TheOwnershipOfProjects

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	The Ownership Of Projects And The Meaning of Collaboration Video production requires a level of social interaction that is rarely imposed in other courses and that poses problems for traditional educators. In essence, video production is never done in isolation. Even in the few projects that were done by students who chose to work alone, they did not entirely work alone: Other people acted, ran the camera, or helped in some capacity in all projects. Theoretically, people could work on a video entirely by themselves, but even then their activity would be structured by the equipment they used (and had available), the environment that was available to them, and the genres they employed. In the observed courses, however, no project involved only one active participant. This complicates evaluation for instructors and frames the analysis of development. The nature of school, as opposed to work, demands the evaluation of individuals, asserting pressure on teachers to use forms of evaluation, i.e. tests of vocabulary, that yield clear, individually based criteria, demonstrating what students are taking away with them (Glick, 1995). Yet such tests are not clearly appropriate to the context of video production because the production process conflicts with this essentially individualistic bias. Tests, in effect, serve to negotiate the institutional requirement of individual assessment. Suburban High, however, did not have tests for advanced students; their ability to perform particular, highly defined roles in the production of a group project permitted individual assessments while remaining true to vocational practices. Beginning students were expected to become acquainted with all aspects of production, thus tests—written and hands-on—measured individual “knowledge” of diverse activities without measuring whether students could use the information in production. This negotiation with institutional constraints does not, however, facilitate the effort of defining development. Newman, Griffin, and Cole (1989) sought to overcome the individualistic bias of traditional psychological approaches by viewing “cognitive change” as a change in activity involving other people and the tools within the context. Therefore an analysis of “development” is initiated with an examination of how student participation overtly changed. Students found a number of ways of working together and received different levels and types of structure for this collaboration. The most obvious structure was in the level of role differentiation expected and acted upon. Bernstein (1971) has made a salient distinction in the way power relations are structured: “Positional roles” provide the more rigid structure where individual participation is governed by positions such as teacher and student or director, camera operator, and editor. “Personal roles” are based on the qualities a person brings to the activity, requiring more negotiation and flexibility. Positional roles are most prevalent in the working class, being rooted in material class differences. All the schools, as is typical, positional roles dominated in teacher-student relations—the Media 1 teacher having the most personal relations with students—but the roles students had among themselves varied widely. The Media 1 teacher at Urban High never suggested that groups assign duties such and rarely were clear roles distinguished. The focal group shared duties more freely than they would have if their roles had been formally assigned. More than one group had someone from outside the group run the camera for them while they did the “real” work in front of the camera, however. At Boarding High, there was some effort by interns in all courses to have students each take a turn with the camera and with editing. Suburban High required the most clearly distinguished roles in productions by having students formally select roles. For the most part, these roles were taken seriously and used to resolve disagreements. Another strong difference that arose between projects was in the degree to which a project was “owned” by an individual or group. Ownership was clearest in the activity of one student at Urban High, referred to as Spike. Spike was the only student to have a project in production in Media 2. A number of students worked on the project, but in the manner of production and speech, it was Spike’s project. Other students offered suggestions, but Spike was the one to make decisions. In Media 3 the following semester, Spike used footage recorded by two other students during football games and again did a project that became his, despite it officially belonging to the three of them. On the other hand, the focal group from Media 1 seemed to work as a team in all aspects, taking different roles as necessary but working together to make decisions and pursue particular goals on all three projects—despite some changes in who participated. When necessary, they worked with only a portion of the group, but throughout, despite considerable joking, no conflict over project ownership or direction was observed. The consistent part about production at Urban High was that the ownership of projects was negotiated seamlessly. At Suburban High, however, the ownership of projects was often observed to be contested and negotiated, and at Boarding High, expressions of ownership were entirely absent. At Boarding High, no one completed more than one project, so potential change over time was constrained. The most common change was to cease participation, further evidence of the lack of ownership generally expressed by students. In the focal project by Wicket and Jerome (See Tables B1 and B2), both the unedited video and observations of the editing process reveal that the production process was shared throughout, though moments of negotiation were prevalent. For example, Jerome is heard (in the fourth shot of the second day) to yell jokingly, “Okay, give me the camera, bitch.” The capturing process was shared uniquely, with one student controlling it from the computer and the other from the camera. They appeared to be equally involved in production, but there was a tendency for Wicket to take the lead. Wicket clearly experimented with camera techniques and encouraged Jerome to, and Wicket’s discussion of the project’s meanings were far more elaborate. Their participation, however, remains comparatively stable, being shared and undifferentiated as they moved through the stages of production. By contrast, some of the work from Suburban High demonstrates the complications of changing group composition, distinguished roles, and varying levels of participation. (See Table B1.) In response to the “commercial” assignment, Valic, Catherine, Pablo, and Ricardo produced what was really a public service announcement about drunk driving (Project 4 in Table B2) while Luke, Bob, Hope, and Ellen created an amusing commercial about the chicken nuggets at McDonald's (with the slogan, “Our chickens have nuggets” in response to a Carl Jr. advertisement about chickens not having nuggets). For the final project, the two groups became three: Valic, Catherine, and Luke did a documentary about the news program in the advanced class (Project 5), Bob, Hope, and Ellen did a longer piece for presentation at the performing arts awards ceremony about program seniors including Hope (Project 3), and Pablo and Ricardo did a faux documentary about a musician. The first thing to note is Luke’s departure from one group, where his participation was peripheral, to the creation of a new group, in which he was central. His first project was the chicken nugget commercial, which was particularly well done and creative. During the editing process, Bob loudly but jokingly protested that Ellen, officially the producer, was running everything. When he was not complaining, Bob, Luke, and Hope made editing suggestions while