Samarbete och lärande: Om friktion, uppgifters komplexitet och erfarenhetsutbyten i samarbete

This thesis highlights collaboration among secondary school teachers as an example of employees' possibilities to learn from each other in collaboration. The purpose of the thesis is to throw light upon how employees shape conditions for cooperation, and the importance these conditions have for their possibilities to exchange experiences and influence each other’s task understanding, i.e., their possibilities to learn from each other through collaboration. The thesis’ theoretical bases are action theory and constructivism. The study uses a case-study approach, and involves a combination of participant observation and interviewing techniques. The starting point was to identify factors that appeared to assist or hinder the exchange of experience. One conclusion is that the division of labour seems to have been central to how conditions are shaped and is the basis for teachers' possibilities for experience-exchange. The combination of a common, physical context, and the friction between the teachers’ actions, seems to promote experience-exchange between teachers and contribute to the possibility to learn from each other. Friction could be seen as the basis for teachers’ need to achieve consensus and coordinate action, since friction is a hindrance. Consequently, friction entails both obstacles and opportunities for coordination and learning. The conditions giving rise to frictions that are overcome seem to be shaped by the way teachers divide the work. Tasks with a high degree of complexity seldom cause friction, which is avoided in these contexts through individual labour. Friction seems to occur and be overcome more frequently during cooperation on easier tasks. Teachers' attempts to collaborate on complex tasks, and simultaneously divide work individually, seem to increase the risk of insurmountable friction arising, from power-related and communication barriers.