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The ever-increasing pressure for school improvement has led to a related increase in research-practice partnerships (RPPs) that address problems of practice. Yet, little research has centered on how the myriad challenges to such partnerships can be overcome, such as bridging the cultural divide between universities and their school-based partners. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to examine how social capital was developed among the members of a steering committee in a RPP between a university and a 12-district consortium of predominantly rural, high-poverty school districts to develop and implement a professional development initiative for rural school leaders.

Data for this phenomenological single case study were collected over a one-year period through participant observations, document analysis and semi-structured interviews with ten steering committee members. Data were inductively and deductively coded through multiple rounds of analysis, which drew on the structural and cognitive elements of social capital (Uphoff, 2000). Findings were triangulated and member checked for trustworthiness.

The analysis of the data revealed three key ways in which social capital was developed among members of the steering committee to overcome the cultural challenges of RPPs to develop and implement a professional development initiative for rural school leaders: providing an open but focused structure, ensuring inclusive and respectful discussion and negotiating roles and ideas.

The findings provide a fine-grained illustration of how intentional efforts to develop social capital among members in a co-design team can assist in bridging the cultural boundaries often encountered in RPPs.

Historically, learners labeled with disabilities have been denied equal access to and opportunities in mainstream classrooms. Globally, the task of addressing marginalization entails two main approaches. Firstly, there is a need to prevent stigmatization, discrimination, and neglect. Secondly, efforts must be directed toward establishing structures and systems that enable complete and meaningful involvement within educational institutions and various sectors. Educational inequality is associated with various aspects of identity beyond disability status. Factors such as culture, language, race, and gender impact the classroom experiences of children. Consequently, schools must adopt an intersectional approach in their quest to deliver effective, accessible, and inclusive education to all children. Building from the work of UNESCO, we define inclusivity as a transformative process of educators ensuring that all children experience high-quality learning opportunities that respect and value multiple dimensions of diversity. This chapter describes an emerging research–practice partnership focused on organizational learning advancing inclusivity. The partnership is premised on supporting central office administrators and the school-based inclusion planning teams (IPTs) in a public school district implementing a comprehensive reform of their service delivery model for students labeled with disabilities. It involves supporting administrators in Boston Public Schools (BPS) in fine-tuning a theory of action (ToA), designing organizational learning processes to enact this ToA, and evaluating the efficacy of the initiative in advancing effective, inclusive education for students labeled with disabilities.

This scoping review utilizes findings from 80 articles to build a research model to study research-practice-policy networks in K-12 education systems. The purpose of this study was to generate a broad understanding of the variation in conceptualizations of research-practice-policy partnerships, rather than dominant conceptualizations.

Arskey and O'Malley's (2005) five stage scoping review process was utilized including: (1) a consultative process with partners to identify research questions, (2) identify relevant studies, (3) study selection based on double-blind peer review, (4) charting the data and (5) collating, summarizing and reporting the results in a research model identifying key dimensions and components of research-practice partnerships (RPPs).

Coburn et al. (2013) definition of RPPs arose as an anchoring definition within the emerging field. This article proposes a model for understanding the organization and work of RPPs arising from the review. At the core lies shared goals, coproduction and multistakeholder collaboration organized around three dimensions: (1) Systems and structures: funding, governance, strategic roles, policy environment, system alignment; (2) Collaborative processes: improvement planning and data use, communication, trusting relationships, brokering activities, capacity building; (3) Continuous Learning Cycles: social innovation, implementation, evaluation and adaptation.

By using a common framework, data across RPPs and from different studies can be compared. Research foci might test links between elements such as capacity building and impacts, or test links between systems and structures and how those elements influence collaborative processes and the impact of the RPPs. Research could test the generalizability of the framework across contexts. Through the application and use of the research model, various elements might be refuted, confirmed or refined. More work is needed to use this framework to study RPPs, and to develop accompanying data collection methods and instruments for each dimension and element.

The practical applications of the framework are to be used by RPPs as a learning framework for strategic planning, iterative learning cycles and evaluation. Many of the elements of the framework could be used to check-in with partners on how things are going – such as exploring how communication is working and whether these structures move beyond merely updates and reporting toward joint problem-solving. The framework could also be used prior to setting up an RPP as an organizing approach to making decisions about how that RPP might best operate.

