District-University Partnerships as Learning Spaces: Working Across Boundaries

• In Event: Leveraging Cultural Historical Activity Theory in Higher Education to Re-Mediate the University

Abstract

Purpose
This paper explores district-university partnerships that formed in the context of a multi-year grant-funded initiative aimed at promoting leadership for equity in schools. Eight large urban schools in the United States participated in the initiative, and it launched in 2021. In its application to become part of the initiative, each district identified two higher education institutions as partners. The district-university partnerships focused primarily on the development of leader preparation programs that would support the districts’ efforts to advance equity in schools. The district and university partners formed partnership teams that included other partners as well (such as state agencies, community organizations, consultants hired by the funding agency, and others).

Theoretical Framework
Informed by CHAT, we approach the evolution of district-university partnership as hybrid learning spaces located at the boundaries between organizations. We use the typology of learning processes developed by Akkerman and Bakker (2011) as a conceptual framework. The authors identify four different learning processes at the boundary: identification, coordination, reflection, and transformation. We build on prior scholarship (e.g., Gomez et al., 2020), which suggests that all four processes are necessary for the development of robust partnerships.

Methods and Data Sources
We leverage the learning typology to map factors that sustain the partnership as well as forces that give rise to tensions between the partners over the first three years of the grant initiative. We used field notes of partnership team meetings, interviews with partners, and artifacts submitted to the funder as our main data sources. We conducted thematic analyses of these data to understand how the partnership evolved over time.

Findings
Our preliminary findings suggest that the formal structure of the partnership teams, along with mandated collaboration activities, enabled coordination. These regular, or crystallized, boundary structures also resulted in tangible transformation: the partners designed district-specific leader preparation programs and began providing professional learning focused on equity to sitting school leaders. At the same time, power imbalance between the partners made reflection on the partnership difficult. From the onset of the initiative, the work of the universities was positioned as being in service of the districts. This framing limited the roles that the partners could take in the partnership, and confined most of the universities’ activities to leader preparation and professional learning. The absence of structures for reflection limited the opportunities for the university partners to make other expertise, such as their researcher identities, relevant to the partnership. It also relegated the university partners to observers of district processes rather than engaged partners in district decision-making. Reflection in our data was related to the learning process of identification, or the opportunity for partners to continuously redefine and shape the boundaries between them.

Scholarly Significance
Our paper contributes to the fields’ understanding of the evolution of district-university partnerships. It highlights a unique context in which the partnerships are focused on leader learning rather than research. Our study also illustrates the power of CHAT to support the sustainability and renewal of partnerships that are necessary to advance equity.

Authors

• Daniella Molle, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Deonte E. Iverson, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Emily Handsman, Rutgers University

• John B. Diamond, Brown University

• April L. Peters-Hawkins, University of Houston

• Wehmah Jones, American Institutes for Research

• Jordan Mosby, Brown University