Learning at the Boundaries of Research and Practice: A Framework for Understanding Research–Practice Partnerships

Given the rapid growth of research–practice partnerships (RPPs), we need a framework that helps the field understand how RPPs can facilitate organizational learning in service of local educational improvement and transformation. Drawing on sociocultural and organizational learning theories, we argue that learning can happen for the organizations engaged in RPPs at the boundaries of research and practice. Such learning is evident when there are changes in collective knowledge, policies, and routines of participating organizations, with implications for longer-term outcomes of educational improvement and transformation locally and more broadly. The degree to which organizations can make use of the ideas from the RPP is dependent, in part, on the presence and design of boundary infrastructure and the preexisting organizational capacities and conditions. We conclude with implications for those engaging in RPPs and future research.

Organizational Responses to the covid-19 Crisis by Universities in Poland: A Survey of Student Attitudes

The global health crisis caused by the sars-CoV-2 virus has impacted higher education systems worldwide. Emergency remote teaching strategies have been common organizational responses, which came with challenges, particularly in systems that lacked the capacity for digital provision. Building on strategic and crisis management theory and literature, this study investigates student attitudes towards organizational responses to the crisis in public higher education institutions in Poland. Drawing on findings of an online survey completed by 359 students from 61 institutions, this research has revealed that more than half of the respondents were satisfied with organizational responses to the crisis. Instructors’ self-motivation was identified as a key enabler of a successful implementation of distance learning, while their lack of familiarity with e-learning and technology were found as dominant barriers. The findings of this research can support institutions in other contexts to strengthen their commitment to educational improvement in a period of crisis and digital transformation.

Combating Anti-Asian Racism and Xenophobia in Canada: Toward Pandemic Anti-Racism Education in Post-covid-19

Canada is often held up internationally as a successful model of immigration. Yet, Canada’s history, since its birth as a nation one hundred and fifty-four years ago, is one of contested racial and ethnic relations. Its racial and ethnic conflict and division resurfaces during covid-19 when there has been a surge in racism and xenophobia across the country towards Asian Canadians, particularly those of Chinese descent. Drawing on critical race theory and critical discourse analysis, this article critically analyzes incidents that were reported in popular press during the pandemic pertaining to this topic. The analysis shows how deeply rooted racial discrimination is in Canada. It also reveals that the anti-Asian and anti-Chinese racism and xenophobia reflects and retains the historical process of discursive racialization by which Asian Canadians have been socially constructed as biologically inferior, culturally backward, and racially undesirable. To combat and eliminate racism, we propose a framework of pandemic anti-racism education for the purpose of achieving educational improvement in post-covid-19.

Urban Principal Autonomy and the Goldilocks Dilemma: Considering the Nature and Limits of Principal Power in New York City

Some contemporary urban educational reformers believe that empowering principals with increased school-based autonomy will help them lead educational improvement more effectively. We consider this popular reform idea by examining how principals experienced and exerted autonomy in different forms in two distinct eras in New York City. Our findings suggest that principal autonomy as a centrally planned reform strategy for urban education encounters a Goldilocks dilemma: principal power is almost inevitably too hot or too cold, but never just right. However, principals can and do assert self-sourced autonomy in which they recognize and exercise whatever power they may have within prevailing organizational constraints, conditions, and restrictions. We conclude by examining implications.

Change theory in STEM higher education: a systematic review

This article systematically reviews how change theory has been used in STEM higher educational change between 1995 and 2019. Researchers are increasingly turning to theory to inform the design, implementation, and investigation of educational improvement efforts. Yet, efforts are often siloed by discipline and relevant change theory comes from diverse fields outside of STEM. Thus, there is a need to bring together work across disciplines to investigate which change theories are used and how they inform change efforts. This review is based on 97 peer-reviewed articles. We provide an overview of change theories used in the sample and describe how theory informed the rationale and assumptions of projects, conceptualizations of context, indicators used to determine if goals were met, and intervention design. This review points toward three main findings. Change research in STEM higher education almost always draws on theory about individual change, rather than theory that also attends to the system in which change takes place. Additionally, research in this domain often draws on theory in a superficial fashion, instead of using theory as a lens or guide to directly inform interventions, research questions, measurement and evaluation, data analysis, and data interpretation. Lastly, change researchers are not often drawing on, nor building upon, theories used in other studies. This review identified 40 distinct change theories in 97 papers. This lack of theoretical coherence in a relatively limited domain substantially limits our ability to build collective knowledge about how to achieve change. These findings call for more synthetic theoretical work; greater focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion; and more formal opportunities for scholars to learn about change and change theory.

Research–Practice Partnerships in Education Within The United States

Research–practice partnerships (RPPs) in education are long-term collaborations aimed at educational improvement and transformation through engagement with research, intentionally organized to connect diverse forms of expertise and to ensure that all partners have a say in the joint work. They have the potential to create conditions for research to inform practice more effectively than a one-way model that emphasizes translation of research into practice. After a description of systematic review methods and brief background on RPPs, this article is organzed into five focal RPP outcome areas: building trust and cultivating relationships, conducting rigorous and relevant research, supporting local improvement efforts, producing knowledge for the field more broadly, and building capacity for involved participants and organizations.