Research Practice Partnerships in Chile: Building a Collective Improvement Mindset from Teacher's Voice

• In Event: Centering Teachers’ Equitable Participation in Professional Development: Partnership Approaches in Chile and the U.S.

Abstract

At the core of Research-Practice Partnerships (RPPs) are collaborative processes among diverse school stakeholders to address relevant problems in educational practice (Cooper et al., 2021). However, in educational systems dominated by logics of competition and accountability, moving toward deeper forms of collaboration proves challenging (Ainscow, 2016; Muijs et al., 2011). A central difficulty lies in the fact that the different stakeholders involved in RPPs, including teachers, come with their own purposes, agendas, and ways of working (D'Amour et al., 2008).

This study seeks to answer the following questions: What purposes, issues, and concerns do teachers bring to these partnerships? How do they express them? What effects does their participation in RPPs have? These questions are investigated in three partnerships that implement a short-cycle improvement strategy in Chile, aimed at achieving a specific, measurable, realistic, urgent, and manageable improvement priority within a 90-day period (Meyers & VanGronigen, 2021). These cycles aim to build a collective improvement mindset, conceptualized as an organizational learning capacity that fosters shared reasoning and collaborative commitment among diverse stakeholders to drive sustained improvement processes (Cortez et al., 2023).

Using a qualitative case study approach, this research investigates the role and discourse topics of teacher leaders within these associations. The findings show that teachers play a key role, primarily by exercising teacher leadership that revitalizes the professional commitment of their colleagues. In the words of one participating teacher: “We were able to motivate the teachers. We want to learn, we want to move forward…All our colleagues were in that position maybe there was a bit of dust there, a spider web, but it was achieved” (Teacher 1, RPP1).

Another key finding relates to teachers' leadership in amplifying and deepening instructional concerns with a focus on student learning. Teacher leaders help amplify what is happening in classrooms, ensuring it informs and gives purpose to the collaborative work within the RPP. As one member of the leadership team explained about the role of a teacher: “And I think what Magdalena did was a great contribution, leading us to make this work with students with different abilities” (Leadership team, RPP2).

Overall, the findings demonstrate the potential of the teachers' role in these partnerships, as actors who provide meaning, direction, energy, and dynamism to the improvement processes in their schools. Furthermore, these collaborative structures are shown to constitute innovative models of professional learning that strengthen teacher agency and foster relational agency. In doing so, they promote more democratic and co-responsible relationships within school teams, positioning teachers as protagonists of educational inquiry and improvement.

Authors

• Monica Cortez, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso

• Felipe Aravena, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso

• Isabel Zett, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso