (2008)''Sometimes no amount of reflection or theory helps'
- thoughts on the 'quality' of Literacy provision across a range of Black Country
providers', Journal of Vocational Education & Training, 60:4, 441-454
 Literacy Study Group (2010) 'The allegiance and experience of student literacy
teachers in the postcompulsory education context: competing communities of
practice', Journal of Education for Teaching, 36: 1, 5-17
 Dhillon, S. , Hamilton-Victor, R., Jeens, D., Merrick, S. , O'Brien, J., Siddons, N. ,
Smith, R. and Wilkins, B. (2011) 'Skills for Life: insights from the new
'professionals'', Journal of Educational Administration and History, 43: 1, 61-83
 Garbett, G., Orrock, D. & Smith, R. (2013) Culture clash: mentoring student
Literacy educators in a marketised and instrumentalist further education
policyscape, Research in Post-Compulsory Education, 18:3, 239-256,
Back to context

7. The Power of CoPs: