No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
Democratizing Evidence in Education
... Etablierte Dynamiken von Autorität und Autonomie sowie implizite und explizite Zuschreibungen von Expertise im Triangel von Wissenschaft, Politik und Praxis spielen eine maßgebliche Rolle für die Ausgangslage, wie Stakeholder zu Projektbeginn miteinander in Beziehung stehen (Coburn et al. 2008;Sjölund et al. 2022;Tseng et al. 2017 (Lezotte et al. 2022;Stein et al. 2008). ...
... In diesem Zusammenhang ist es unerlässlich, die Implementierung von Projektkonzeptionen in die schulische Praxis nicht länger als unidirektionale Übergabe von einer Systemebene in die andere zu betrachten. Stattdessen sollte darauf fokussiert werden, die partnerschaftliche Zusammenarbeit von Wissenschaft, Politik und Praxis von Beginn an als integrales Projektelement zu betrachten (siehe auch Chambers und Azrin 2013) und Autorität und Autonomie im Verhältnis zwischen den Stakeholdern gleichmäßiger zu verteilen(Tseng et al. 2017). Einhergehend mit dem Konzept von Team Science(Stokols et al. 2008) soll sämtlichen Akteur*innen eine aktive Rolle zuteil werden, um gemeinsam komplexe Probleme zu lösen und Erkenntnisse zu generieren, die Relevanz für alle beteiligten Stakeholder haben.Letztlich geht es also darum, eine Grundhaltung der partnerschaftlichen Zusammenarbeit auf Augenhöhe zu etablieren, die sich durch sämtliche Aspekte von Projekten in Kooperation zwischen Wissenschaft, Politik und Praxis zieht -von der Projektkonzeption, über die Umsetzung und Implementierung, die Gestaltung der wissenschaftlichen Begleitung, bis hin zur Dissemination von Erfahrungen und Ergebnissen. ...
Zusammenfassung
Die empirische Forschung liefert viele Hinweise auf Ansatzpunkte, um Herausforderungen an Schulen zu bewältigen und Bildungschancen zu erhöhen. Jedoch sind die Umsetzung dieser Erkenntnisse und vor allem der Transfer in die Fläche höchst anspruchsvoll, denn es müssen die Perspektiven und Möglichkeiten unterschiedlicher Akteur*innen aus den Bereichen Wissenschaft, Politik und Praxis sehr gut koordiniert werden. Vor diesem Hintergrund wurden in den letzten Jahren vermehrt Kooperationsprojekte mit dem Ziel gestartet, Kapazitäten unterschiedlicher Stakeholder und Akteur*innen aus schulischer Praxis, Wissenschaft sowie der politischen Ebene zu bündeln, um Schulen bei der Optimierung schulischer Prozesse zu unterstützen. In Anbetracht des komplexen Interaktionsfelds im Bildungssystem stellt sich die Frage, welche Bedingungen für ein Gelingen solcher Projekte bedeutsam sind. Der vorliegende Beitrag geht dieser Frage nach und erarbeitet Empfehlungen für die Durchführung von Projekten, in deren Rahmen Schulen durch ein Zusammenwirken von Wissenschaft, Politik und Praxis besser unterstützt werden können. Im Fokus steht dabei die Etablierung einer zielgerichteten und partnerschaftlichen Zusammenarbeit, die von der Projektkonzeption, über die Umsetzung und Implementierung und die Gestaltung der wissenschaftlichen Begleitung bis hin zur Dissemination von Erfahrungen und Ergebnissen reicht.
... However, there is a persistent gap between research and practice in education (Penuel et al., 2020). To address this, arguments have been made that collaborative approaches between researchers and practitioners, valuing engagement rather than distance, are promising in bridging this gap (Penuel et al., 2020;Tseng et al., 2017;Tseng et al., 2018). For instance, it is argued that collaboration produces more timely and relevant research (Tseng et al., 2017) and can provide usable and practical innovations to enhance student learning opportunities (Coburn & Penuel, 2016). ...
... This characterisation of roles serves a distinct purpose, aiding those engaged in RPPs in explicitly negotiating roles to avoid ambiguity. However, it is worth noting that in pursuing a more democratised evidence system (Tseng et al., 2017;Tseng et al., 2018), some of these role categories have a more even distribution of authority than others. For instance, 'researchers and practitioners as co-inquirers' has a more even, progressive authority distribution than 'researchers as expert inquirers and practitioners as inquiry translators'. ...
