Narrative and conversational manifestation of contradictions: Social production of knowledge for expansive learning

The paper presents a formative intervention realized in Italy through which the authors highlight how participants develop transformative agency inside collective situations. The authors attempt to illustrate how the use of narrative and conversational material allows the identification, recognition, and elaboration of the organizational contradictions in formative interventions. The paper addresses the early steps of expansive learning (i.e., questioning and analyzing the situation), focusing on the emergence of conflicting motives and crises stemming from the practitioners' lived activity. The study explores the potential that stories and narratives used as mirror materials have in enhancing dialogue and sense making processes through which professional are able to examine conventional practices and evaluate habitual ways of seeing and behaving. The authors conclude the paper by discussing potentials and limits in the use of narrative accounts inside formative interventions.