Exploring trans-generational and trans-institutional learning: educational action research possibilities in a virtual environment

ABSTRACT

Building on Woolf’s (2020. “Exploring Pedagogies to Elevate Inquiry: Teaching Action Research in the Third Space.” Educational Action Research 28 (4): 579–596) conceptions of `third space theory’ this article describes how, in order to find continuity between theory and practice, the convenors of a network for educational action researchers created a `third space’ to support knowledge creation in a trans-generational and trans-institutional community. Our approach to third space theory draws on Woolf’s work which describes 1) perceived space 2) conceived space and 3) lived space. The article demonstrates a new understanding of third space theory as we seek to support professional knowledge creation amongst teachers and teacher educators. Key issues and challenges in the establishment of a values-based educational action research network and its move to an online setting are introduced. We explain the generation of a living educational theory from the research community, which was convened by the authors. We have created both a face-to-face and an online professional development community of action researchers. The original contribution of this paper is the creation of an open and shared learning community to support action research practitioners in their processes of accessing, collaborating in and undertaking research. The significance of our paper is in the emergence of socially constructed knowledge in a fluid and flexible space that is underpinned by our lived values of inclusion and respect.

KEYWORDS:

• Living theory
• action research
• third space theory
• network

Introduction

The Network for Educational Action Research in Ireland (NEARI) was established in 2015 as a face-to-face network giving people, who are engaged in research into their own practice, an opportunity to share their ideas with others and to engage in critical professional conversations in a safe, independent, respectful and supportive environment. NEARI is a voluntary network, non-funded and not affiliated to any specific educational institution. Embracing trans-generational and trans-institutional learning, NEARI welcomes attendees from all levels of education and from all institutions or none, and the triannual meetings are known as NEARIMeets. Our meetings are trans-generational in the sense that attendees comprise retired teachers, experienced teachers, teacher educators, teachers starting out on their professional lives, and student teachers. As these participants come from a range of institutions at primary, secondary and tertiary levels, our meetings can be described as trans-institutional.

The ecological model of human development by Bronfenbrenner (1979) proposes that human development is formed by interaction between individual and context, directly and indirectly. Newman and Newman (2020) describe the context macro, exo, micro and meso systems, with O’Regan, Brady, and Connolly (2021) positioning the ecological framework through the Covid-19 lens. The focus of this paper is at the meso system level. Following a successful application, NEARI was awarded the opportunity to host a Values-based Practitioner Action Research Special Interest Group by the Educational Studies Association of Ireland in 2020, further establishing connections at the mesosystem.

It has been recognised that evidence-based practice in teacher education is increasingly a priority in the improvement of educational standards and systems (Teaching Council 2011; OECD 2007; Tatto and Furlong 2015). The integration of research informed practice within the teaching profession in Ireland is aligned with the establishment of the Teaching Council in 2006. In Ireland the Teaching Council advocates that initial teacher education programmes should be research-based in the sense that pre-service student teachers would both generate and use research in their practice, advocating for ‘teacher-as-researcher’ (O’Donoghue, Harford, and O’Doherty 2017). Keen to promote a culture of shared learning in which research is encouraged and applied within the classroom settings for the in-service teacher, the Teaching Council encourages and promotes supports to teachers in conducting research and sharing existing practices in their Collaboration and Research for Outgoing Innovation (CROÍ) Research Series. NEARI has similar aims and provides another space for teachers to share the narratives of their research.

NEARI and its Values-based Practitioner Action Research Special Interest Group are convened by the authors of this paper. Individually we have backgrounds in education, technology, leadership, educational research and teacher education, and collectively we are driven by a conviction that action research, animated by one’s values, is a powerful and transformative approach to research-in-practice (McDonagh et al. 2020). NEARIMeets are open to everyone who has an interest in values-based research into practice. These NEARIMeets took place in face-to-face settings until COVID-19 restrictions prevented such gatherings in 2020. The format for NEARIMeets generally has one main or ‘keynote’ speaker as well as two to four shorter presentations from other participants. Key to all inputs is the subsequent dialogue, both supportive and critical, that follows each of the presentations. As Ball (2016) suggests, all participants are encouraged to become increasingly critically reflexive and politically aware. At all NEARIMeets we acknowledge NEARI’s ethical statement and seek participants’ views about the running of NEARI.

COVID-19 is currently affecting change across all levels of the education landscape and this paper describes the fluid intersection of culture, identity and socially produced knowledge (Woolf 2020) in a community of self-study, values-based action researchers. As responses to the crisis developed, it became clear that school closures had challenging implications for many young people and those supporting them. Such disruptions bring a focus on the precarity of daily life and indeed the challenge then posed for professional development and self-study practitioner research. The move from face-to-face collaboration to a virtual environment has proven challenging for some teachers and their pupils, teacher educators and academic staff as well as their students. Recent experiences show how a time of crisis can act as a catalyst for questioning and reflection on that which was previously taken for granted (Beghetto 2021). During the pandemic, for example, vaccines and scientific disinformation as well as a rise in fake news and conspiracy theories have gained prominence.

