Abstract
The field of education has seen a sharp increase in the formation and participation of research–practice partnerships (RPPs ) over the last two decades. Bringing together two parties in education that share a concern for improved student outcomes but differ dramatically in their approaches to that end, RPPs in education have not only grown in number and type, but complementary organizations and efforts have begun to emerge as well. In this contribution, we explore the reasons for these changes, grounding our work in the organizational and institutional theories literature from sociology.
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Notes
- 1.
Title IV of ESEA authorized the formation of what eventually came to be known as the “Regional Education Laboratories ” (RELs). The motivating ideas behind the introduction of the RELs were first, to facilitate the generation of more useful research in education and second, to somehow encourage practitioners to actually use it (Guthrie 1989). In the years since their inception, the RELs have been reauthorized several times and are currently operating 79 research alliances within ten different RELs across the U.S. They are funded by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) to conduct research, disseminate findings, and to provide training and technical assistance to link research-proven practices with educational practitioners. In their most recent iteration, there will be greater opportunity to engage with research–practice partnerships (Sparks 2016).
- 2.
- 3.
- 4.
See http://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/departments/tl/teaching_and_learning_research/mist/ for more information.
- 5.
Note: Currently, no resource, such as a directory, exists on the number of RPPs currently in operation. The NNERPP website (nnerpp.rice.edu) contains a list of partnerships that are members of its network (which includes most of the research alliances in operation today), while the R + P Collaboratory website (researchandpractice.org) includes a list of DBIR-type partnerships.
- 6.
Conducting a simple Google Scholar search on “research practice partnerships” + education and restricting the results to the years 1960 through 1989 returns zero results. When changing the yearly range from 1990 to 2000, ten results are listed. Finally, adjusting the yearly range once more, from 2001 to 2016, nearly 300 articles are returned.
- 7.
Given IES’ role in supporting the Regional Education Laboratories , these two centers should come as no surprise, lending support for the notion that advancing cognitive legitimation matters.
- 8.
See http://researchandpractice.org/ for more information.
- 9.
See http://rpp.wtgrantfoundation.org/ for more information.
- 10.
See http://nnerpp.rice.edu for more information.
- 11.
For example, some RPPs also partner with community non-profit organizations or non-university research institutions.
- 12.
For example, some have argued that the UChicago Consortium has been a model for RPP success. It is not clear if this accolade refers to its longevity within the industry or due to the strong reputation it has developed over time in being an exemplar for how RPPs can work, or other aspects of the partnership. Although these features may be indicators of success, it should be noted that our general knowledge of RPP effectiveness is still in its infancy.
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Arce-Trigatti, P., Chukhray, I., López Turley, R.N. (2018). Research–Practice Partnerships in Education. In: Schneider, B. (eds) Handbook of the Sociology of Education in the 21st Century. Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76694-2_25
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