Leveraging Friendship Toward Interdisciplinary Collaboration: The Case of One Mathematics Intervention Team

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Abstract

This paper shares data from a multi-year research-practice partnership amongst university researchers and an interdisciplinary group of 6th grade mathematics intervention teachers. This project was designed in alignment with the principles of publicly engaged research whereby a school partner and teachers co-designed all elements of the project, including articulating meaningful outcomes. We collected video recordings and interviews with the three participating teachers across two school years (2023–2025). We used an existing interdisciplinary collaborative framework to analyze these data. Our analyses revealed that this interdisciplinary team of teachers leveraged their personal friendships as a way to engage in effective joint work. We provide an example of their dynamic (including how it changed over time) and offer implications for research and practice.

Authors

• Erica N. Mason, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Zhuo Chen, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Mercedes Gravley, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign