Multi-Vocality and Post-Processualism as Methodological Assets of the ’Collaboration Game’

Introduction And Context Of Our Idea

With the emergence of what we shall call interpretative and reflexive approaches to education through the reaction against the processual (or process-oriented) education of the 1970s and 1980s, the desire for the inclusion of other voices in the educational process is born. This was and still is a conscious step toward creating reflexivity within the educational profession, i.e. dissolving the rigorous praxis and constraints of the interpretative process that followed the science-oriented approaches and realizing and accepting that interpretation occurs at all stages of the educational practice.

Multivocality seems to become an “it-word” used for whenever other people besides professionals are incorporated into the interpretation of educational-related core assignments, whether through community of experts, internet forums etc, or when the role and voice of a particular professional as a person is emphasized.

However, the concept of multivocality has up until now always focused on listening to different voices in the present. Various people have been consulted to discuss issues regarding a particular educational case or issue, from their point of view as professionals or experts today. But is it not possible to also allow voices from people that have been involved in the educational process in the (long or not so long) past to speak up regarding their own involvement within an educational process. This is where the concept of multivocality comes into play. It becomes a way of dealing with the educational profession and / or practice not only from the view-point of the currently involved actors but also from interpreting a case through the voices of other stakeholders besides the originally involved inter-actors.

In our chapter we explore what we call the the 'Collaboration game' from two aspects namely the issue of multi-vocality and the issue of post-processualism and by means of adopting a service-based approach.

Even if several educational services exist, these services are still un-configurable by the education expert and represent the professional (‘business’) logic view without considering the specific needs of the particular pupils. These services are designed in a silo manner and hardly, if not impossible, interconnected by the actual needs of the individual pupils. Though this reality is more or less widely adopted in the domain of general education, the needs for individualized interventions in the area of special education form rather the rule than the exception. The implications of what we call ‘Collaboration as a game’ to the technical architecture of any plausible solution should take into account following the three dimensions that will be addressed in a use case we shall present in the chapter:

Figure 1.

Collaborative practices and interventions within and outside the classroom