The prospect of creating socially distanced learning communities prompted us to reflect on the challenge and opportunity this presents as we, authors, research our practice as network convenors and facilitators. In this article, we will show how we examine our practice in facilitating a values-based action research community of practice within a virtual environment, with a view to enhancing it and our understanding of it, and furthermore to theorise it. We explain how we adopt a self-study approach, within a living theory action research methodology, as we critically reflect on our values and actions. We are claiming that by drawing on our learning from convening a network in a pre-COVID world and continuing it through an online environment, we are now in the process of creating a new emergent domain of learning and engagement, generating our theory in terms of descriptions and explanations of our research in our practice. We draw on the work of Whitehead to explain our use of ‘we’ in terms of a relational ‘I’ which is often ‘represented as i∼we to recognise the mutual influence of an individual with other/s in relational contexts’ (Whitehead 2014, 82).

We moved beyond localised descriptions in our explanations of creating an open and shared learning community to support action research practitioners from a broad spectrum of educational levels. We show how we constructed theoretical explanations from researching our practice of moving online. We ask important questions and offer ways for others to reflect on and act on when negotiating the challenging tensions in pivoting to working and teaching within a virtual environment while maintaining an educator’s professional and personal values. This opens possibilities for educational action research.

Connecting third space theory and professional learning, we borrow the concept of third space from cultural studies, post-colonial theory, geography, and most recently critical literacy (Bhabha 1994; Gutiérrez 2008; Moje et al. 2004; Moles 2008; Soja 1996). Originally proposed by Bhabha (1990) third space theory builds on the metaphor of space to illustrate the fluid intersections between colliding cultures. The third space is a liminal space, the ‘cutting edge of translation and negotiation, the in-between space that carries the burden of the meaning of culture (Bhabha 1994, 38) – a space attempting to combine features of formerly separate spheres, that seeks to create a new domain of learning and engagement, through multi-vocal dialogue and interaction with one another. Woolf (2020, 581) describes third space theory as ‘the fluid intersections of identity, culture, and socially produced knowledge’. In this research and taking account of culture and identity in creating socially produced knowledge, we authors explore professional learning within a learning network. We continue to explore these issues as we move the network through an online format to a new unexplored space.

The purpose of this study is to outline the research we have undertaken in the establishment of an educational action research community to support professional knowledge creation and its move to an online setting, and to expand the literature in exploring new understandings of third space theory. To address this purpose, two research questions were formulated (1) How has the establishment of an [online] action research network contributed to our reimagining third space theory? (2) How are we enhancing our own practice as network convenors?

Methodology

In this paper we capture the reality of NEARIMeets and ask ‘How has the establishment of an online NEARIMeet contributed to our reimagining third space theory?’ Because the research question here is of the kind ‘How do I/we enhance or develop a new understanding of our practice?’, it embraces the dynamic nature of the relationality of ‘I’ and the ever-changing context of the people and the location of the network with which we are engaged (Whitehead 2018). We sought to conduct action research (Lewin 1946) so that we could investigate our understanding of our actions over three phases of research. We chose to use the term educational action research, although definitions of educational research (Lingard 2013; Thomson, Lingard, and Wrigley 2012) are contested and many link it to its outcomes, to its impacts on policy, to systemic change or to the end users of such research. Rather than binary explanations of educational research as for or on education, we are seeking to conduct research that encapsulates enhancement of the researchers and the influence of this on participants and the social formations about them (McDonagh et al. 2020; Sullivan et al. 2016).

We have chosen a Living Educational Theory (often shortened to Living Theory) research approach for this investigation. This research approach is closely aligned with the cyclical nature of self-study action research and draws on the principles of narrative research, ethnography, phenomenology, case-study, and grounded theory (Whitehead 2018). It is a creative and innovative form of research that is undertaken from an insider perspective and it seeks to capture the ‘here-and-now-ness’, the ‘happening-ness’ and the ‘lived-ness’ of practice in real life (Kemmis 2012, 891) in terms of the reality of the experiences of all involved.

Research design

Living Theory research is generally undertaken from a first-person perspective and locates ‘I’ as the focal point of the research, as the researchers scrutinise their own practices. This is not a self-absorbed, navel-gazing ‘I’ but is instead an ‘I’ who is in engagement with others and always outward-looking. In the research undertaken here, the ‘I’ becomes an ‘I∼we’ relationship which embraces a mutually respectful way of being as outlined by Huxtable and Whitehead (2006) as we, authors, and network convenors live to our individual and collective values. Based on our I∼we principle, we locate our thinking and our work with NEARI and its Values-based Practitioner Action Research Special Interest Group ‘in our shared values of social justice, care, fairness, inclusion, democracy and collaboration’ (Glenn 2020, 23).