The overarching aim of this thesis is to contribute to the understanding of research-practice partnerships (RPPs). Specifically, focus is on the infrastructure that is set in place to facilitate organisational learning. It has been argued that RPPs are particularly promising in addressing the research-practice gap and achieving educational improvement. However, there are several challenges in structuring RPPs. Hence, there is a need for more knowledge concerning how this can be done. To respond to this call and address the aim of the thesis, I explore the dynamics of engaging in RPPs in two major ways. Firstly, I investigate a large-scale Swedish RPP with over 300 participants across three universities, eight municipalities and one private school authority. This provides an opportunity to address calls for research that is conducted from an external position by collecting video-recorded observations. Secondly, the thesis includes data from two systematic literature reviews mapping the field in relation to participant roles and research use. These reviews provide information on RPPs from an increasing amount of research describing the dynamics of RPPs which facilitates conclusions on the synthesised material. The result of this thesis maps the intricacy of RPP dynamics. These frameworks respectively map the intricacies of (1) boundaries, (2) discourses and positioning of actors, (3) roles and (4) research use as related to RPPs. These results are then used to extend our understanding of RPPs by contributing to an RPP framework proposed by Farrell et al. (2022). In summary, this thesis contributes (1) useful frameworks for reflecting on RPP structures and work and (2) extensive categorisations of different dimensions of RPPs, extending our understanding.
... Even within research communities, applied research has been prioritized over the exploration of fundamental questions (Hanley, 2005). Just as the deeper learning movement has tried to create spaces for critical thinking for youth (Noguera et al., 2015), RPPs have the opportunity to democratize inquiry by recognizing the value of process, honoring the ideas raised by all participants, leaving space to imagine futures that are not yet practical, and challenging the twenty-first century snowballing of the educational cult of efficiency (Callahan, 1964;Peurach et al., 2021;Tseng et al., 2017). ...
Kemi A. Oyewole (she/her) is a Ph.D. candidate of organization studies and education at the Stanford Graduate School of Education. Her research program centers on studying leadership development and organizational learning in service of equitable educational reform. Sumit K. Karn (he/him) is a graduate student in the International and Comparative Education program at Teachers College, Columbia University. His research interests are centered on understanding how to reduce educational inequities within historically deprived communities. In addition, his scholarly interests include school reform, public-private partnership in education, and the privatization of public education. Jennifer "Jen" Classen (she/they) is a graduate student in the Learning, Design, and Technology PhD program at Penn State University. She is interested in understanding the socio-cultural and organizational learning that occurs in school emergency preparedness. Her research interests are grounded in understanding and disrupting normed practices and epistemologies towards more equitable processes. Maxwell M. Yurkofsky (he/him) is an assistant professor at Radford University. His research draws on institutional and organizational theory to understand how school systems can organize for continuous improvement towards more ambitious and equitable visions of learning. See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ 41 Acknowledgements We are indebted to the RESHAPE Network of early career partnership researchers for bringing the coauthors together and working to advance the equitable partnerships this paper reimagines. We would like to thank Paula Arce-Trigatti, Laura Wentworth, and Sarah Woulfin for their invaluable feedback on our manuscript. We also express our gratitude to the editorial team at The Assembly and anonymous reviewers whose insights clarified and advanced our argument in service of the mission of public scholarship. Finally, we are honored to stand on the shoulders of and alongside many visionary scholar activists who have developed RPPs and inspire us to continue moving them forward.
... McGeown (2023) as well as other scholars (e.g., Akkerman et al., 2021;Honig et al., 2014;Tseng et al., 2018) argue that research conducted closer to policy and practice will have more impact. Honig et al. (2014) studied initiatives doing research informed changes in school districts and found that practitioners need help in shifting their practices if it is to happen at a deeper level. ...
... This move by RPPs to democratise educational research and bring multiple perspectives to the table is grounded in the idea that truly collaborative and equitable relationships between researchers and practitioners improves both the relevance and the transformative potential of the work. Tseng et al. (2017) suggest that the shift in power dynamics evident in RPP work promotes the dialogic possibilities of research: 'research evidence can be used as a tool for productive dialogue rather than as ammunition to take down another argument' (p. 6). ...
