Barriers For Effective Networking In Competitive EnvironmentsAddressing Distrust And Isolation To Promote Collaboration In The Chilean School System

Abstract

Evidence suggests that networking can be beneficial to enhance learning in challenging contexts, when there is a shared purpose, trustful relationships, and the development of meaningful collaborative practices. In Chile, the adoption of collaborative network practices has faced some challenges due to the long history of neoliberal policies characterised by hierarchical and market governance that promotes competition over collaboration among schools. Using Hood’s (1998) cohesion/regulation matrix, the Chilean education system can be characterized as fatalist, where cooperation among peers is mandated solely to meet external requirements to regulate schools’ and practitioners’ practice. However, in recent years, collaborative projects have been implemented that are framed and supported in an egalitarian culture, highlighting the importance and value of collaboration and support among peers to develop effective teaching practice. By analysing three experiences of networking in Chile, we identify two barriers for networking, distrust and isolation, and analyze the ways in which these networks attempted to overcome them to sustain effective collaboration. The first experience describes the implementation of the collaborative inquiry networks (CIN) methodology. This programme was designed to facilitate the development of networked leadership capacities of principals and curriculum coordinators to support teachers’ practices during COVID-19 in one municipality. In the second, we report on a group of principals who developed focussed interventions in their network of urban primary public schools to enhance the exchange of knowledge and practices among network participants. The third centres on the development of a model to enhance teacher leadership and professional learning in Initial Teacher Education through collaboration in a university–school partnership. Finally, we present some lessons to be considered in similar social and policy environments to successfully introduce a collaborative networked approach.