Emerging Identities: How Context Shapes Early-Stage Research-Practice Partnerships

• In Event: What Was, What’s Now, What’s Next: University-Based RPP Brokering in Shifting Institutional Contexts

Abstract

Objectives. This session compares two research-practice partnerships (RPPs), one in the Southeast and the other in the Western US. These early-stage RPPs emerged from well-established organizations, but only recently adopted an RPP structure. This paper explores the ways in which reformulating their work as an RPP affects their ability to: produce practical knowledge for educators and support research use, two main purposes of RPPs (Farrell et al., 2021). We also explore how logistics–location within the university, funding and cost structure, institutional champions of the work, and institutional views of collaborative education research–benefit and constrain the work.

Theoretical Framework. We adopt Coburn and Penuel’s (2016) definition of RPPs to include: (a) building and sustaining a working collaboration over multiple projects, (b) focusing on problems of practice, (c) jointly negotiating the focus and structure of work with shared authority, (d) carefully designing roles, routines, and protocols within the RPP, and (e) centering the work around original analysis of data.

Mode of Inquiry. This comparative case study (Bartlett and Vavrus, 2017): (a) explores the experiences of two early-stage RPP sites and (b) traces the actors and other influences across cases over time, allowing us to go beyond surface-level similarities and dissimilarities to explore how different aspects of RPP operations and contexts affect the ways that we work together with partners and our impact.

Data Sources. Case studies were developed using artifacts from program meetings, RPP documents (such as MOUs and other formalized agreement documents), and interviews with RPP principal investigators and co-principal investigators at universities and collaborating schools or school districts.

Findings. The two early-stage RPPs are very different in terms of funding structures and who serves as institutional champions. The Southeastern RPP is well-funded and enjoys high-level support from both the local school district and its university home. The university research center and the local school district have collaborated on reading instruction for years and the research center is well-respected throughout the state. A nearby HBCU is a highly beneficial third partner with whom trust-building was needed, as the universities are viewed as rivals.

The research center at the RPP in the Western US has helped education leaders explore their problems of practice for 20 years through professional development offerings. Their RPP on equitable grading operates within and is funded by one school district partner. The research center has long worked with the district superintendent, but building trust with wider district staff and exploring what an RPP might offer has taken some effort, meeting over time to explore possible goals and mutual interests. This has been beneficial in ensuring that district collaborators are key drivers of research efforts.

Scholarly Significance. Results offer important implications. Both RPPs were impacted by contextual factors and resources, in terms of what is studied, how it is studied, and how RPPs function. This is especially impactful for early-stage RPPs as they begin to establish who they are and what they do as they collaboratively reimagine the research and improvement process.

Authors

• Megan E. Welsh, University of California - Davis

• Christina Murdoch Mills, University of California - Davis

• Jarrett Terry, Florida State University

• Nicole Patton-Terry, Florida State University