The research study provided a cultural description and interpretation of how Teachers Network Learning Circle’s participants related, worked and learned with each other, and how they developed and changed within a predominantly symmetrical or consensual power relationship. The participants, consisting of six Singapore primary teachers at grade 4, were engaged in group discussions that were spread over a period of one year to complete an action research project which is integrated in day-to-day work. Teachers Network Learning Circle, a formal professional development platform, employs distinctive tools for dialogue and inquiry based on the principles of voluntary participation, reflection, change and trust. The fundamental reason for choosing this site is its potential to empower and emancipate teachers evident from not only the principles and practices it espouses, but also its vision and mission that is consistent with its motto “For Teachers, By Teachers”. The literature on education change and reforms has point towards teacher empowerment for successful education change. In this regard, investing in teacher professional development and professionalism is important. The literature also point towards embracing a sociological perspective evident in the notions of community and socio-cultural theory, and bringing to bear emotions, values and identity in teacher learning – and thus investing in the ‘whole person’ (Day, 1997). As power underlies all social relations and activities including teachers’ learning, the research study took into consideration the perspectives of critical theory of Habermas, Brookfield and Mezirow. The findings of the study found that symmetrical power relation contributed to teacher development and change. First, it had contributed to a collegial collaborative relationship that took into account of emotions, moral, identity development and group solidarity. Second, it had contributed to the consciousness, critique and co-construction of professional knowledge. Third, it had empowered participants insofar as it built participants’ capacities to act successfully within an existing system and structures of power. The symmetrical power relation was undergirded by rules and principles of democratic participation as outlined by Habermas’ discourse ethics. The findings also revealed the importance of support given by the school principal and Teachers Network personnel in protecting democratic spaces, or Habermas’ concept of the lifeworld, from the system imperatives of power and money.

La construction des indicateurs dans les évaluations des politiques publiques en matière d’aide au développement est révélatrice des liens et d’échange que les pays occidentaux et africains entretiennent. De la diversité des méthodes aux négociations des normes requises, la construction des indicateurs devient un enjeu pour défendre les visions politiques des types de développement. Il parait, du point de viue de la science politique nécessaire, de déconstruire les systèmes de domination, d’entrer pleinement la construction des indicateurs dans le champ de la négociation et dans celui du pouvoir. Cette thèse interroge le contenu politique des indicateurs, leur abscence de neutralité vis-à-vis d’un projet politique, d’un rapport à l’Etat et à la politique en général. / The index building in evaluation of development aid public policies can contribute to define the exchange and link between African and western countries. By the diversity of methods and negotiation of standards, building indicators become stakes in defining political views of development. It is now necessary from the point of view of the political science, to deconstruct the system of monopoly by introducing index building in the field of negotiation, as well as the field of political power. This research is about the political content of index, their absence of neutrality in political project, states vision and finally in policy.