Participation in training or training in participation? An exploration of the range of meanings of 'participation' in teaching and learning

Participatory training has a range of meanings, from students who are encouraged to ask questions or express opinions at a lecture ('useful ingredients') to 'people coming together as equals to form a learning group, setting their own agenda'. The outcomes of such a radical approach to training (e.g. greater awareness of process, greater understanding of power, conflict and change) could be considered 'subversive' since they undermine less radical approaches. Most participatory training however comes somewhere in between the 'useful ingredient' and the 'radical'. The author's own experience of participatory training at Selly Oak College, Birmingham, is such a compromise : paying attention to process but with the inevitable limitations of working within an institution which does not want to relinquish power and control.