Despite increased attention on multistakeholder networks in education, the conceptual understanding is still limited. This article analyzed theoretical and empirical work to build a systematic model to study RPPs in education. This research model can be used to: identify RPP configurations, analyze the impact of RPPs, and to compare similarities and differences across configurations.

The purpose of this paper is to provide evidence based guidance to researchers and practice personnel about forming and carrying out effective research partnerships.

A review of the literature, interviews and discussions with colleagues in both research and practice roles, and a review of the authors' personal experiences as researchers in partnership research.

Partnership research is, in some respects, a distinct “approach” to research, but there are many different versions. An analysis of research publications and of their research experience led the authors to develop a framework for planning and assessing the partnership research process, which includes defining expected outcomes for the partners, their roles, and steps in the research process.

This review and analysis provides guidance that may reduce commonly-reported misunderstandings and help to plan more successful partnerships and projects. It also identifies future research which is needed to define more precisely the questions and purposes for which partnership research is most appropriate, and methods and designs for specific types of partnership research.

As more research moves towards increased participation of practitioners and patients in the research process, more precise and differentiated understanding of the different partnership approaches is required, and when each is most suitable. This article describes research approaches that have the potential to reduce “the research-practice gap”. It gives evidence- and experience-based guidance for choosing and establishing a partnership research process, so as to improve partnership relationship-building and more actionable research.

This special issue reveals how lesson study in China continues to serve as a powerful platform to support change in teaching. The papers included in this issue explore how university faculty members and researchers support teachers to cross boundaries resulting from the introduction of key competencies-based (hexin suyang 核心素养) curriculum reform (KCR).

The theme of continuity and change is examined against the backdrop of Chinese lesson study's (CLS's) consistent supporting role in enabling curriculum reform. These analyses make use of concepts involved in understanding boundary crossing, such as using boundary objects and their roles, to help make sense of the new theories, tools, and resources as well as relationships engendered in responding to the reform's demand. While recognizing the continuity at play in Chinese LS, the authors use the lens of learning at the boundary of research-practice partnerships (RPPs) (Farrell et al., 2022) to contemplate the future of CLS.

The papers touch on three major themes: (1) the role of university-school partnerships in meeting the new demands of key competencies reform; (2) resourceful tools, strategies and structures to support boundary crossing for teachers; and (3) roles and relationships for mutual learning in university-school partnerships. Together these three themes, considered across the papers in this issue, point to the need to redefine CLS to engender versatility and hybridity and to enlist mutual learning relationships in future university-school partnerships. Such redefinition positions lesson study to both continue and change.

The papers in this issue are expected to promote mutualist learning in future CLS research-practice partnerships. To do so, research needs to move from focusing on change of a single case teacher to clarifying what experts and teachers each learn from the LS and from each other. Attention also needs to focus on the collaborative discourse and ways such discourse is able to promote mutual learning, emotional support in facing change as well as critical and constructive problem solving.

Practically, to better support boundary crossing, this special issue encourages academics and teachers to identify and work around boundary objects and their enabling features to enhance knowledge and identity of both university and teacher participants for more effective research-practice partnerships.

This special issue offers a pioneering set of studies that contributes to an in-depth understanding of how CLS is supporting the current competencies-based reform in China. It also provides concrete future directions for research and practice to enhance university-school partnerships' response to reform.

The purpose of this study is to examine how a school leadership team in a rural, high-poverty elementary school learned to lead continuous school improvement in a research–practice partnership.

This case study draws on qualitative research methods, improvement science and Deming's notion of a system of profound knowledge to identify how members of the school leadership team understood and approached their school improvement work differently as a result of engaging in continuous improvement processes in a research–practice partnership.

The findings illustrate how engaging in continuous improvement processes in the research–practice partnership enhanced the leadership team members' capacities to prioritize and solve problems, incorporate multiple and diverse perspectives in problem-solving efforts and establish a culture of increased risk-taking and ownership of teaching and learning outcomes. In sum, the members of the leadership team became the drivers of their own change processes.

The findings provide insight into how leaders in rural, high-poverty schools can build capacity within their schools to meet the demand for increased student achievement by leading collaborative, continuous improvement processes grounded in improvement science in research–practice partnerships.

The literature review explores how multidisciplinary approaches based on critical pedagogy and participatory research can provide frameworks for equitable partnerships and genuine participation in educational design and research practices. Additionally, the essay aims to expand understandings of equitable engagement within educational research and design based on principles from critical pedagogy.

