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.
AkkermanS. F.BakkerA. (2011). Boundary crossing and boundary objects. Review of Educational Research, 81(2), 132–169.
2.
AllensworthE. (2013) The use of ninth-grade early warning indicators to improve Chicago Schools. Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk, 18(1), 68–83. https://doi.org/10.1080/10824669.2013.745181
3.
AndersonE. R. (2022). Political considerations for establishing research-practice partnerships in pursuit of equity: Organizations, projects, and relationships. Educational Policy. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/08959048221130993
4.
AnyonY.YangJ.WileyK.GreerE.DowningB. J.MartinezR.KimD.(2017). The evolution of a multi-stakeholder research–practice partnership on equityin school. In BevanB.PenuelW. R. (Eds.), Connecting research and practice foreducational improvement: Ethical and equitable approaches (pp. 66–82). Routledge.
5.
Arce-TrigattiP.ChukhrayI.López TurleyR. N. (2018). Research–practice partnerships in education. In SchneiderB. (Ed.), Handbook of the Sociology of Education in the 21st Century. Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research (pp. 561–579). Springer.
6.
Arce-TrigattiP.KleinK.LeeJ. S. (2022). Are research-practice partnerships responsive to partners’ needs? Exploring research activities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Educational Policy. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/08959048221134584
7.
BangM.VossoughiS. (2016). Participatory design research and educational justice: Studying learning and relations within social change making. Cognition and Instruction, 34(3), 173–193.
8.
BasuT. (2022, July15). The book ban movement has a chilling new tactic: Harassing teachers on social media. Educators who stand up to conservative activists are being harassed and called “groomers” online, turning them into potential targets for real-world violence. MIT Technology Review. https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/07/15/1055959/book-bans-social-media-harassment/
9.
BiagM.ShererD. (2021). Getting better at getting better: Improvement dispositions in education. Teachers College Record, 123(4), 1–42. https://doi.org/10.1177/016146812112300402
10.
BookerA. (2022). Designing for a productive politics of participation in research practice partnerships. Educational Policy. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/08959048221134586
11.
BookerL.ConawayC.SchwartzN. (2019). Five ways RPPs can fail and how to avoid them: Applying conceptual frameworks to improve RPPs. William T. Grant Foundation.
CaplanN. (1979). The two-communities theory and knowledge utilization. American Behavioral Scientist, 22(3), 459–470.
14.
CarterP. L. (2009). Equity and empathy: Toward racial and educational achievement in the Obama era. Harvard Educational Review, 79(2), 287–297.
15.
CobbP.JacksonK.SmithT.SorumM.HenrickE. (2013). Design research with educational systems: Investigating and supporting improvement in the quality of mathematics teaching and learning at scale. Teachers College Record, 112(2), 320–349.
16.
CoburnC. E.AllenA.CeperichR.BenekeA.WongL. (2020). The role of organizational routines in research use in four large urban school districts. National Center for Research in Policy and Practice.
17.
CoburnC. E.BaeS.TurnerE. O. (2008). Authority, status, and the dynamics of insider-outsider partnerships at the district level. Peabody Journal of Education, 83(3), 364–399.
18.
CoburnC. E.PenuelW. R. (2016). Research-practice partnerships in education: Outcomes, dynamics, and open questions. Educational Researcher, 45(1), 45–54.
19.
CoburnC. E.PenuelW. R.GeilK. E. (2013). Research practice partnerships: A strategy for leveraging research for educational improvement in school districts. William T. Grant Foundation.
20.
CubanL. (2021). Confessions of a school reformer. Harvard Education Press.
21.
DennerJ.BeanS.CampeS.MartinezJ.TorresD. (2019). Negotiating trust, power, and culture in a research practice partnership. AERA Open, 5(2), 1–11.
22.
DesimoneL. M.WolfordT.HillK. L. (2016, October–December). Research practice: A conceptual framework. AERA Open, 2(4), 1–14.
EatmanT. K.IvoryG.SaltmarshJ.MiddletonM.WittmanA.DolgonC. (2018). Co-Constructing Knowledge Spheres in the Academy: Developing Frameworks and Tools for Advancing Publicly Engaged Scholarship. Urban Education, 53(4), 532–561.
25.
Farley-RippleE. N. (2012). Research use in school district central office decision making: A case study. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 40(6), 786–806.
26.
Farley-RippleE. N.MayH.KarpynA.TilleyK.McDonoughK. (2018). Rethinking conceptions between research and practice in education: A conceptual framework. Educational Researcher, 47(4), 235–245.
FarrellC. C.CoburnC. E. (2017). Absorptive capacity: A conceptual framework for understanding district central office learning. Journal of Educational Change, 18(2), 135–159.
29.
FarrellC. C.HarrisonC.CoburnC. E. (2019). “What the hell is this, who the hell are you?” Role and identity negotiation in research-practice partnerships. AERA Open, 5(2), 1–13.
30.