Our collaborative undertakings enabled us to identify our shared values and an I-we approach. Over the past 21 years four of the authors have studied together, researched our individual practices as teachers, school principals, educational researchers, lecturers, teacher educators, journal editors and reviewers and co-written books. The fifth author joined the NEARI network in 2016 and brought her research, lecturing, teacher education and publishing research experiences to the group as we, five, set up the Special Interest Group. Our shared values enabled us to focus it on values-based action research. Our collaborative undertakings enabled us to live towards our shared core values. These are the values that underpin our research, and we strive towards them in our everyday explorations and management of NEARI and its Values-based Practitioner Action Research Special Interest Group. We draw on and articulate values as standards of judgement and explanatory principles throughout our research (Whitehead 2018) and use them to check the honesty, rigour and validity of our claim (see below).

We consider the members of NEARI and the Special Interest Group as co-researchers. The network is open to everyone who expresses an interest in researching their practice, many of whom are teachers or teacher-educators. We perceive Living Theory research as an ongoing way of life and therefore we share our values and our ethical statement publicly with attendees at the outset of every network meeting (NEARI Ethical Statement n.d.), demonstrating our values-based approach to our work and to our research. This shows that the action-researcherly disposition (Sullivan et al. 2016) which we adopt, is an ongoing everyday process. Attendees are always invited to contribute to and modify the ethics statement and to participate both in its ongoing evolution as well as the evolution of the network.

Data is collated from many sources. Like Delong (2020) we perceive dialogue as a research method. The critical dialogue that lies at the heart of our network meetings is a rich source of data, as is our own dialogue as network convenors and planners. A record of our reflections after each network meeting is maintained and used as a reference point for future planning. Each network meeting is video-recorded and clips of the recordings are published on the network website (www.eari.ie), with the permission of the attendees and presenters. We recognise that these videoclips are a rich data source providing evidence of lived experience. Data is also collected in the form of feedback from the participants at each network meeting, with their permission. We sift through this data as we look for evidence to show that our values are apparent in our thinking and our actions as we ask how we might enhance our practice as convenors and gain insight into it. This validation process is influenced by Whitehead and McNiff’s (2006) concept of using values as standards of judgements or criteria for evaluating how we have changed our practice or our understanding of it.

The research design is cyclical in nature in that the planning of the structure of each network meeting is based on our collective critical reflections on the previous meeting(s) – we call these our ‘tweak’ documents. We are continually striving to enhance our practice and gain insight into it by constantly interrogating the values we hold. Thus, each session of planning, holding and reviewing a network meeting becomes a mini-research cycle, where the learning and theory generated from one cycle informs the next. These mini-cycles occur naturally and lie within the three main research cycles or phases.

Phase One pertains to the establishment of a trans-generational and trans-institutional action research and living theory research community. We examine how we were enhancing our own practice as network convenors with a view to understanding the culture of the network and its key identifiers.

Phase Two is concerned with conceiving a new online practice, as a response to COVID-19 restrictions, to support our network culture and to outline the difficulties as well as the advantages of that. This second phase is concerned with conceiving a new online practice to support our network culture.

Phase Three reflects what Soja (1996) construed as the space of possibility and is a combination of the first two spaces. For us, it is the combined space for professional knowledge creation and learning in a virtual environment. Woolf (2020) describes it as where new knowledge and understanding to promote social change is creatively generated, and in our research, we illustrate this process in the fluid intersection of culture, identity and socially produced knowledge.

Phase Three illuminates our understanding of our creation of a ‘third space’, an emergent stage addressing our current thinking. It embraces the principles that were established at the outset of the research in Phase One, as well as the learning from the difficulties and stresses of establishing online network meetings in Phase Two. As we reflect on the three research phases, we come to a new explanation of a third space living theory for facilitating trans-generational and trans-institutional professional learning within a community of researchers.

Research phases

Phase one: praxis in the context of creating a trans-generational and trans-institutional action research community

In the first research phase, praxis was evident as we reflected on data from NEARIMeets from 2015 to 2020, identifying its ontological and epistemological basis. We researched the establishment of the network, the structure of the NEARImeets, the facilitators’ critical reflections and how these were informed by our values.

We found data in our network’s public online presence and archive (www.eari.ie), written feedback from other networks on research papers we presented at their conferences, feedback sheets from network participants, as well as our personal and collaborative critical video and/or written reflections. These data sources showed and validated our collaborative epistemological and ontological values in action and how they coalesced into guiding and practical values of inclusion, collaboration, dialogue, and knowledge creation for the network. These values in action became criteria for claiming that the culture of NEARI was value-based, as the following examples demonstrate.

Inclusion was an explicit value of NEARI from the beginning. We welcomed ‘action researchers who were new to action research, as well as those who work on action research projects, along with some who are life-long action researchers’ (www.eari.ie). The network existed outside, but alongside, the formal structures of the academic institutions and so was available nationally with meetings alternately in Dublin and outside of it. These factors contributed to attendees at the meetings being trans-generational (see NEARI archive photos, www.eari.ie) and trans-institutional action researchers affiliated to a broad range of universities, colleges, faculties, all levels of schools and professional development organisations. While these actions exhibit a culture of inclusivity, they also show a sense of social justice and fairness (McDonagh and Sullivan 2017). Evidence of this culture was noted in the Collaborative Action Research Network Conference Reflections (McAteer and Hastings 2019), following our presentation on ‘Questioning assumptions around what counts as best practice in research networks’ (McDonagh et al. 2018).