The essay draws from diverse literature in the learning sciences, health informatics, industrial design, disability studies, ethnic studies, rehabilitation science, and to a lesser extent HCI research to understand how critical pedagogy and participatory research methods can provide useful frameworks for disabled peoples' equitable engagement and genuine participation in educational research and design. The literature reviewed in the paper concern topics such as participatory approaches to community development with disabled adults, the implementation of university-initiated community partnerships, participatory research with students and disabled people, and the importance of culturally-responsive research practices. The design literature in this review explores various arenas such as the co-design of assistive technologies with disabled children and adults and the design of curricula for students with and without disabilities. This review focuses on research practices that engender disabled peoples' participation in educational research and design, with focus on developing multidisciplinary frameworks for such research.

The literature review concludes that participatory research methods and critical pedagogy provide useful frameworks for disabled peoples’ participation in educational design and research practices. Critical pedagogy and participatory design allow for the genuine participation of disabled people in the research process.

Emphases on collaboration and collective knowledge-building in social transformation are present in scholarship concerning critical pedagogy, participatory research, and disability studies. However, these connections have been routinely underexplored in the literature. This paper aims to underscore these integral connections as a means to build solidarity between disabled and other marginalized people.

The connections between participatory research methods, critical pedagogy, and disability studies have been previously underexplored. The literature review proposes a combined approach, which has the potential to radically transform multiple realms of research beyond the learning and information sciences.

Across the United States, school leaders are realizing the potential for social and emotional learning (SEL) to be used as a critical lever for students' equitable access to full participation in social and civic life. Researchers and practitioners seek to understand how teachers can elevate student voice, increase students' sense of agency, and promote civic engagement through SEL instruction. The School and Community Pathways for Engagement (SCoPE) Project brought together teams from a large, urban school district in the Midwestern United States, the University of Michigan, and the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) in a research-practice partnership (RPP) to examine these pertinent challenges. This chapter demonstrates how the purposeful establishing of and fostering collaborative relationships between researchers and practitioners in the SCoPE Project motivated deeper investment and equity of voice for all stakeholders involved. This chapter specifically discusses the motivational affordances of the RPP approach during participant recruitment, data collection, and data sharing for the SCoPE Project.

Calls for the development and dissemination of evidence-based programs to support children and families have been increasing for decades, but progress has been slow. This paper aims to argue that a singular focus on evaluation has limited the ways in which science and research is incorporated into program development, and advocate instead for the use of a new concept, “scientific accompaniment,” to expand and guide program development and testing.

A heuristic is provided to guide research–practice teams in assessing the program’s developmental stage and level of evidence.

In an idealized pathway, scientific accompaniment begins early in program development, with ongoing input from both practitioners and researchers, resulting in programs that are both effective and scalable. The heuristic also provides guidance for how to “catch up” on evidence when program development and science utilization are out of sync.

While implementation models provide ideas on improving the use of evidence-based practices, social service programs suffer from a significant lack of research and evaluation. Evaluation resources are typically not used by social service program developers and collaboration with researchers happens late in program development, if at all. There are few resources or models that encourage and guide the use of science and evaluation across program development.

In the past five years, state education agencies (SEAs) have increased the number of social and emotional learning (SEL) policies, oftentimes engaging stakeholders across the state. However, few use multiple sources of stakeholder engagement data to develop and improve their SEL standards and resources (Yoder, Dusenbury, Martinez-Black, & Weissberg, 2020). This chapter describes the experience of a nonprofit research organization supporting an SEA and a volunteer workgroup in Washington state to gather and use several forms of stakeholder input and feedback in developing statewide SEL guidance for K-12 educators. Operating from a research–practice partnership framework (Coburn & Penuel, 2016), the team assisted the workgroup members in applying both an ecological systems theory perspective (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006) and an equity lens to their work through an iterative process of data collection, interpretation, and use. This chapter describes the process and outcomes of this research–practice partnership and provides examples of how the workgroup incorporated stakeholder input and feedback into the development of SEL guidance and resources. We offer insights and lessons learned from these efforts to expand the perspectives represented in SEL research and policymaking. Our aim is to highlight the importance of stakeholder engagement to ensure that SEL guidance considers the priorities and values of diverse communities, especially historically marginalized communities. We hope to encourage more research–practice partnerships to investigate and amplify community perspectives in SEL.