FarrellC. C.PenuelW. R.AllenA.AndersonE. R.BohannonA. X.CoburnC. E.BrownS. L. (2022). Learning at the boundaries of research and practice: A framework for understanding research-practice partnerships. Educational Researcher, 51(3), 197–208.
31.
FarrellC. C.PenuelW. R.CoburnC. E.DanielJ.SteupL. (2021). Research-practice partnerships in education: The state of the field. William T. Grant Foundation.
32.
FarrellC. C.SingletonC.SamatisK.RiedyR.Arce-TrigattiP.PenuelW. R. (2022). Conceptions and practices of equity in research-practice partnerships. Educational Policy. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/08959048221131566
33.
FinniganK. S. (2022). The political and social contexts of evidence use in partnerships. Educational Policy, 37(1), 147–169.
34.
FinniganK. S.DalyA. J. (Eds.) (2014). Using research evidence in education: From the schoolhouse door to capitol hill. Springer.
35.
GamoranA. (2022). Advancing institutional change to encourage faculty participation in research-practice partnerships. Educational Policy, 37(1), 31–55.
36.
GutiérrezK. D.JurowA. S. (2016). Social design experiments: Toward equity by design. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 25(4), 565–598.
37.
HanasonoL. K.BroidoE. M.YacobucciM. M.RootK. V.PeñaS.O’NeilD. A. (2019). Secret service: Revealing gender biases in the visibility and value of faculty service. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 12(1), 85–98. https://doi.org/10.1037/dhe0000081
38.
HenrickE. C.CobbP.PenuelW. R.JacksonK.ClarkT. (2017). Assessing research-practice partnerships: Five dimensions of effectiveness. William T. Grant Foundation.
39.
HenrickE. C.KlafehnA. B.CobbP. (2018). Chapter 14, Assessing the impact of partnership recommendations on district instructional improvement strategies. In CobbP.JacksonK.SmithT. M., & the MIST Team (Eds.), Systems for instructional improvement: Creating coherence from the classroom to the district office (pp. 209–220). Harvard Education Press.
HonigM. I.VenkateswaranN.McNeilP.TwitchellJ. M. (2014). Leaders’ use of research for fundamental change in school district central offices: Processes and challenges. In FinniganK.DalyA. J. (Eds.), Using research evidence in education: From the schoolhouse door to Capitol Hill (pp. 33–52). Springer.
42.
HorsfordS. D.ScottJ. T.AndersonG. L. (2018). The politics of education policy in an era of inequality. Routledge.
43.
HuguetA.CoburnC. E.FarrellC. C.KimD. H.AllenA. (2021). Constraints, values, and information: How leaders in one district justify their positions during instructional decision making. American Education Research Journal, 58(4), 710–747.
44.
IshimaruA. M.BangM. (2016). Toward a transformative research and practice agenda for racial equity in family engagement. University of Washington.
45.
JacobsonM. J.LevinJ. A.KapurM. (2019). Education as a complex system: Conceptual and methodological implications. Educational Researcher, 48(2), 112–119. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X19826958
KimM.WentworthL.YamashiroK. (2022). RPP research use for improvement and equity: A California landscape of education research-practice partnerships [Paper Presentation]. The annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Diego, CA.
48.
KirstM. W.WirtF. M. (2009). The political dynamics of American education (4th ed.). McCutchan Publishing Corporation.
49.
KleinK. (2022). It’s complicated: Examining political realities and challenges in the context of research-practice partnerships from the school district leader’s perspective. Educational Policy. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/08959048221130352
50.
KoD.MaweneD.RobertsK.HongJ. J. (2021). A Systematic Review of Boundary-Crossing Partnerships in Designing Equity-Oriented Special Education Services for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students With Disabilities. Remedial and Special Education, 42(6), 412–425. https://doi.org/10.1177/0741932520983474
51.
LabareeD. F. (1997). Public goods, private goods: The American struggle over educational goals. American Educational Research Journal, 34(1), 39–81.
52.
LabareeD. F. (2018). Public schools for private gain: The declining American commitment to serving the public good. Phi Delta Kappan, 100(3), 8–13.
53.
Ladson-BillingsG. (2006). From the achievement gap to the education debt: Understanding achievement in U.S. Schools. Educational Researcher, 35(7), 3–12. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X035007003
54.
Ladson-BillingsG. (2021a). I’m here for the hard re-set: Post pandemic pedagogy to preserve our culture. Equity & Excellence in Education, 54(1), 68–78. https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2020.1863883
Lopez-TurleyR. N.StevensC. (2015). Lessons from a school district-university research partnership: The Houston Education Research Consortium. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 37(1S), 6S–15S.
57.
MeyerJ. L.WatermanC.ColemanG. A.StramblerM. J. (2022). Whose agenda is it? Navigating the politics of setting the research agenda in education research-practice partnerships. Educational Policy. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/08959048221131567
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2022). The future of education research at IES: Advancing an equity-oriented science. The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/26428
60.
NelsonI. A.LondonR. A.StrobelK. R. (2015). Reinventing the role of the university researcher. Educational Researcher, 44(1), 17–26.
61.