Collaboration was evident in the developmental structure of the NEARIMeets, when participants and facilitators worked together to create something new in support of a shared vision. This was evident in the culture and spirit of NEARI where the authors rotated the various roles of convenor, presenter, and facilitator. Participants’ collaboration was welcomed, and their suggestions were incorporated into meetings. Data showed our openness to collaboration when we asked, ‘What did you gain from NEARI? What could we as a network or educational movement do to improve the quality of our dialogue and learning? Would you like anything to be added to our ethics statement? Any other suggestions?’ (NEARI Feedback Sheets 2017–2019). As outlined above, we convenors examined these feedback sheets and modified each NEARIMeet as a consequence of this collaborative process.

The practice and the culture of the face-to face NEARI network was framed by the values outlined above. Our practice of convening and facilitating the network could be explained and judged by standards based on these values. Feedback from participants and literature about the network showed these values in action in our practice. These criteria added rigour to our research process.

Phase two: negotiating the online environment

In the second phase, we examined data on how we pivoted to a virtual environment while maintaining the culture of NEARI with its values of inclusion, collaboration, dialogue, and knowledge creation. We interrogated epistemological understandings and possibilities in a virtual context as together we developed our facilitations of our practices and provided evidence of our claim to having a new online identity for NEARI.

The COVID-19 pandemic created disruption for stakeholders at all levels of education (Flores and Gago 2020) and while it brought a necessity to restructure, or in some cases overhaul, professional development programmes, embracing new ways of thinking about the teaching, learning and technology triad was a challenge. We needed to ensure that the goals of NEARI and of the Values-based Practitioner Action Research Special Interest Group were supported, reflecting participant strengths and needs, rather than reducing preparation to lists of discrete skills to be mastered remotely (Rice and Deschaine 2020). Like Kearney (2021, 3) we wanted to find ways to obfuscate the ‘distancing culture that the Covid 19 calamity visited upon the planet’. When we, facilitators, reflected on video recordings of planning and organising meetings, we noted that webinar formats raised issues of didacticism, values of inclusion and dialogue, and questions as to how inclusive and dialogic community of practice spaces really are.

Our initial virtual option, of providing webinars as NEARIMeets, was the antithesis of how we had previously facilitated the network. While teacher professional development was often delivered through webinars, the visual representation was typically a PowerPoint with a small talking head somewhere on the screen. The epistemological assumptions about webinars suggest that knowledge is transmissible and that questions from those trying to gain further information on the topic of the webinar are mediated through asking written questions in advance or addressing them to a third party who refers them to the host of the webinar. Knowledge is thus perceived as information that can be packaged and transferred to others (Shor and Freire 1987; Ball 2012). There appears to be one knower transferring information and new learning happens through listening and clarifying by questioning. Therefore, the focus is very much on instructing, with no emphasis on collective knowledge creation or on how learning happens, which is the converse of the culture that prevailed in NEARI prior to moving to a virtual environment.

We decided to use Zoom as the platform for our initial meetings. This decision was informed by its functionality. and ability to preserve the values underpinning NEARIMeets that needed to be embraced in a virtual setting. Reflecting collaboratively on these meetings and with the benefit of participants’ feedback we identified the following issues. Educators often observe paralinguistic cues to gauge students’ interest, understanding and engagement (Beatty and Behnke 1980; Kohnke and Moorhouse 2020) and Zoom meetings, rather than a webinar, facilitated this to an extent. The Breakout Rooms allowed for facilitated simultaneous small group discussions. This facility was effective because everyone was able to engage and interact with one another on a closer level, but also be part of a larger NEARI community in the plenary sessions.

Phase Two has similarities with, and draws on, the second space as described by Woolf (2020) – as encompassing cognitively construed ideologies, norms, and priorities. In our approach, it is the conceived space where we reconceive virtual spaces and examine the epistemological values underpinning traditional online teaching and replace them with the epistemological base of our network culture of collaborative dialogical values to create new knowledge.

Phase three: emergent context: a state of becoming

In Phase Three, our current phase, our aim is to create a living space within which to combine the experiences from phases one and two. This we perceive to be a hybrid space, aligning entirely with neither phase one nor two but combining some elements of each in an Aristotelian logic of both/and. If we conceive of the first phase as thesis, and the second phase as its antithesis, then logically, in line with Hegel’s dialectic, our third phase should be one of synthesis. However, we do not see the third phase as limited to a synthesising of phases one and two of our research, but more as an alternate possibility, transcending and transforming the two previous phases as our new learning unfolds. Currently, we envisage phase three as a state of becoming, where we reflect on phases one and two as we try to imagine and develop the best possible version of our network.

