Pathways to Partnership: Early Career Relationship-Building in Pandemic Times (Poster 3)

• In Event: Rising Education Scholars Interrogating Research-Practice Partnerships in Pursuit of Truth and Justice

Abstract

Relationships are central to collaborative research (Farrell et al., 2021). Creating equitable and trusting partnerships, developing shared and mutually beneficial goals, and growing sustainable, justice-oriented practices are interwoven into these relationships (Bang & Vossoughi, 2016; Cooper et al., 2020; Henrick et al., 2017; Vetter et al., 2022). Research suggests that there are many roles that partners may play in collaborative research, that these relationships are integral to the success of the partnership (Penuel et al., 2015), and that there are socio-institutional hierarchies to negotiate (Coburn & Penuel, 2016).
Establishing at least some of these relationships happens before the partnership work itself. For early-career academics, there are numerous transitions that impede the seeding of such relationships. Graduate school, postdoc positions, and tenure-track employment can require multiple relocations, and it can be difficult to make connections for new partnerships in a new location.
The current pandemic has made establishing new relationships even more difficult. With ongoing waves of infection and shifting degrees of openness, many avenues for establishing new connections have been interrupted. Schools and other youth-serving organizations have been facing significant challenges as well, in many cases limiting their capacity to explore new partnerships. For early-career researchers engaged in research-practice partnerships, these factors present significant obstacles. For early-career researchers from marginalized communities, these obstacles are amplified.
While there is substantial literature exploring the roles of researchers and practitioners within partnerships (Farrell et al., 2019, 2021; Sjölund et al., 2022), there is surprisingly little research relating to how researchers initiate partnerships, and even less focusing on how early-career researchers establish new partnerships (Coburn & Penuel, 2016; Penuel & Gallagher, 2017). This period before a partnership is established, especially during a pandemic, is largely understudied. I intend, with this paper, to engage others in conversation about pathways for early-career researchers to establish new partnerships, particularly during pandemic-related disruptions.
I used illustrative case study methodology (Thomas, 2011) to explore three cases of relationship building in early-career partnership work. I was involved in all three cases during my first and second years of a tenure-track position, 2020-21 and 2021-22. These years overlapped with the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. The data included recordings of meetings, notes taken during meetings, and reflective memos. I used these data to construct three illustrative cases and used inductive analysis (Thomas, 2006) to identify possibilities and challenges to relationship-building across the cases.
I found that many of the constraints and opportunities within relationship-building may be highly situational. This suggests that while there may be generalizable pathways to starting new partnership relationships, they may also be highly context-dependent. This is also true for pandemic-related factors. Additionally, societal biases (e.g., racism, ableism) disproportionately impact early-career researchers from marginalized communities. I close the paper proposing future lines of inquiry to better understand how early-career researchers can establish new relationships to develop collaborative research.

Author

• Suki Jones Mozenter, University of Minnesota - Duluth
  Presenting Author