Advancing Institutional Change to Encourage Faculty Participation in Research-Practice Partnerships

Abstract

University faculty have the talent, creativity, and training to tackle the serious challenges confronting our education system today, but the incentive structure in universities is often at odds with real-world contributions. What tensions are experienced by faculty who may be interested in partnership-oriented, engaged scholarship? How can these tensions be addressed? This chapter explores the tensions, particularly in the context of education research-practice partnerships, and provide examples from universities that are taking steps to lessen the tensions and encourage faculty participation in partnerships. By adopting new structures and incentives, these universities are providing a pathway to engaged scholarship that may ultimately increase the power of research to address the problems that educators face each day. However, university leaders who are implementing institutional change must grapple with long-established norms and traditions, and show how new ways of assessing the value of research will benefit universities as well as their communities.

Politics at the Boundary: Exploring Politics in Education Research-Practice Partnerships

“…As a result, junior or even senior faculty may be more hesitant to engage in RPP work, if publishable work is not the end result. This conflict over publication through academic mechanisms, as opposed to supporting practice and policy through digestible and actionable products, is not necessarily insurmountable, as Gamoran (2022) suggests.…”

“…As with so many educational phenomena, opportunities for political contestations abound at each layer of partnership interaction, especially given that RPPs—and most partnerships, generally—are reliant upon relationships, communication, and trust that reinforces the partnership (Henrick et al, 2017; Tseng et al, 2017). More fundamentally, RPPs are inherently political in that they are a function of the internal politics within each partner institution, as well as the politics between the partner institutions (Anderson, 2022; Gamoran, 2022; Klein, 2022). An RPP can maintain or exacerbate inequitable distribution of power and resources, or it can mitigate inequities through intention.…”

“…However, similar to the porous boundary infrastructure, cycles of research and improvement are also imperfect, which is represented by the broken borders of the loops. Our model emphasizes a focus on improvement of practice, but Gamoran (2022) explores changes to university norms and values that may improve the research praxis as well, to better support RPP outcomes.…”

“…Drawing on William T. Grant Foundation’s Institutional Challenge Grant, designed to support universities in making institutional shifts to foster community-engaged research, as well as relevant literature and documentation of grantees’ attempts to value and conduct applied or community-engaged, partnership-oriented research, Gamoran (2022) explores the tensions and sources of opportunity for the future of engaged research in the academy. Importantly, given prior research indicating that female faculty and faculty of color often disproportionately take on service roles and responsibilities in the academy (Hanasono et al, 2019; Porter, 2007; Pyke, 2011), and emerging research indicating similar imbalances in who takes on community-engaged research (Eatman et al, 2018), Gamoran (2022) rightfully points out that even as the field grows opportunities for partnership research, universities must pay close attention to whether the cost of engaging in this type of research will fall disproportionately on female scholars and scholars of color.…”

Political Considerations for Establishing Research-Practice Partnerships in Pursuit of Equity: Organizations, Projects, and Relationships

“…The political dimensions of research may be particularly salient for scholarship conducted in research-practice partnerships (RPPs). Many scholars working in RPPs have experienced the political dynamics internal to the academy about what "counts" as research, for funders, for peer-reviewed publications, or for tenure (e.g., Gamoran, 2022). Questions of legitimacy and access to resources within academic institutions are also linked to the ways researchers involved in RPPs engage externally.…”