Civic Engagement in Practice: An action research collaboration in the development of a social enterprise
Michele O'Sullivan (Dublin Institute of Technology), Eleanor Fitzgerald (The Grove After School Care)
Abstract
From its position on the European periphery, the diminutive Irish Celtic Tiger has presented scholars of European political economy with a disproportionate number of quandaries, puzzles and paradoxes over the course of the last two decades (Ornston 2003).
The impetus for the research
Irish social partnership, and its more recent offshoots, has attracted much national and international attention (for example, Ornston, 2003; Sabel and the LEEDS Programme, 1996). In his 2001 analysis of the future of Irish Social Partnership O'Donnell argues that the dilemma facing public policy and partnership is that neither can meet critical structural and supply-side challenges - as the relevant policies can only be agreed, analysed and changed in the context of doing them. In advocating the ‘local turn’ O'Donnell calls on Rorty’s (1996:71) recommendation that ‘the pressure to rise to a higher level of abstraction in philosophy and politics’ should come from ‘below’ and that “locally useful abstractions should emerge out of local and banal deliberations”. O’Donnell then argues that the ‘deliberative democracy and dialogic rationality’ of Irish social partnership is linked to Dewey’s urging in "Freedom and Culture" that 'we have to analyse conditions by observations, which are as discriminating as they are extensive, until we discover specific interactions that are taking place, and learn to think of interactions instead of force’ (Dewey 1939:39, cited in O’Donnell 2001).
This ‘locally useful abstraction’ has its roots in four coalescing factors:
1) theoretical concerns highlighted in prior research (O'Sullivan, 2002) which agreed with the hypothesis that there was a gap between the national rhetoric of ‘the spirit of partnership’ as legislated for in the Education Act, 1998 and local interpretation in one school. This, together with:
2) prior experience of childcare (as parents and consumers) and of school partnership (as parents and volunteers) led to
3) the conceptualization of a school partnership initiative seeking to marry two ‘problems’ or opportunities which involved
(i) the development of a school-age childcare facility within the school through the mobilisation of partnership resources, which simultaneously addresses
(ii) the problem of scarce resources within the school and its community, and
4) the opportunity to carry out research while developing a model of school age childcare was provided through a DIT PhD scholarship which sought to gain a greater insight into aspects of Irish partnership.
Methodology
Both Rorty and Dewey have connections with action research, a methodology that involves a participatory, democratic approach to achieving the dual action and research goals. The Irish version of social partnership, together with its offspring, educational partnership, also involves a participatory, democratic approach to problem-solving. Some of the structural and supply side issues mentioned by O’Donnell include childcare and education, and this action research thesis explores these in the local context of the development of a social enterprise model of school age childcare through the mobilization of school partners. From a theoretical perspective it looks at some of the issues and anomalies in school age childcare, social enterprise, social and educational partnership which was highlighted during the progress of the action. This is the focus of the thesis.
The focus of this paper
This case study involves an action research collaboration which combines doctoral research in Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) with a local social enterprise. The childcare business has been established; the business model has been developed; and tangible benefits have been delivered. The final write-up of the thesis is now underway. This paper will discuss some of the challenges of reciprocal learning, the co-creation of knowledge and other issues facing a civic engagement partnership in practice that emerged during the course of this research project.
Keywords: Action Research, Partnership; Social Enterprise; Childcare; Civic Engagement
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Dewey, J. (1939) Freedom and Culture
(1902) The Child and the Curriculum, Chicago, University of Chicago Press
(1900) The School and Society, Chicago, University of Chicago Press
O’Donnell, R. (2001) The Future of Social Partnership in Ireland: a discussion paper prepared for the National Competitiveness Council, Dublin, National Competitiveness Council.
Ornston, D. (2003) Tripartite Concertation and Economic Transfiguration: The Politics of Institutional Innovation in Ireland. 14th Conference of Europeanists. Chicago.
O’Sullivan, M. (2002) Parental involvement and participation: from rhetoric to reality in Primary Education. (Unpublished dissertation, MSC in Strategic Management, DIT, Aungier St, Dublin)
Rorty, R. (1996) Deconstruction and Pragmatism
Sabel, C. and the Leeds Programme (1996) Partenariats locaus et innovation sociale – Ireland: Local Partnerships and Social Innovation, Paris, OECD.