OakesJ. (2018). 2016AERA presidential address: Public scholarship: Education research for a diverse democracy. Educational Researcher, 47(2), 91–104.
62.
OzerE. J.LanghoutR. D.WeinsteinR. S. (2021). Promoting institutional change to support public psychology: Innovations and challenges at the University of California. American Psychologist, 76(8), 1293–1306.
PenuelW. R.AllenA. R.CoburnC. E.FarrellC. (2015). Conceptualizing research–practice partnerships as joint work at boundaries. Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk, 20(1), 182–197.
65.
PenuelW. R.BriggsD. C.DavidsonK. L.HerlihyC.ShererD.HillH. C.FarrellC. C.AllenA. R. (2017). How school and district leaders access, perceive, and use research. AERA Open, 3(2), 1–17.
66.
PorterS. R. (2007). A closer look at faculty service: What affects participation on committees?The Journal of Higher Education, 78(5), 523–541.
67.
PykeK. (2011). Service and Gender Inequity among Faculty. PS: Political Science & Politics, 44(1), 85–87.
68.
RandallE. V.CooperB. S.HiteS. J. (1999). Understanding the politics of research in education. Educational Policy, 13(1), 7–22.
69.
RiveraP.ChunM. (2022). Unpacking the power dynamics of funding research-practice partnerships. Educational Policy. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/08959048221134585
70.
RoderickM.Kelley-KempleT.JohnsonD. W.BeechumN. O. (2014). Preventable failure: Improvements in long-term outcomes when high schools focused on the ninth grade year. UChicago Chicago Consortium on School Research.
71.
RosenquistB. A.HenrickE. C.SmithT. M. (2015). Research practice partnerships to support the development of high quality mathematics instruction for all students. Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk, 20(1–2), 42–57.
72.
ScottJ.DeBrayE.LubienskiC.GoelLaLondeP.CastilloE.OwensS. (2017). Urban regimes, intermediary organization networks, and research use: Patterns across three school districts. Peabody Journal of Education, 92(1), 16–28.
73.
SextonS.RyooJ.GarbrechtL.FallR. (2020). Dimensions of equity in RPPs: A framework to guide partnership discussions. NNERPP Extra, 2(3), 12–18.
74.
SlaterJ. J. (2010). Introduction: The meme of collaboration. In SlaterJ. J.RavidR. (Eds.), Collaboration in education. Routledge Research in Education.
75.
TabakI. (2022). Productive tension in research practice partnerships: Where substance and politics intersect. Cognition and Instruction, 40(1), 171–177.
76.
TanksleyT.EstradaC. (2022). Toward a critical race RPP: How race, power and positionality inform research practice partnerships. International Journal of Research & Method in Education, 45(4), 397–409.
77.
ThompsonK. D.MartinezM. I.ClintonC.DiazG. (2017). Considering interest and action: Analyzing types of questions explored by researcher-practitioner partnerships. Educational Researcher, 46(8), 464–473.
TsengV.EastonJ. Q.SuppleeL. H. (2017). Research practice partnerships: Building two way streets of engagement. Social policy report. Society for Research in Child Development, 30(4), 1–17.
80.
TsengV.FleischmanS.QuinteroE. (2018). Democratizing evidence in education. In BevanB.PenuelW. R. (Eds.), Connecting research and practice for educational improvement. Routledge.
81.
TsengV.NutleyS. (2014). Chapter 11: Building the infrastructure to improve the use and usefulness of research in education. In FinniganK. S.DalyA. J. (Eds.), Using research evidence in education: From the schoolhouse door to Capitol Hill. Policy Implications in Research in Education (Vol. 2, pp. 163–175). Springer.
82.
TyackD.CubanL. (1997). Tinkering toward utopia: A century of public school reform. Harvard University Press.
83.
VakilS.de RoystonM. M.NasirN. S.KirshnerB. (2016). Rethinking race and power in design-based research: Reflections from the field. Cognition and Instruction, 34(3), 194–209.
84.
VetterA.FairclothB. S.HewittK. K.GonzalezL. M.HeY.RockM. L. (2022). Equity and social justice in research practice partnerships in the United States. Review of Educational Research, 92(5), 829–866. https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543211070048
85.
VillavicencioA.ConlinD.PaganO. (2022). Research-Practice Partnerships in Pursuit of Racial Justice in Schools: Navigating a Hostile Sociopolitical Climate. Educational Policy. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/08959048221130353
86.
WaltersP. B. (2009). Chapter 1: The politics of science: Battles for scientific authority in the field of education research. In WaltersP. B.LareauA.RanisS. (Eds.), Education research on trial: Policy reform and the call for scientific rigor (pp. 27–60). Routledge.
87.
WeissC. H. (1980). Knowledge Creep and Decision Accretion. Knowledge, 1(3), 381–404.
88.
WentworthL.ConawayC.ShewchukS.Arce-TrigattiP. (2022). RPP Brokers Handbook, V. 2: A Guide to Brokering in Education Research-Practice Partnerships. National Network of Education Research-Practice Partnerships (NNERPP)