Our ongoing reflections compel us to explore and problematise hybridity in other contexts also, for example as a means of providing a resolution for traditional binaries such as theory/practice, professional development/accredited research, researchers/practitioners, research/action and school/university. Self-study action research and living theory research are excellent methodologies in which to explore hybridity. Somekh and Zeichner (2009) remind us that it is precisely because action research deliberately mixes discourses – and thereby erodes the boundaries between action and knowledge-generation – that it is uniquely suited to generating and sustaining social transformation. As we reflect on the process and practice of our self-study and living theory action research, we hope to resolve some of the dichotomies mentioned above.

The third phase is a space of possibilities. It centres on the lived experiences of both participants and facilitators as they share the stories of their research in our online network. We examine real life learning opportunities that emerge and show the significance of these for us as facilitators, for the participants and for other social groupings. This phase demonstrates the generation of new knowledge and the enhancement of practice or understanding of it. We hope that it will point the way forward for us as we continue to provide a space of inclusion, social justice, respect, dialogue, collaboration and knowledge creation in pursuit of continuing enhancement of our practice as convenors and facilitators of NEARIMeets and the Values-based Practitioner Action Research Special Interest Group. Inspired by the ideas of Louw and Zuber-Skerritt (2017, 58) around learning conferences, we hope to ‘maximise opportunities for learning and knowledge creation … by embedding a culture of equality, inclusiveness and respect.’

Findings

New learning from phase one

In the first phase, we focus on two areas of learning. These involved creating a space where the socio-cultural and research experiences of all were acknowledged and where the significance of diverse core beliefs was realised. We now explain our learning which has led us to a living theory that a perceived culture can be understood from its value base.

We learned that the significance of our experiences and research, as well as those of the trans-generational and trans-institutional participants, lay in our cumulative interactions which were an inclusive, dialogical and respectful meeting of equals. Participants perceived these values in our actions and provided evidence of this when they referred to them in the feedback we received. For example, attendee NA10_19Nov2019, commenting on her first network meeting, says she ‘found it to be an inclusive space (with almost all sectors of education represented), that supports practitioners and allows them to ‘shine’, to bring and share their passion with others of the same ‘tribe’.’

Our meetings were conducted within a framework of equality and reciprocity of respect, reminiscent of Buber’s (1958) depiction of relationships based on an ‘I-Thou’ approach. We had created a space in which the facilitation of the voices of all participants was an essential aspect of the process. We could now offer explanations of how we facilitated a space for dialogue where participants made meaning together. As Habermas (1984, 287) says, ‘Agreement cannot be imposed, but rests on common conviction as they dialogue.’ Dialogue also occurred in the open conversations during the refreshment breaks and discussion session, where no conclusions were sought, yet as Freire says such conversations are ‘the encounter between men (sic), mediated by the world, in order to name the world’ (Freire 2005, 88). Gadamer (1979, 347) further explains the critique, conversation and dialogue that occurred in our meetings when he says that a characteristic of every true conversation is ‘that each opens himself to the other person, truly accepts his point of view as worthy of consideration and gets inside the other to such an extent that he understands not a particular individual, but what he says.’ We claim that the actions we had taken to enable this cumulative knowledge creation were grounded in the core values of the network.

We learned that our core beliefs as convenors of the network had clarified and became living values as we worked together to provide this space. Evidence of this claim is seen in participants’ feedback and in the meeting archives (www.eari.ie). These demonstrated that participants experienced the values of democracy, fairness, and respect which this research identified as inclusion in our practice when equal access was provided for all. Participants often claimed that meetings offered intellectual nourishment where values of knowledge creation, personal and collaborative learning and knowledge dissemination were experienced within the network. The range of ontological and epistemological values that we identified were relationally dynamic (Laidlaw 2018). Inclusion, collaboration, dialogue and knowledge creation were ‘means values’ (Carozzi 2019, 37) through which the previously named core values of the convenors and NEARI found expression and meaning. These core values were democracy, respect, fairness and social justice. Feedback from participants provided evidence of how they perceived and experienced the identifying features of NEARIMeets ‘I am buzzing with ideas and thoughts since meeting with everyone on Saturday’ (NA1_15Sept2018 via Twitter); ‘I heard it described as nourishment for the soul and I really get that now. Really encouraging to see others who are in similar situations and who have experienced the challenges and opportunities I am seeing in my work’ (NA5_15Sept2018); ‘Great day to make me think more and continue questioning’ (NA2_15Sept2018); ‘Expertise sharing – intergenerational, interdisciplinary and interinstitutional solidarity’ (NA1_15Sept2018).

The network meetings developed a community of practice (Wenger 1998; Glenn et al. 2017) where ‘people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly’ (Wenger-Trayner and Wenger-Trayner 2015, np). The culture of NEARI determined the expectations for how both trans-generational and trans-institutional participants and the convenors of the network behaved and worked together as a community of action researchers. Thus, its culture has succeeded in crossing boundaries between institutions and researchers across all levels. We believe that there were five key reasons that contributed to the influence of this culture – personal motivation and ownership, community, communication, and facilitation (www.eari.ie).

