Third-Generation Partnerships for P-16 Pipelines and Cradle-Through-Career Education Systems

• In Event: Community-School-University Partnerships: Exploring Universities as Catalysts for Comprehensive School Reform

Abstract

Purposes:
Four purposes structure the analysis: (1) To demonstrate that partnerships are organizational interventions; (2) To compare and contrast three partnership intervention models; (3) To compare and contrast P-16 education pipelines and Cradle-Through-Career systems; and (4) To justify the claim that third generation partnership systems are needed for the kinds of policy learning and change needed to optimize these new pipelines.

Theoretical Framework:
The analysis is founded on partnership theory (e.g., Lawson, et al., 2007; McQuaid, 2000) and theories of civic capacity that are grounded in empirical research on private-public partnerships (e.g., Mitra, et al., 2008; Shipps, 2003; Stone, 2001).

Methods:
Drawing on Max Weber’s sociology, the three partnership models are developed as ideal-types (Hearn, 1975). Each model is ideal because its features are logical and internally consistent. Each is typical because it is grounded in empirical reality. Ideal-types constructed in this way are heuristic mechanisms with twin uses: Social analysis and planning for social action.

Data Sources:
This is a theoretical analysis with research and development aims. It derives from a thorough review of three literatures. One is the partnership literature, including its conflation with the collaboration literature. The second is the P-16 literature, including its aliases. The third is the emergent literature that emphasizes life-long, career-relevant education and system development (Carnevale, Smith, & Strohl, 2010).

Results:
First generation, second generation, and third generation partnerships share two core features. They are structured for the simultaneous renewal of schools, colleges, and departments of education (SCDEs) and P-12 schools (Goodlad, 1994). They facilitate preservice education and embedded professional development and the transition from higher education into the workplace. These partnerships also structure research and development agendas, including outreach and engagement research conducted in real world settings.

Significant differences among these partnership models have import for theory, research, partnership design, and civic capacity practice. First generation partnerships can be described as education-only.

Second generation partnerships are founded on new models for schools, especially multi-service schools and community schools (Lawson, 2010). These partnerships are more expansive and complex because these new schools have multiple partnerships with community health and social services agencies, and they require educators to collaborate with service providers. On the university side, SCDEs must be aligned with other professional schools so that preservice students learn how to collaborate and relevant faculty learn how to develop the interdisciplinary team science needed for these partnerships’ complexity.

Third generation partnerships build on the two previous models, and they include the private sector with recognition of their import for economic renewal, including human capital development. Significantly, governmental leaders are included because these partnerships have “partnership tables and councils” for top-down and bottom-up policy learning and innovation.

Scholarly Significance:
High density poverty in special social geographies (Tate, 2012) presents daunting challenges. First and second generation models are not fit for purpose. Third generation partnerships are needed, and they may become defining features of these school communities and their university partners.

Author

• Hal A. Lawson, University at Albany - SUNY