Much of the formal professional development teachers experience consists of short-term workshops that maintain – rather than disrupt – the systems of power that reproduce educational inequities. In response, some scholars have advocated critical professional development (PD) as a means of supporting teachers’ interrogation of these inequities and empowerment to effect change. Critical PD is based on Paulo Freire’s ideas of dialogue, problem-posing, and praxis, and it tends to emerge within grassroots organisations that function independently from the school systems. There are two drawbacks to this autonomous structure, however: the legitimacy problem, or the fact that the pedagogies advocated within these groups may be difficult to implement without the institutional support of participants’ districts; and the resource problem, or the fact that teachers’ time and efforts within these independent organisations is typically uncompensated. In this essay, we describe a research – practice partnership in which we co-developed critical PD on culturally responsive teaching with district leaders. The form of the PD, critical action research, allowed the participants to engage in problem-posing and praxis in order to analyse systems of power and their own positionalities within these systems. Recommendations for those with and without access to research – practice partnerships are offered.
... In addition, this consumer decision has the potential to have far-reaching social implications, as the education of youth and young people occurs during a very formative and vulnerable period of their lives (Bradley, 2013). Furthermore, sharing high-quality education research can increase stakeholder understanding of education, which can help institutions and individuals find solutions to meet their needs (Tseng et al., 2017). Malin et al. (2020) argue that the dissemination of education research, which they refer to as educational knowledge brokering, is a complex and often crowded landscape with various intermediaries at play. ...
The education industry is a far-reaching, innovative and rapidly evolving field of business. To ensure success and integrity in the education industry, organisations and companies strive to deliver high-quality products and services in an efficient and ethical manner. Education research plays an important part in the education industry by underpinning product and service developments, and through illustrating impact. Organisations and companies also share these research claims when marketing to potential customers and investors. However, there can sometimes exist a disjunction between those conducting research and those responsible for interpreting the research for the purpose of public dissemination. This article first investigates what constitutes an education research claim. The risks associated with such claims are then identified and a review process suggested so educational bodies can ensure accuracy and ethicality in their claims. Adopting a case study approach, educational claims-making is contextualised from the stance and perspective of a typical international awarding organisation.
... And (5) they involve original data collection and analysis (Coburn and Penuel, 2016). They have been described as a powerful tool for democratizing the production and use of evidence in education (Tseng et al., 2018). ...
With the expansion of maker programs in school and out-of-school settings, investigating the connections between making and learning is important for many reasons, not least to build the evidence base needed by educators committed to its practice. In this paper, we argue that, as a relatively new area of inquiry, studies of making can benefit from close dialogue between researchers and the practitioners who have pioneered and continue to develop the practice. We share how a research-practice partnership sought to amplify the voices of informal educators leading afterschool maker programs to address the research question: How can afterschool maker programs support student learning that is valued and relevant to the school day? We show how the research-practice partnership helped to refine a pedagogical framework describing learning dimensions of making and tinkering in ways that reflect the values and expert knowledge of informal educators committed to liberatory forms of education for young people, particularly those from socio-economically and racially marginalized communities.
Calls for evidence-based practice are pervasive. In response, extensive scholarship has employed four categories of research use—instrumental, symbolic, conceptual, and imposed—to examine how research is used in schools and districts. We draw on sociocultural learning theory and empirical data from one school district to newly theorize latent use as another category of research use. We define latent use as when educators participate with a research-embedded tool in ways that guide their work practice. We call this “latent” use because educators use research via their participation with tools embedded with research quotes, citations, and/or summaries rather than directly engaging with traditional research products (e.g., journal articles). We then discuss latent use's potential merits and limitations.
Our current systems for producing and using research are mired—as are all U.S. institutions—in a long history of racism, xenophobia, and a culture of paternalism. Fortunately, we are not beholden to maintaining those systems, and we can re‐imagine and re‐engineer the ways we approach research and what we seek to accomplish with it. Research–practice partnerships (RPPs) can play a unique and meaningful role in bringing research to bear on social justice for children and families, but the partnerships must be intentionally designed for those goals. In this essay, I discuss three design principles for RPPs: centering children marginalized by oppression, embracing historical perspectives, and contending with power asymmetries.
Research-practice partnerships (RPPs) are emerging as a promising approach for educational change by closing the gap between educational research and practice. However, these partnerships face several challenges, such as addressing cultural differences as well as relationship-building in a historically unbalanced relationship between researchers and practitioners. Scholars have argued that these cultural differences, also called boundaries, have learning potential if approached constructively, but that we need to know more about what characterizes them in an educational context. The aim of this study is to contribute to our understanding of frameworks for RPPs. By analysing 45 hours of video recordings from meetings in an RPP between four researchers and 300 practitioners, the study offers a characterization of seven different boundaries organized into three different boundary themes: a) prerequisites for collaboration, b) collaborative practices, and c) collaborative content. Moreover, the different boundaries affect the positioning of different actors in the RPP. For example, depending on the boundary expressed, teachers are positioned as either flawed implementers or co-inquirers. We argue that the boundaries and different participant positions within the RPPs they reinforce may affect their learning potentials.
