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The Aesthetics of Complexity and Messiness in Partnerships

Fri, April 9, 10:40am to 12:10pm EDT (10:40am to 12:10pm EDT), Division J, Division J - Section 6 Paper and Symposium Sessions

Abstract

1. Objectives
This research examines both sustainable action plans and research strategies to build sustainable reciprocal relationships with community schools, rooted in trusting and collaborative partnerships. We analyze lived experiences of schools, community organizations, and cultural institutions throughout the city in order to advance theories and practices.
2. The aesthetics of complexity and messiness
In his chaos and complexity theories, Doll (2012) challenges Tylerian notion of curriculum founded upon a linear, efficiency model. A curriculum of complexity refers to a different approach to education drawing from its “open, dynamic, relational, creative” possibilities (p. 10). The presenters offer paradoxical thinking that cannot be essentialized with predictable versions of partnerships. We argue for creating a space where researchers accept disorder and chaos of community engagement and the moments of walking right up the edge about family engagement and community partnership.
3. Methods
This case study provides concurrent examples regarding the challenges and hopes involved in university-assisted community schools (UACS) in Chicago Public Schools. With the use of narrative research (Riessman, 2008), this presentation provides lived experiences of students, families, community members, partnership leaders, and university faculty and researchers. The key to this shift toward community and student-centered research in practice, as well as its continued evolution, is the reflection of data as lived-experiences among those who are involved in the work of university assisted CSI.
4. Data sources
Major data sources for this presentation are from focus group interviews with students, their families, school leaders, instructors, advisory board members, and faculty and staff. Data collection started in the Fall of 2019 and continues through to Spring 2020. The data sources for this case study are stories about the university's effort to center neighborhood schools as the hub of the community. All interviewed data is audio-recorded, transcribed, and analyzed.
5. Results
We highlight transformative relationships, not transactional interactions, in creating sustainable partnerships. We present the nexus of joy and struggle of community schools initiatives (CSI) drawing from complicated, multiple voices of students, parents, school leaders, instructors, and university participants. Literature in culturally sustainable pedagogy highlights the value of cultural sensitivity in curriculum and community engagement (Paris, 2018). We theorize family voices and share their lived experiences through parent education programs such as ELL support, legal services, and social groups like Zoomba. School leaders share great interest in continuing partnership in a sustainable manner amid the financial challenges of COVID-19. Resource coordinators blur the barriers between regular schooling and out of school time activities through CSI.
6. Scholarly significance of the study
This presentation offers insight on creating sustainable community research strategies. This presentation offers culturally sustainable interventions, and research on the sustainability of partnerships that contribute both to local CPS communities as well as the broader research communities. The audience will learn efficient strategies for community school partnerships and hear vivid voices related to community research that will be applied to their own versions of sustainable community partnerships .

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