GSEHD faculty Dr. Joshua Glazer and Dr. Matthew Shirrell, GSEHD alumna Dr. Dryw Freed (Ed.D., Education Policy), and Dr. Megan Duff, post-doctoral researcher at Vanderbilt University, published the blog post, "Research Alliances: Challenges and Opportunities in Supporting District Improvement," for the William T. Grant Foundation.
The post shares what they've learned from their four-year study and sheds light on the promise and complexities of research-practice partnerships (RPPs) in addressing pressing educational challenges. The study examined two well-established research alliances (RAs) operating in large urban districts for over a decade. The goal was to determine whether and how these partnerships supported learning and improvement within local education systems, and the challenges partners navigated along the way.
Per the blog post, the research revealed that RAs offer critical benefits, including providing districts with rigorous, context-specific evidence and democratizing research by involving diverse stakeholders in knowledge-sharing events. However, the study also highlighted significant challenges in navigating stakeholders’ diverging goals, maintaining legitimacy, and fostering transformational learning.
Researchers identified three core challenges faced by RAs:
- Legitimacy: Balancing academic rigor with the expectations of practitioners, funders, and communities.
- Alignment: Managing the often-conflicting priorities of researchers, district officials, and funders.
- Learning: Addressing the need for deeper theoretical grounding to foster district-wide improvement.
Despite these challenges, the study outlines pathways forward, including partnering with organizations specializing in system transformation and designing research that supports practitioners’ theories of action. As RPPs evolve, aligning expectations with organizational capacities will be critical to their success.
This research offers valuable insights for advancing collaboration between educators and researchers, ultimately supporting district improvement and student outcomes.