To answer research question 1: ‘What are the professional practices and knowledge resources used in the context of a dispersed community of associate lecturers at the Open
University?’, we revisit the major features of a community of practice in the context of a dispersed community, beginning with the concept of participation.
Wenger agues that participation is a more encompassing process where participants are not just active in the practices of social communities but engaged in the construction of identities in relation to these communities.
This thesis has been able to identify indications of this identity-building, with the form of belonging centred around relationships with students and the organisation, rather than other associate lecturer practitioners. We have analysed evidence in case study 2 of a rejection of belonging to ‘academia’ and a desire for identity to be built around business consultancy; in case study 4, a desire for an identity built around being an academic professional and a mother, teaching OU students from her home.
Within a community of practice, negotiation of meaning is seen as a living process, constantly creating new situations and negotiating anew the meaning of that situation. Importantly for this thesis, negotiation does not necessarily involve conversations or direct relationships with colleagues; in this way, it is not the same as collaboration. It is a process of mutual recognition, the ability to see something of ourselves in the particular situation and therefore participation becomes a constituent of our identities.
This definition would encompass experiences of associate lecturers working at home, often isolated from other associate lecturers, and who construct images of students as they mark assignments, even though they may not have met up at tutorials. This process of marking, as part of their practice, becomes part of their identity; they create meaning, influence the wider world and, in turn, are influenced by that world, all as part of the reflexive process.
In order for a community of practice to function, Wenger (1998) argues that the meanings created by individual members of the community must be co-ordinated. Meanings need not be held in common but must be in some way interconnected; because the participants are working together in a joint enterprise, it is not a uniform but a collective product.
Wenger points out that a shared practice can come about in diverse and complex ways. Mutual relations can be a mixture of power and dependence, pleasure and pain, expertise and helplessness, success and failure, amassment and deprivation, alliance and competition, ease and struggle, authority and collegiality, attraction and repugnance, fun and boredom, trust and suspicion, friendship and hatred.
The evidence from the case studies provides ample examples of these types of mutual relationships. This study can point to the struggle in case study 1 between control and letting go in the tutorial situation, the boredom of teaching examinable pupils and the attraction of teaching non-examinable students. There is the suspicion and resistance created by the assignment-monitoring system in case study 2, and the repugnance felt at being classified as a ‘low marker’ by the system; the sheer fun of creating the ‘tutorial situation’ in case study 3, and the enjoyment of learning alongside his students and the sense of trust established between associate lecturer and students, in order to have the feeling of being allowed into each other’s worlds; the aspiration in case study 4 for her students to experience the same sense of ‘transformation’ that she had herself experienced through study, the belief that we all have the ability to learn, seeing herself as the ‘enlightenment girl’.
However, in a dispersed community such as associate lecturers at the OU, these mutual relationships are constantly being renegotiated between an individual associate lecturer, the organisation and the students. Therefore, if the term community is to be applied to the situation of associate lecturers, it must be able to incorporate the organisation and the student body.
Equally important in this type of dispersed community is that the coherence and
interconnectiveness is provided in large part by the organisation and the students, rather than between associate lecturer practitioners. Examples of this are the ongoing negotiation
between the university and associate lecturers on what type of circumstances should be allowed for late submission of an assignment, and the influence of student expectations on the nature of the tutorial situation. In case study 4, the associate lecturer felt the group could
be stretched by introducing concepts from outside of the formal course; she also felt the group would accept such introductions as being legitimate and not wasting their time because they did fall outside of the course. The more didactic approach to tutorials in case study 2 was justified in the belief that this was the best way of meeting his own student group’s expectations. These situations are not static and could well be renegotiated in future tutorials.
The Open University has developed a number of organisational mechanisms to try to foster a sense of community among part-time tutors; for example, regional and central staff
development events that bring associate lecturers together. The Regional Centres keep in contact by providing newsletters and other information, and associate lecturers have their own newsletter known as Snowball. Course Teams and Regional Centres have developed electronic conferences in order to facilitate communication. However, these organisational mechanisms did not figure greatly in my discussions with the research participants. The regional newsletter was mentioned in case study 2, but otherwise they were not mentioned. All these mechanisms are explicit, but there is some evidence in the data for tacit
mechanisms, such as informal groups of associate lecturers, for example the occasional lunch group in case study 4 and use of other associate lecturer materials that have been posted on the website in case study 2. However, these relationships lack the shared practice identified by Wenger (1998) brought about by intense mutual negotiation.
Evidence from the case studies has indicated the possibility of a number of tacit routines within associate lecturer practice, and that routinisation may extend to the preparation for activities as well as the activities themselves. One example is the routines undertaken by associate lecturers before starting to mark the assignment.
It is difficult to find evidence in the case studies for these routines having been developed in a collective way – quite the opposite; the evidence would suggest the level of individual agency in the development of these routines is quite pronounced.
It is not suggested that these routines are developed in a social vacuum; they are constructed as part of the reflexive process, being influenced by wider social factors and also as part of their development, influencing the world in the two-way reflexive process. However,
evidence for the collective moulding of practice by a group of associate lecturers seems to be absent from the case studies.