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Learning Together: Dialogue, Collaboration, and Reciprocal Transformation in a Nicaraguan Educational Program

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The Palgrave International Handbook of Action Research

Abstract

This case study focuses on Semillas Digitales (Digital Seeds), a comprehensive, multiyear-applied development program in Nicaragua that fosters educational improvement and innovation in coffee farm schools through an action research approach. Informed by the concept of co-constructed collaboration, the authors, who represent multiple stakeholder groups within Semillas, reflect on the Program with a focus on an ethic of shared responsibility, open and critical dialogue, multilateral exchange, and authentic, process- and outcome-focused teamwork; they share what developing and operationalizing educational possibility within and across relational and sociopolitical contexts means and entails. The chapter explores the processes and challenges of co-constructing capacity in assets-based ways and how the design and implementation of Semillas seek to resist the expert-learner binary and impositional stance that often undergird the field of development..

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Ravitch, S.M., Tarditi, M.J., Montenegro, N., Baltodano, D., Estrada, E. (2017). Learning Together: Dialogue, Collaboration, and Reciprocal Transformation in a Nicaraguan Educational Program. In: Rowell, L., Bruce, C., Shosh, J., Riel, M. (eds) The Palgrave International Handbook of Action Research. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-40523-4_46

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-40523-4_46

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-44108-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-40523-4

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