“Leveling the Thinking Field”: Toward Equitable Collaboration in Research-Practice Partnerships

• In Event: School-University Partnership Paper Session: From Building to Evaluating Effective Research-Practice Partnerships

Abstract

This longitudinal study explores how a research-practice partnership (RPP) between two university-based researchers and a high school English teacher-researcher supported the teacher’s design, implementation, and redesign of a curricular unit intended to mobilize student advocacy. Through a design-based research process, this study explores how the partners grounded unit iterations in theory, expanded partners’ roles, and spanned institutional boundaries. This analysis presents two assertions: (1) Participants’ movement as they span institutional boundaries blurred the distinctness of roles within the RPP; (2) With unit design established, the RPP’s discussions of problems of practice and corresponding design iterations became more theoretically grounded. Findings contribute to what is known about how smaller RPP relationships develop and work against institutional hierarchies.

Authors

• Valerie Lieberman Marsh, University of Rochester

• Jayne C. Lammers, Edmentum/University of Pennsylvania

• Elizabeth Conroy, University of Rochester