The challenges of transforming our educational systems to fulfill enduring needs for equity, justice, and responsiveness will take a multitude of partners. Research-practice partnerships (RPPs) arrange collaboration and engagement with research to bring about shared commitments and resources to tackle these challenges. Just as sociocultural and political dynamics can shape educational politics generally, without close and intentional attention to the politics of starting, operating, and sustaining RPPs, those political dynamics can potentially derail a partnership. In this article, we consider the emerging research on the politics in and around RPPs pursuing educational transformation and propose a framework to reflect these dynamics. To introduce this special issue, we also deconstruct RPP politics into four major phases of RPP work, and describe the articles addressing each phase. This compilation of articles contributes a wealth of expertise and evidence illuminating how politics can shape both RPPs and their goals of equity and transformation.
Despite calls for evidence-based decision making, the field has a limited understanding of how educational leaders actually engage research. This study draws on a nationally representative sample of 368 district and school leaders who named pieces of research that were useful to their work. Educational leaders found frameworks and practical guidance in the form of books to be most useful. They report turning to research across different domains of leadership practice, including supporting their own professional learning, guiding instructional activities for others, and monitoring and supporting implementation. While a small portion of sources named would qualify for the top three “tiers of evidence” of the Every Student Succeeds Act, those sources named as useful for program selection more frequently met these criteria. Together, these findings offer a broader portrait of research use, one rooted in leaders’ engagement with research as a part of their multifaceted and complex practice.
This essay offers a framework for broader community involvement as a means of increasing the relevance and usefulness of evidence developed. This essay begins by defining key concepts related to democratizing the development of evidence. The sections that follow outline a logic model that calls for a bidirectional, iterative set of core activities to draw on insights from practitioners, community stakeholders, and researchers to generate a learning agenda, analysis plans, and findings that can be used to develop or refine policies and practices. The essay concludes with implications for advocates of democratizing the development of evidence and for researchers.
This paper is the culmination of several meaning-making activities between an external researcher, PES practitioners, and social scientist researchers who considered the unique contributions that can be made through RPPs on PES (that is, research-practice partnerships on public engagement with science). Based on the experiences from three RPP projects, the group noted that the PES context may be particularly suited to RPPs, and identified the importance of working as thinking-partners who support reciprocal decision-making. Recommendations are made in support of using these approaches to advance practical knowledge-building and reduce shared frustrations about the disconnect between research and practice in PES.
The contemporary social, economic, and cultural conditions within and outside the academy prompt important questions about the role of research in education policy and practice. Scholars have framed research-practice partnerships (RPPs) as a strategy to promote evidence-based decision-making in education. In this chapter, I interrogate the notion that RPPs offer an insightful framework to consider how the quality of research can be measured through its use. The findings suggest that using RPPs to assess the quality of education research enhances the relevance to policy and practice as well as attention to the quality of reporting, and pivots from the preeminence of methodological quality. RPPs increase local education leaders’ access to research and bolster the use of research. RPPs may also strengthen the alignment between education research and the public good. Notwithstanding, employing RPPs as a vehicle to assess research quality has its challenges. Valuing the work of RPPs in academia is a work in progress. Building and sustaining an RPP is challenging, and there is still much to learn about the ways in which RPPs work and overcome obstacles. Assessing the impact of RPPs is also difficult. Future considerations are discussed.
In research-practice partnerships (RPPs), the line between researcher and practitioner can be blurred, and the roles for everyone involved may be unclear. Yet little is known about how these roles are negotiated and with what consequences for collaborative efforts. Guided by organizational theory, we share findings from a multiyear case study of one RPP, drawing on observations of partnership leadership meetings and interviews with school district leaders and partners. Role negotiation occurred in more than one third of leadership meetings, as evidenced by identity-referencing discourse. When roles were unclear, collaborative efforts stalled; once partners renegotiated their roles, it changed how they engaged in the work together. Several forces contributed to these dynamics, including the partner’s ambitious yet ambiguous identity and the introduction of new members to the group. This study offers implications for those engaged in partnership work and provides a foundation for future research regarding role negotiation in RPPs.
How the organization of schools and local communities shape educational improvement
- E Allensworth