Beyond Instrumental Roles: Cultural Brokers in a Chilean RPP

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 3:45 pm - Gold 2
  In Roundtable Session: Reframing Governance: Policy, Power, and Pathways in Educational Leadership

Abstract

This paper explores the subjective experiences of university-based facilitators acting as cultural brokers within a Research-Practice Partnership (RPP) in Chile focused on developing school-based leadership to build professional learning communities. Drawing on critical incident analysis and grounded in humanizing research, we examine how facilitators navigate ethical tensions, power dynamics, and emotional labor while supporting underserved public schools. Findings reveal how facilitators build relational trust, validate local expertise, and mediate between institutional logics, fostering adaptive leadership and capacity-building from within. Their work triggers processes of subjectivation, from technical implementers to politically engaged actors through collective reflection. This study contributes a Global South perspective by framing brokering as relational labor that advances epistemic justice, while highlighting structural tensions that constrain equitable collaboration.

Authors

• Bárbara Zoro, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaiso

• Manuel A. Pérez-Troncoso, PUCV-CIAE Postdoctoral Researcher

• Rebecca Ipinza, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso