Partnerships for transformative systems change

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

Research that supports systems change needs to be transformative in nature: it considers the complexity of educational systems, draws on diverse perspectives, and accounts for adult and professional learning to support system change efforts. Research that engages communities, families and young people (York et al., 2020), and those who are most impacted by the systems that are the focus of research (Ghiso and Campano, 2024), is more likely to produce evidence that can be used in the service of systems change (Bednarek and Tseng, 2022). Equitable partnerships across research, practice, and policy spheres that include the multiple perspectives on the possibilities for systems change is a key facet of transformative research.
The Spencer Foundation launched its Transformative Research Program to support innovative, methodologically and disciplinarily diverse, large-scale research projects that work to transform education systems for equity. One key element of this program, the Vision Grant program, has been to support scholars and collaborators with the time, space, resources, and support to plan a large-scale study or program of research: geared toward real-world impact on equity; drawing on research across disciplines and methods; reliant on meaningful and equitable collaboration with practitioners, policymakers, communities, and other partners; and focused on transforming educational systems. Funded teams work collaboratively to plan education research that contributes to transforming education systems for equity.
This session features three teams that have approached collaborative research in different ways, each centering the questions, expertise and needs of their partner communities (Rosado-May et al., 2020; Gutiérrez and Jurow, 2016; Rogoff and Mejía-Arauz, 2022). The teams engage in different kinds of partnerships, they span a wide range in terms of scope and scale of their systems change focus, and they have unique visions of how their research contributes to systems change. Our panelists also span geographies from Oceania to Brasil to India. The teams will speak to their unique visions for systems change and the role that they envision the evidence from their proposed studies can transform systems. They will narrate their evolving understanding of their focal systems and how to develop a program of research that attends to power, identifying key levers for change and plans for impact. Teams will also describe their journeys toward more equitable partnerships and participation across sectors, methodologies and disciplines.
Our panel will be moderated by a Spencer Foundation program team member who will not only help guide the discussion but also share reflections from the Foundation’s learning journey with the program itself. We will highlight key learnings alongside grantees on our journey to better understand transformative research toward equity. The panel will also discuss the opportunities we see to continue to deepen our learning, identifying key questions and tensions in our collective work of transforming systems toward equity.

Sub Unit

• General Pool

Organizer

• Jenny F Zhang, The Spencer Foundation

Chair

• Rhoda Freelon, Spencer Foundation

Individual Presentations

• Strengthening the Vaka: From Policy Assessment to Collective Dreaming in Pacific Higher Education Equity - Sereana Naepi, University of Auckland

• Systems Change for Gender-Transformative Education: Collaborative Pathways to Equity in Uttar Pradesh, India - Ananya Tiwari, Texas A&M University

• Integrating Vocational Education and Training into Academic Secondary Schools: A Strategy for Promoting Educational Equity in Brazil - Rebecca Tarlau, Stanford University; Maria Thereza Rios Hortencio, Stanford University

Discussant

• Jessica Marshall, The Spencer Foundation