Opening and closing communicative space with teachers investigating race and racism in their own practice

This article explores the very practical challenges that the author experienced as she and a racially mixed elementary school teaching staff negotiated communicative space within a critical inquiry group exploring race and racism in their teaching context. Specifically, the author explores her role of critical friend as crucial to forming communicative space; the ways that communicative space was contested and challenged within the critical inquiry group; and the new communicative spaces that arose from the original group. This article offers implications for action researchers attempting to create communicative spaces around difficult issues such as race and racism.