In this first phase, we claim to have identified that our relationally dynamic values underpinned how we facilitated NEARI, and this formed the backbone of the cultural dynamics of the network. We showed authentic and credible evidence not only at meetings but also when we consistently put videos and written evidence on the web for public scrutiny. This also allowed for further dialogue among participants, who had the opportunity to tease out the content on the blog and in the discussion forum. The resulting discussions led to the creation and co-creation of knowledge at both individual and group level. Participants were thus able to achieve new understandings of their practice. The epistemological understanding of this culture is that knowledge is personal (Polanyi 1958) and that knowledge can be created in the interstitial spaces formed in relationships with others through discussion and sharing of ideas. In the spaces occupied by trans-generational and trans-institutional participants, boundaries were blurred and often dissolved in the common aim of living to our values while engaging in dialogue as we developed new forms of knowledge.

In the first face-to-face research phase of the NEARI network we provided evidence of our claim that our network practice was values based, and this informed the culture of the network. Reminiscent of Bhabha’s (1994, 29) ideas of postcolonialism where he speaks of ‘systems of cultural representation’, we too have developed an understanding of how the culture of a trans-generational and trans-institutional learning network can be understood. Based on the research and new learning for us, as described and explained above, our living theory of third space positions the first space as a perceived culture that can be understood from its value base.

New learning from phase two

Now that we understood why we facilitated the network as we did, we continued to try to implement NEARI values as we moved online – a move necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic limitations and which led to the second space in our research. We gradually became aware that online teaching could reflect the antithesis of the culture that we had already established for NEARI. Nevertheless, we began to examine possibilities for moving the network online, while simultaneously setting up a new special interest group for those interested in values-based practitioner action research.

In practice, Phase Two was about why and how we did things differently when we moved online. Cognisant of our core beliefs and of our wish to live to our values, we tried to construct ways to facilitate online networks in order to support participants to critique the values they held around research. We examined the strategies we had perceived in the first phase of our research and interrogated how these influenced participants’ understanding of research and its value base. This phase aimed to be a reflexive space, where we conceived and constructed a format for the online networks of NEARI and the Values-based Practitioner Action Research Special Interest Group, based on our values and the activities for facilitating the networks. We prioritised how these might support participants to collaboratively conceive new understandings of values-based research.

Any proposal for technology enhanced learning should place emphasis on carving space for experimenting with alternative ways of thinking and in our new virtual format we established a multi-voiced dialogue of equals, creating a democratic and collaborative space where participants could become aware of elements which could expand one’s identity as a practitioner researcher. One of the actions that demonstrates our commitment to dialogue and debate was when the keynote input was replaced by a discussion between the convenors at the first online meeting. Participants’ responses to this were positive; however, we changed the format in subsequent meetings because being online meant that we could invite international speakers of renown to address a theme that was relevant to the networks. These keynote or masterclass sections of the online meetings continued in a dialogical format where participants were invited to share and critique their ideas in discussions as equals alongside the keynote speaker.

During Phase Two we conceived new online practices for presentations that were in line with our network culture where new conceptions of identity can be formed. The importance of this approach can be seen in the words of attendee, NA9_3Oct2020, where she explained how she came to a new understanding of her own identity. NA9_3Oct2020 explained how the NEARIMeets enabled her to locate the positioning of ‘I’ in her research through new understanding she gained at network meets. During online presentations, all participants at the meet were invited to comment in the chat box. Where time permitted, these summarised themes were opened up for further discourse. We were concerned that this gave limited feedback, so an electronic copy of the chat was also sent to the presenters. This is an area that needs ongoing refinement in the future.

In Phase Two, the transition to online discussion brought a new perspective to NEARIMeets with the number of attendees increasing, as difficulties related to travelling to venues were no longer an issue. Participants also became a more diverse group, as many international researchers could now attend. While opportunities for dialogue were still present, and participants continued to share their views on topics, what we felt was missing was the crucially important informal discourse with one another during coffee breaks.

To summarise, Phase Two was about conceiving and implementing an online format that changed perceptions of identity at two levels. Firstly, we were developing an online identity for our networks. In addition, individual participants began to conceive their identities as fluid (Bauman 2004) rather than dominated by institution, workplace, or research competence. They had possibilities for reimagining their personal identities as action researchers and for challenging current cultural biases as they come to understand identity as fluid as outlined by Conway, Murphy, and Rutherford (2013); Flores and Day (2006); Gleeson et al. (2015); Palmer (2017); O’ Keeffe and Skerritt (2021) among others.

In keeping with our research approach, evidence of these claims about reconceptualising identities within a virtual network culture is available in the actions that are publicly documented on www.eari.ie and www.esai.ie/sigs/. During this phase, a new living theory emerges where the preservation of a culture in a conceived space requires understanding the epistemology of that culture.

