What we talk about when we talk about Students as Partners

Abstract

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, to frame their explorations of everything from hip hop to running to games.Like Carver and those who have echoed him, we want to surface the multiple dimensions that are integral to our, as to any, complex subject.We acknowledge that the terms used to capture that complexity carry with them intended and unintended associations (such as those with Carver himself).In reference to "students as partners," not only the explicit what and when but also the implicit why can evoke a variety of associations and reactions.A single short story among many, this editorial is one installment in a series of ongoing discussions of what we talk about when we talk about "students as partners."We, in this case, are two students and two academics/faculty working in partnership as four (of a total of eight) co-editors who intentionally chose the term "students as partners" for this journal's name.Our goals in attempting to unpack this term are to acknowledge and to invite further dialogue about the variety of reactions the term provokes and to move us toward developing generative theories of partnership praxis (Matthews et al., in 2018a).The term aims to capture an aspiration for working together in higher education in a way that rejects traditional hierarchies and assumptions about expertise and responsibility.However, by naming only one participant in the partnership and not specifying the nature of that partnership, the term can evoke associations and feelings that undermine that aspirational aspect.For these and other reasons, some practitioners and scholars might prefer to use whatever term suits their local context, letting, as IJSaP Advisory Board and faculty member Peter Felten puts it, "a thousand flowers bloom with the naming of this (widely varied and highly contextual) practice" (personal communication, August 9, 2018).But as "an umbrella term" (Healey, Flint, & Harrington, 2014) with wide recognition, "students as partners" can create a community of practitioners and scholars committed to working together through partnership in higher education.

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