Culture of Sharing A Critical Examination of a Key Concept of the OER Movement

Abstract

In the light of the contemporary socio-political debate on the appropriation of OER in schools, the paper asks how the culture of sharing and the function of the school are intertwined, and what circumstances create tensions between the two. The argumentation unfolds in three steps by looking at discourse, institution and practices. First, we discuss what sharing means in the context of the OER discourse and what socio-political challenges are associated with the understanding of the culture of sharing. Second, adopting a school theoretical perspective on the functions of school as an institution of education, we identify the achievement principle and the community principle to be analytical lenses. Third, we apply these lenses to the analysis of the practices of sharing in a classroom observation. As a result we conclude that despite schools and OER discourse having contextual overlaps, the understanding of the culture of sharing diverges in these two instances. The resulting tensions serve as an explanation for the limited use of OER in schools at present while also providing a spring board for interventions from education policy-makers and practitioners. The paper closes with a call for further research into OER and proposes using the three steps developed here as a theoretical reference framework for future empirical approaches.