While partnerships are key to sustained engagement between universities and schools, structural and historical differences exist between partners at the level of both organisational boundaries and socioeconomic borders. Differential relations, particularly accentuated in contexts such as South Africa, are frequently masked by normative assumptions that have largely remained unquestioned.
Reciprocity and mutuality are two such foundational concepts, regularly enlisted in the partnership literature. Applied uncritically, these concepts function to obscure power differentials between partnering institutions – and between people who bring to those partnerships different histories and social positions. Using the example of a South African university-school partnership, the article draws on the scholarship of Keith (2005), Stavro (2001) and Young (1990, 1997a, 1997b) to develop a framework that moves beyond reciprocity and mutuality towards collective empowerment and solidarity. This discursive shift reflects the complexities of partnerships and partnering – and opens the space for more authentic forms of engagement, particularly in unequal partnering contexts. The article offers insights, from the perspective of the particular case presented, into how dialogic spaces might be created for interrupting normative discourses and practices, and for re-imagining new possibilities for partnering across contexts of difference.
KeywordsAsymmetrical reciprocity, university-school partnerships, mutuality, collective empowerment
South African universities have a crucial role to play in helping reduce inequalities in schooling by preparing teachers for working across diverse school contexts. This article examines a pre-service teacher collaborative support programme generated through a twoyear action research process. The programme was designed to support student teachers and their school-based mentors during Teaching Practice through an existing university-school partnership. Using a qualitative analysis of journal entries and separate focus group discussions with student and mentor teachers we describe students’ and mentors’ responses to the collaborative support programme. The findings of the study suggest that a collaborative support strategy pitched at both the university and school is critical to support student teachers during their pre-service teaching, especially in socially and educationally challenging contexts. Joint responsibility for initial teacher development requires a reconceptualisation of the role of the mentor teacher, and a shift towards the distribution of mentoring functions from a few designated mentor teachers to include a wider range of teachers at the school.
For the past century, school reform has centered around political solutions. Numerous attempts have been made to improve the education of youth. The advent of neuroscience research has given educators new ways of examining conditions affecting school achievement. The list of these conditions is large. Communities seeking to improve schools need to examine biological factors which may impinge on school success.
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