Partnering to Strengthen Community: A University-Community Research Collaboration

• In Event: Imagine a School: How Researchers Can Support Community-Based Groups’ Visions for Philadelphia Public Schools

Abstract

Overview and Objectives
The University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education and the Norris Square Civic Association are collaborating to provide ongoing research that addresses the community's questions concerning the educational development of their children. The collaboration revolves around a year-long graduate course, "Outside the School Box: History, Policy and Alternatives," and provides a sustainable source of locally-responsive research service.

Norris Square Civic Association (NSCA) is a community development corporation founded in 1983 by a group of community women who desired to take control of their neighborhood and provide a healthy and safe environment for their children. The mission of NSCA is to empower residents to become self-reliant and to unite and build the community by developing and improving the physical, economic, social, cultural and educational aspects of the neighborhood.

NSCA serves the predominately Latino community residing on the blocks surrounding Norris Square Park in Philadelphia, PA. For over 30 years, NSCA has responded to the needs of the community by providing comprehensive solutions such as affordable housing, community organizing, employment training, early childhood education, youth after-school and summer enrichment programs, homeownership counseling and comprehensive case management services.

Theoretical Framework
The course seeks to prepare Penn students to frame and understand education more broadly than schooling, though certainly not to its exclusion. We pivot from historian Lawrence Cremin's direction to view education comprehensively, relationally and publicly. Students explore several case studies of such efforts, historical and current, as well as a set of conceptual frames that allow analysis beyond school-centric perspectives.

Data Sources and Method
In order to apply, extend and test our understanding throughout the course, we will work with a particular community, the Norris Square/West Kensington area in north Philadelphia, via the thirty-year old local organization, NSCA. We will try to understand the complexity of factors affecting the educational outcomes there. This will provide participants in this seminar an opportunity to contribute toward a greater understanding of the factors at play, the chance to discipline our thinking with the challenges of reality, and we hope, to provide useful, actionable information to stakeholders in the Norris Square/Kensington community. Research designs will follow the questions generated locally, and we anticipate a mixed qualitative/quantitative approach overall.

Significance
The two panelists will present a summary of how this collaboration addresses the core questions of the panel, particularly given the extremely challenging Philadelphia schooling context. They will also contribute to the discussion of how researchers and community partners can work together to “ develop, test and refine new knowledge and [construct] a body of theory from the ground up that will contribute in meaningful and significant ways to addressing challenges and realizing the full potential of urban areas" (URBAN Concept Paper, 2012, p. 1).

Authors

• Michael C. Johanek, University of Pennsylvania

• Pat De Carlo, Norris Square Civic Association