Towards interprofessionality in developing family mediation in Finland

AbstractCollaboration crossing professional and organizational boundaries is promoted, but also considered difficult and uncalled for. The aim of this study is to advance the comprehension of inter-professional collaboration on boundaries as a resource for learning and change. I examine and trace the initial shapes of interprofessionality and learning in two separate learning networks of a project researching, developing and learning family mediation in Finland. The naturally occurring data consists of transcribed audio-taped talk between practitioners (e.g. social workers, family counsellors, psychologists and judges) at the beginning of their collaborative work. The qualitative analysis detected communicative patterns, disruptions and dialogical learning mechanisms. The results interpreted through Cultural-Historical Activity Theory show that although the two quite similarly composed learning networks were given the same tasks, they differed on emerging learning mechanisms and unfolding dialogues. If co...