To read this content please select one of the options below:

Obstacles and opportunities for networked practice: a social network analysis of an inter-organizational STEM ecosystem

Yi-Hwa Liou (Department of Educational Management, National Taipei University of Education, Taipei, Taiwan)
Alan J. Daly (Department of Education Studies, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA)

Journal of Educational Administration

ISSN: 0957-8234

Article publication date: 3 August 2020

Issue publication date: 4 February 2021

550

Abstract

Purpose

This study responds to major administrative and policy priorities to support science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education by investigating a multi-sector ecosystem of regional organizations that support a STEM pipeline for education and careers.

Design/methodology/approach

We use social network analysis to investigate an entire region within a geographic region of California which included 316 organizations that represent different stakeholder groups, including educational institutions (school districts, schools and higher education), government, private companies, museums, libraries and multiple community-based organizations. This STEM ecosystem reflects a systems-level analysis of a region from a unique social network perspective.

Findings

Results indicate that organizations have a surface-level access to STEM-related information, but the deeper and more intense relationship which involves strategic collaboration is limited. Further, interactions around information and collaboration between organizations were purportedly in part to be about education, rarely included PK-12 schools and district as central actors in the ecosystem. In addition, while institutions of higher education occupy a central position in connecting and bridging organizations within the ecosystem, higher education's connectivity to the PK-12 education sector is relatively limited in terms of building research and practice partnerships.

Originality/value

This research has implications for how regional-level complex systems are analyzed, led and catalyzed and further reflects the need to intentionally attend to the growth of STEM networks.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

Both authors contributed equally to the work.The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Citation

Liou, Y.-H. and Daly, A.J. (2021), "Obstacles and opportunities for networked practice: a social network analysis of an inter-organizational STEM ecosystem", Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 59 No. 1, pp. 94-115. https://doi.org/10.1108/JEA-02-2020-0041

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited

Related articles