Significant conversations and significant networks - exploring the backstage of the teaching arena

This article presents an inquiry into conversations that academic teachers have about teaching. The authors investigated to whom they talk and the forms that these conversations take. The findings indicate that most teachers rely on a small number of significant others for conversations that are characterised by their privacy, by mutual trust and by their intellectual intrigue. Individual teachers seem to have small 'significant networks', where private discussions provide a basis for conceptual development and learning, quite different from the 'front stage' of formal, public debate about teaching. Individual teachers seem to have more significant conversations and larger networks where the local culture is perceived to be supportive of such conversations. The findings are interpreted in relation to socio-cultural theories, and have clear implications for the development of teaching.