Emergent learning from phase three

Phase Three of our research is not a fait accompli; it is still a work in progress. Therefore, the learning that is emerging from this phase is presented tentatively, always subject to change as we engage in reflection and meta-reflection on our actions. We concur with Kincheloe (2003, 150) that our findings should be presented with ‘hesitation, a stutter, a tentativeness – never as the truth’. When we reflect on the conceptual frameworks that underpin the format and procedure at our NEARIMeets, we can claim with justification that meetings are conducted in accordance with our values of inclusion and respect. All participants have an equal opportunity to have their voices heard, whether in the breakout rooms, in the chat option or through the continuing discussion on the NEARI forum, as we explained in the learning from Phase One. Contributions from all participants are valued equally and form part of the summary of NEARIMeets included on the website (www.eari.ie). Furthermore, these contributions form an essential part of the social knowledge creation that we aim towards in our network.

Mindful of Spivak’s (1988) depiction of how an academic researcher’s voice can be privileged over other participants’ voices, we always take care to minimise any effects that could be construed as emanating from such hegemonic and disempowering structures. This is evident from the feedback from a participant who felt she had shared in the dialogue on an equal footing with a keynote speaker (NA6_15Sept2018). In all meetings, both face-to-face and online, participants’ views are expressed in their authentic voices, and not merely mediated through the lens of the facilitator. We accept ethical and intellectual responsibility in this regard and are in agreement with Zembylas (2018, 119) when he says that ‘researchers need to constantly question their positionality and how it might be complicit in the reproduction of forms of western hegemonic power’. We suggest that the measures we take to ensure the trustworthiness, authenticity and validity of our third space contribute to the creation of an ethical and inclusive community of practice.

Much of the learning from our current position in Phase Three relates to how we can progress from here and how we can sustain the network as a space for dialogue and as encompassing freedom of expression. Following on from each NEARIMeet, we reflect on all aspects of the meeting as we engage in meaning-making to clarify our understanding of our practice. Our learning from these reflections, together with the learning from participants’ contributions during the meetings and in post-meeting feedback, form the basis for socially-created knowledge of our practice. Our NEARIMeets, therefore, fulfil the criteria for a learning conference, which Louw and Zuber-Skerritt describe as ‘explicitly collaborative, non-hierarchical, inclusive, democratic, participative and empowering’ (2017, 59), as opposed to the ‘traditional professional conference based on a knowledge transfer model’ (2017, 61).

We realise at this stage that Phase Three may continue as our modus operandi for the foreseeable future. We have seen and appreciate the benefits of face-to-face meetings; we have also experienced some advantages that can accrue from online meetings. It might be prudent, therefore, to commit to a combination of both formats, for example, alternating between the two when it becomes possible again to have face-to-face meetings. We have learned to embrace the concept of hybridity, recognising the value of the flexibility it provides for our current fluid positionality. The hybrid option also allows us to continue to produce descriptions and explanations of our practice, leading to the creation of new knowledge or a new living theory of our practice (Whitehead 2020). Our living theory demonstrates the emergence of socially constructed knowledge in a fluid and flexible space that is underpinned by our lived values of inclusion and respect.

Discussion: illustrating fluid intersections of culture, identity and socially produced knowledge

The fluid nature of culture and identity became apparent as we engaged in the generation of new knowledge of our practice. We subscribe to the view that identity is fluid. In relation to our NEARIMeets, therefore, we concluded that identities were not fixed in terms of ‘facilitator’ or ‘participant’ but could switch from one to the other, depending on who was speaking and who was listening at any given time. Like Hall (1996, 3), we believe that ‘the concept of identity does not signal the stable core of the self, unfolding from beginning to end through all the vicissitudes of history without change’. Consistent with our view on the fluidity of identity, we conceived of identity as occupying a hybrid or third space that could accommodate the various facets of one’s identity. However, the third space should not be regarded as permanent or static but as a location for flexibility and fluidity (Sullivan 2006). This interpretation would also fit the concept of border crossing, as described by Grossberg (1996). Giroux (1993, 178) envisages the border crosser as ‘producing a space where the dominant social relations, ideologies and practices that erase the specificity of the voice of the other must be challenged and overcome.’ Through the living out of our values of inclusion and respect in our practice, we provided a third space where border crossing could be facilitated and where dominant voices did not disrupt the flow of dialogue to and from all participants.

The idea that border crossing can contribute to the formation of identity has been posited by Bhabha (1994), who suggests that subjectivities can be constructed in the in-between spaces of liminality. The in-between or third space constitutes the location for the continuous formation and reconceptualisation of identity. It is a hybrid space, where cultural diversity can be articulated. Bhabha (1994) designates the in-between space as the location for the struggle against colonialist oppression. He regards it as a space for neither self nor other, but for otherness of the self: ‘It is not the colonialist Self or the colonised Other, but the disturbing distance in-between that constitutes the figure of colonialist otherness’ (ibid, 45). The hybrid space of border crossing in the NEARIMeets became an inclusive space where the self/other dichotomy was not apparent as we lived to our value of equality.

Initially, participants in NEARIMeets tended to be from within Ireland, but this changed as we moved to phases two and three. There was now an international and intercultural element evident in meetings. This change required a specific focus on the cultural ethos of the meetings and made it even more essential that inclusion, respect, and equality framed the interactions among participants. Aligned with the increase in the number of cultural groups represented, there were increased opportunities for dialogue and for knowledge creation. Participants also varied in terms of research experience: some were just starting out in their research journeys and NEARIMeets were an opportunity to dip a toe in the water of living theory action research, while others were seasoned researchers with an abundance of expertise in the lived reality of practitioner action research. All learned with and from one another in the inclusive dialogic spaces provided at NEARIMeets. This learning formed the basis of our socially constructed knowledge from which we developed our living theory of our practice as an emergent domain of learning and engagement.

