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Research-Practice Partnerships With University-Partnered Community Schools as Contexts for Doctoral Student Training: Sustained Community Building Through Graduate Student Assets

Research-Practice Partnerships With University-Partnered Community Schools as Contexts for Doctoral Student Training: Sustained Community Building Through Graduate Student Assets

Ung-Sang Lee (University of California, Los Angeles, USA), Shanté Stuart McQueen (University of Pittsburgh, USA), Karla Rivera-Torres (University of California, Los Angeles, USA), Evelyn Wang (University of California, Los Angeles, USA), Lilia Rodriguez (University of California, Los Angeles, USA), Sidronio Jacobo (University of California, Los Angeles, USA), and Janelle Franco (University of Washington, Tacoma, USA)
Copyright: © 2021 |Pages: 26
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-4836-3.ch006
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Abstract

In this chapter, the authors examine the ways in which equity-focused research-practice partnerships (RPPs) in two university-partnership schools served as contexts for their professional learning as educational researchers. They found that our participation in RPPs were characterized by access to a cross-disciplinary learning community, opportunities to collaborate with school stakeholders through research project life cycles, and pathways to become increasingly agentic facilitators of RPPs. Through such processes and structures, they expanded their social justice-oriented researcher positionalities, impacted local educational practices, and communicated their findings to a diverse set of audiences. They discuss the implications of these findings for graduate student education pedagogy, specifically for preparing doctoral students for the emerging professoriate.
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Overview

In this chapter we examine, from our perspectives as graduate students, how equity-focused research-practice partnerships (RPPs) (Coburn & Penuel, 2016) with university- partnered community schools (Quartz et al., 2017) served as contexts for our professional learning. RPPs have been conceptualized to facilitate learning across researchers and practitioners through joint work focused on persistent problems of practice and have become increasingly legitimate approaches to educational research (Coburn & Penuel, 2016; Gutiérrez & Penuel, 2014; Penuel, Allen, Coburn, & Farrell, 2015). Despite the increasing demand for RPP work to improve educational outcomes, scholarly literature lacks insight into the ways novice researchers participate in, and learn through this dynamic and relational form of research (Bang & Vossoughi, 2016).

Each of us engaged in targeted, long-term partnership projects across two university-partnered community schools as members of a university research group in a large research university’s education department. Drawing on Heidelberger and Uecker (2009), we constructed a case study (Merriam & Tisdell, 2015) based on scholarly personal narratives to examine our own learning through our participation in RPPs as graduate students. We reflected on how characteristics of the university’s partnership programs and RPP practices shaped our participation in RPPs and to our development as researchers. We identified three characteristics of our participation in the school-university partnership program that facilitated our professional learning. These included our participation in a university-based cross-disciplinary learning community named the Research Apprenticeship Course (RAC), sustained responsiveness to practitioners and community members, and building our RPP projects through our existing and emerging assets.. Furthermore, we found that these characteristics facilitated the following learning outcomes for graduate students:

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    Refined social justice-oriented researcher positionalities

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    Impact on local educational practice through research

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    Expertise communicating RPP findings to multiple audiences

These findings will be used to consider how RPPs with university-partnered schools can be leveraged to provide graduate students with learning opportunities that prepare them for emerging demands as researchers and professionals.

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