Transformational Encounters: An Online Dialogical Partnership
Date
2023-04-28
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Abstract
This presentation explores the shared transformational encounters of two doctoral peers as they engaged in an intentional online partnership to support their learning journeys. Originally conceived as a strategy for holding each other accountable to writing goals, weekly online meetings quickly evolved into a rich dialogic space for cultivating meaning between perspectives. The exchange of ideas in this space was more than informational; it was transformational. Consistent with understandings put forward by Sinha (2010), the presenters came to recognize the transformative possibility of speaking with and listening to each other. The interaction between their stories, questions and reflections served as a “catalyst for some change in understanding” (Breault, 2016, p. 14). Through dialogue, they found that they had generated a shared space that stimulated connections, fueled inquiry, nurtured belonging and fostered well-being. Given these realizations, and drawing on previous methodological coursework, they came to understand their encounters as sites for a duoethnography in “which the reconceptualization of the meaning that one gives is reexamined in dialogue with another” (Norris & Sawyer, 2020, p. 397). With an approach that “brings together two complex beings situated within their own complex social networks” (Breault, 2016, p. 4), the presenters were able to interrogate and reconceptualize meaning. They convey their story so that session participants might also consider the transformative possibilities of online peer-to-peer dialogues.
References:
Breault, R. A. (2016). Emerging issues in duoethnography. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 29(6), 777–794. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2016.1162866
Norris, J. J., & Sawyer, R. D. (2020). Duoethnography: A polytheoretical approach to (re)storing, (re)storying the meanings that one gives. In P. Leavy (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Qualitative Research, 2nd ed., pp. 397-423). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190847388.013.1
Sinha, S. (2010). Dialogue as a site of transformative possibility. Studies in Philosophy and Education 29, 459–475. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-010-9189-4