When foundations shake: Navigating structural and political fragility in a Chilean Research Practice Partnership (RPP)

• In Event: Learning from “failure”: Exploring challenges in unsuccessful research-practice partnerships

Abstract

Purposes
This paper analyzes the political and organizational dynamics that hindered the consolidation of REDCAPs, a RPP in Chile aimed at strengthening Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) across two urban districts. Although initially supported, REDCAPs failed to sustain itself beyond its second year. We aim to analyze the conditions leading to the RPP’s quiet dissolution and reflect on what can be learned from this experience to inform future partnership work—particularly in contexts marked by structural instability and complex multi-level governance.

Theoretical framework
Drawing on Yamashiro et al. 's (2022) framework of porous boundary infrastructures we explore how macro- and micropolitical forces permeate RPPs and shape their internal dynamics. Framing collaboration as always situated within onto-epistemological differences, embodied divergences in knowledge, power, and identity are studied (Gamez-Djokic, 2024; Datnow et al., 2025). This view reframes collaboration not as a universal ideal, but as a political and situated practice, especially in Global South contexts.

Methods
We conducted a qualitative case study (Ravitch & Carl, 2016) gathering data through participant observation (steering committees, network workshops, school visits) and 45 semi-structured interviews with all stakeholders, focusing on the development and disintegration of REDCAPs. Thematic coding was guided by concepts of boundary work, equity, and political reflexivity (Saldaña, 2016).With the results, two focus groups (university-based facilitators and school members) and two interviews (district members) were organized to deepen reflection and ensure member checking. These served as retrospective learning devices into the RPP’s trajectory and limitations.

Results
We identify three interrelated tensions and lessons from REDCAPs’ experience:
Boundary work under stress: Facilitators in REDCAPs played a crucial role in sustaining collaboration across shifting institutional and political boundaries. However, when educational reforms introduced ambiguity and trust erosion, the weight of boundary work exceeded the partnership’s capacity. A key lesson is that facilitators cannot hold fragmented systems alone: boundary work must be distributed and supported across all levels.
Equity as contested terrain: The emergence of teacher leaders was a promising sign of grassroots leadership. Yet, disparities in participation and influence remained, especially when system-level actors were absent from the design phase. Co-construction is only sustainable when all key actors are involved early, feel ownership, and share responsibility. Equity in partnerships must be built structurally, not just rhetorically.
Limited resources: The layered and ambitious design illuminated what is possible, but also what is required. In the absence of sustained funding and institutional scaffolding, the initiative became increasingly difficult to carry forward. The lesson here is to right-size RPP designs to the available infrastructure, or to explicitly invest in building that infrastructure over time.

Scholarly significance of the study
This study contributes to a more politically and contextually grounded understanding of RPP fragility, especially in settings marked by institutional instability, contested reforms, and asymmetrical power. It illustrates how external political dynamics are not mere context but deeply constitutive of internal partnership work. By tracing the arc of a promising yet ultimately unsustained RPP, this case challenges idealized views of collaboration and surfaces the structural conditions that can undermine joint work.

Authors

• Bárbara Zoro, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaiso

• Fernanda Goni, Universidad de Chile