Ellen actually did the editing and made decisions. Luke participated, but he did not contest his relatively minor role and was physically positioned furthest away from the computer. ¹⁸ Luke’s acting part was cut out. He described his role in the project as “creative consultant.” In both casual conversation and during his interview, Luke referred to himself as a “screenwriter,” thus it was no surprise that he sought the last project as a vehicle for his interests, but the satire that he had initially planned, after being heavily ridiculed by Ellen, was abandoned. As Luke described it, thinking small was impossible for a screenwriter. ¹⁹ Instead, a documentary project of the news program was selected. Valic and Catherine had participated in discussing the initial plan, but they became increasingly excluded as work on the documentary proceeded because only Luke was in the advanced class—having joined it for the second semester when he withdrew from regular enrollment in the school. Luke did all the recording with no input from the others. He also claimed to have made all the editing decisions, though Valic had physically performed the work. Luke had effectively freed himself from negotiating about production activity, affording him the opportunity to “own” his second project while not threatening and possibly improving his relations with classmates. It is striking that Luke spoke about the project being “fun” for the advanced class members to see and participate in when overtly and discretely students routinely insulted him, calling him “weird” and “gay” among other things. (The teacher told one student that his problem was that he had been home schooled.) Luke had arranged the central position in his second project and expressed the belief that his usually peripheral position in the news program had been made central at the social level with this project. Valic and Catherine also worked together with other students on their first project. Catherine never expressed significant interest in video or the two projects she worked on, but on the first project, she actively edited the piece with Pablo and Ricardo; it was her hands on the mouse when I observed them at work. Valic had done all the camera work over the weekend with his sister acting as the “drunk driver” and displayed feelings of ownership over the piece during the editing process by pacing back and forth behind his “collaborators” as they sat at the computer. He tried to assert himself into the activity, but was effectively shut out. Catherine chose that moment to speak in Spanish and completed the exclusion that was initiated by the absence of a seat for Valic. Her role thus became central in editing and negotiating the relations between group members. As the only time observed speaking Spanish or taking a central role in production activity, the constant negotiation of her identity became apparent: As a girl who sat with the European-American students, she never displayed an interest or mastery in video, but with Latino males, she showed that she had some skills and took the lead. In the second project, Catherine was not observed participating at all after initial discussions, having chosen to work with two European-American, male students. Valic, on the other hand, had initially planned but abandoned doing an autobiography for the final project. He, like Catherine, showed no sense of ownership for the documentary. By contrast, Valic had displayed an interest in video but—like Luke—had problems negotiating his position within the production process. Bob had effectively used humor in negotiating his role, but Valic had only shown frustration and then silence. In his interview, Valic said that he intended to take the advanced class the following year but that he would rather be an “all round guy” rather than holding a specific position. This unfortunately was not consistent with the program. The nature of Valic’s interest in video was best demonstrated when he borrowed a camera on two occasions without having a particular purpose: The medium attracted him, but the course’s formal structure worked in opposition to his interests. His decreasing involvement was largely circumstantial—a product of highly defined roles and generalized interests—but his decision to not do a project by himself suggests that his interest or confidence was affected by limits on more personally meaningful participation. Thus Luke and Valic both expressed ownership of the projects they had recorded, though Luke always maintained his humor while Valic became noticeably frustrated. Bob, on the other hand, had been the camera operator on both of his projects, and deflected his sense of ownership with jokes about Ellen; Bob maintained peripheral participation despite a reduced role in editing. What emerges from these examples is that working relations and the ownership of projects are not stable qualities and that collaboration can be problematic, particularly in this individualistically oriented school. In the transition from the recording phase to the editing phase, in particular, some adjustments in the participation and power of individual members is necessary when roles are formally defined. The advanced class, which had more direct teacher involvement, students who were in their third and fourth years of the class, and produced a live show (integrating recording and editing phases) avoided these problems. The students, however, had very little creative input in the daily news program, and many had little to do. Compared to the other two schools, the rigidity of roles seems to have complicated the production process for some beginning students while allowing others to become disengaged. The different ways and levels of participating were, in and of themselves, the most apparent changes in student activity at all schools. “Positional roles” were significant in the level as well as the quality of participation at Suburban High because the position of producer or camera operator were meaningful in the course (Bernstein, 1971). The status of individuals was determined by their position within the production rather than personal characteristics. At a formal level, this was required by the teacher, but in the groups I observed most closely, the roles governed how students worked. Other positional roles, such as gender and grade level, also appeared to be relevant. By contrast, the other two schools did not stress a division of labor according to position, and the projects were more easily and frequently shared as “personal roles” dominated. Only grade level appeared to influence relations, and this was explicit only during one interview. In the absence of formal positions at these schools, the students who stopped participating were more visible because they were not signed on in an official capacity to a project, reflecting the type of alienation Bernstein described with personal roles (1971, p. 186). The problem found with positional roles was the considerable limit placed on how students could become involved, which would clearly have developmental consequences. What was particularly apparent at Suburban High is that the ways of participating are meaningful in student trajectories and development, but their meanings—as the roles themselves—seem to change with the immediate context more than as a result of student interest or aptitude. Other issues further support the influence of power and solidarity in these contexts.
Previous Contents	¹⁸ Hope and Ellen, in particular, were observed to hold a higher status position in school social life than Valic and Catherine, as evidenced by student interaction, teacher’s interactions, and marked by their status as seniors and Hope's lead role in the fall musical production. ¹⁹ Evidence suggests that Ellen was influential in this decision, but the actual decision was made between observations.	Next References

The Ownership Of Projects And The Meaning of Collaboration