Ideology, pedagogy and terminology: Interdisciplinary insights into the “co-paradigm” in Higher Education

While co-creation as a practice and a subject for study in HE has become increasingly popular in recent years, there remain problems with terminology and, relatedly, with underlying ideo-pedagogic understandings. The term co-creation has been used interchangeably with ‘co-design’, ‘co-production’, and/or ‘co-construction’. Furthermore, there is complexity in terms of the varying understandings of students’ roles in this process; as partners, as change agents, as consultants or as producers. This chapter explores the health, social care and community development literatures that have pioneered the techniques deployed in the co-paradigm practices, of which co-creation is one. Bringing to bear elements of political theory, it argues for the need for more conceptual and practical clarity in defining co-creation and similar terms used in HE. It argues that terminology needs to reflect and differentiate the diametrically opposed ideo-pedagogic foundations that support practices currently dubbed ‘co-creation’ and suggests three viable alternative terms for those who use co-paradigm practices to enact radical pedagogies.