Research-Practice Partnerships With University-Partnered Community Schools as Contexts for Doctoral Student Training

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.