Learning, Unlearning, and Relearning Together: Unmasking Power in a Students as Partners Program using Collaborative Autoethnography

Abstract

We interrogated a students as partners (SaP), co-curricular program that focuses on supporting student learning. To center power and equity in SaP, the program was grounded in social design-based experiment methodology. We considered the manifestation of power and equity beyond higher education, to that of broader socio-political contexts. Collaborative autoethnography (CAE) was used to garner a richer understanding of student-staff experiences of the program. Through CAE, power emerged as central to our collective experiences, and a recognition that power asymmetry in students as partners programs is complex and multi-layered. We found that to address power imbalances in these programs requires considered strategies and intentional designs. Further, CAE, in and of itself, can be a powerful way to foster self-awareness, mutual trust, respect, and the acknowledgement of others in student-staff partnerships. We conclude by recommending the importance of deliberate design for equity and power towards consequential learning and transformational change.

From Individual to Collective Logics of Thriving: Redesigning K–12 Learning Ecosystems to Support Equitable Civic Futures

“…In addition to (or alongside of) rethinking curriculum, many of the studies sought to create products outside of the traditional scope of school-based materials. For instance, several SDBEs focused primarily on the analysis of dialogue among youth (Mirra & Garcia, 2022), between young people and adults (DiGiacomo & Gutiérrez, 2017; Lizárraga, 2023; Schuetze et al, 2014; Schwartz et al, 2015; Stornaiuolo & Nichols, 2018; Taylor & Hall, 2013), and among adults (Alhadad et al, 2021; Ehret & Čiklovan, 2020; Fowler-Amato & Warrington, 2017; Kalir & Garcia, 2019) as the participants engaged in joint activity to make things. Here, the analysis leverages informal learning as a pathway toward uncovering the inequitable assumptions and insights that inform formal learning structures so that more just formulations can be created.…”