To read this content please select one of the options below:

Shifting Our Gaze: Relational Space in Professional Learning Network Research

Professional Learning Networks: Facilitating Transformation in Diverse Contexts with Equity-seeking Communities

ISBN: 978-1-78769-894-9, eISBN: 978-1-78769-891-8

Publication date: 26 May 2020

Abstract

Reflecting on professional learning networks (PLN) in rural and equity-seeking spaces, the authors foreground the importance of “relational space” in studying PLNs in this commentary. The authors argue that while the complexity of taking a relational approach is challenging, it offers an important and necessary perspective, one which is often implicit in the studies featured in this book but not explicitly considered. The chapter is organized around three broad concepts from social network theory – boundedness, connectedness, and mutuality – which serve as starting points for shifting our gaze from formal system structures to more deeply interrogating the informal relational spaces within PLNs. The authors conclude with a call to make use of network theory and methods on their own, and in complement to other literatures, to do so.

Keywords

Citation

Rodway, J. and Farley-Ripple, E.N. (2020), "Shifting Our Gaze: Relational Space in Professional Learning Network Research", Schnellert, L. (Ed.) Professional Learning Networks: Facilitating Transformation in Diverse Contexts with Equity-seeking Communities (Emerald Professional Learning Networks Series), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 171-191. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-78769-891-820201009

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2020 by Emerald Publishing Limited