Table 1 summarises the rigour of the research process involved. During each of the research phases, our reflections on the data we had gathered from multiple sources provided the basis of a claim to new knowledge (Sullivan et al. 2016). We draw on our values as standards of judgement and explanatory principles throughout our research (Whitehead 2018) and use them to evaluate the honesty, rigour, and validity of our claim. When others identify our values in the research actions, they create evidence of our claim (McDonagh et al. 2020) and thus we develop a living theory.

Table 1. Detailing rigorous approach to developing living theory from our practice.

Phase	Data	Claim	Criteria - Standards of judgement	Evidence	Living Theory
Phase 1	Our learning about our values as we convened and facilitated a face to face network	Our network practice is values based and this informed the culture of the network.	Values of inclusion, collaborations, dialogue and knowledge creation were in our actions	Of a perceived culture from participants and literature on network	A perceived culture can be understood from its value base
Phase 2	Learning of Others Positioning of ‘I’ Discussions around NEARIMeets Feedback from participants Reflective log documents	Examining the epistemological values underpinning traditional online teaching and embed them with culture and epistemological base of the NEARI network	Epistemological understanding of our virtual environment	Culture from participants, archive and literature on network Time given for dialogue – but the quality not quite the same as f2f. Contribute to learning by inviting expert guest speakers in the field of AR and critical reflection	To preserve a culture in a conceived space requires understanding its epistemology
Phase 3	Learning of social formations Our own reflections and discussions Feedback from participants Reflective log documents	Developing a combined space for professional knowledge creation and learning in a virtual environment.	Hope for the future	Fluid or hybrid space Writing this paper is indicative of the preparation we are undertaking as we prepare for the third space – which may be both online and F2F.	The emergence of socially constructed knowledge in a fluid and flexible space that is underpinned by our lived values of inclusion and respect

Conclusion

The idea of lived space resonates with a commitment to a living theory approach (Whitehead and McNiff 2006) to practitioner research. This paper has outlined a new living theory emerging in a time of pandemic, that is one of trans-generational and trans-institutional learning and explains the authors’ educational third space theory where the third space contributes to a new critical approach to critiquing previously held assumptions. Flowing from the perceived space for trans-generational and trans-institutional action researchers, to a conceived space where we reconceive virtual spaces and adopt our epistemological values to an online situation, we eventually arrived at the lived space of possibility in a virtual environment. It fosters a diminution of power and hegemony, the levelling of relationships, the sharing of common values, the identification of new values and the creation and development of identity as practitioner researchers in the generation of new knowledge.

Like Kearney (2021) we found ways to conceive a virtual environment which exhibited interdependence, in its inherently reciprocal nature, which offers a crucial corrective to our fixation with control. Despite the restraints of Covid times and virtual environments, we have established a sustainable learning network community of transgenerational and trans-institutional educational action researchers and, in addition, experienced the joys of this in collaboration with others. Our paper offers perspectives on the nature of authentic dialogic engagement within communities of practice and indicates how one might work to build and sustain such communities so that they are genuinely inclusive and collaborative. Unless education stakeholders from academics to practitioners interrogate the underpinning assumptions both of practice and of research, then education itself becomes no more than an echo chamber. This paper forms a crucial part of that interrogation.

Ethical considerations

This research has been undertaken in an ethical manner. Ethical approval was gained by NUI Galway, REC reference number 2020.12.005.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bernie Sullivan

Bernie Sullivan PhD is a practitioner researcher who is currently engaged in postgraduate programmes for UL and NUIM. She is co-author of a number of books on educational research, co-convenor of NEARI and a reviewer for EJOLTS.

Caitriona McDonagh

Caitriona McDonagh PhD is an educational consultant and has extensive experience in research on practice as a teacher, researcher and teacher educator. Currently, she works with UL and NUIM. Co-author of Enhancing Practice through Classroom Research: A Teachers' Guide to Professional Development (2020).

Cornelia Connolly

Cornelia Connolly PhD is a Lecturer at the School of Education, NUI Galway. Her teaching and research interests centre principally on STEM education and design research.

Máirín Glenn

Máirín Glenn formerly a Primary School principal, now works on postgraduate teacher education programmes. She is a co-convener of NEARI and the VPAR SIG with ESAI. Máirín is passionate about self-study action research and living theory. She has co-authored four books on the topic including Learning Communities in Educational Partnerships: Action Research as Transformation (2017).

Mary Roche

Mary Roche PhD lectured in teacher education, both primary and post-primary, and is now a tutor in the School of Education, UCC. An education consultant and school adviser, she is a co-convenor of Network Educational Action Research Ireland (NEARI) and co-author of several books on action research.