Partnerships in Education: Risks in Transdisciplinary Educational Research (Transdisciplinary Perspectives in Educational Research, 5) 3030984524, 9783030984526

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Transdisciplinary Perspectives in Educational Research 5

Kathrin Otrel-Cass Karen J. C. Laing Janet Wolf   Editors

Partnerships in Education Risks in Transdisciplinary Educational Research

Transdisciplinary Perspectives in Educational Research Volume 5

Series Editor Dennis Beach, Education, Högskolan i Borås, Borås, Sweden

​ his book series presents and discusses topical themes of European and international T educational research in the 21st century. It provides educational researchers, policy makers and practitioners with up-to-date theories, evidence and insights in European educational research. It captures research findings from different educational contexts and systems and concentrates on the key contemporary interests in educational research, such as 21st century learning, new learning environments, global citizenship and well-being. It approaches these issues from various angles, including empirical, philosophical, political, critical and theoretical perspectives. The series brings together authors from across a range of geographical, socio-­ political and cultural contexts, and from different academic levels. The book series works closely with the networks of the European Educational Research Association. It builds on work and insights that are forged there but also goes well beyond the EERA scope to embrace a wider range of topics and themes in an international perspective.

Kathrin Otrel-Cass  •  Karen J. C. Laing Janet Wolf Editors

Partnerships in Education Risks in Transdisciplinary Educational Research

Editors Kathrin Otrel-Cass University of Graz Graz, Austria Janet Wolf Institute of Primary, Pre-primary and Special Education University of Hradec Králové Hradec Králové, Czech Republic

Karen J. C. Laing Research Centre for Learning & Teaching Newcastle University Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

ISSN 2662-6691     ISSN 2662-6705 (electronic) Transdisciplinary Perspectives in Educational Research ISBN 978-3-030-98452-6    ISBN 978-3-030-98453-3 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98453-3 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Contents

Part I Partnerships Between Groups Who Belong to Formal Educational Institutions 1 On Promises and Perils: Thinking About the Risks and Rewards of Partnerships in Education������������������������������������������    3 Kathrin Otrel-Cass, Karen Laing, and Janet Wolf 2 School Development Within Networks in a Digital World: Risky Ride or Beneficial Blessing? ��������������������������������������������������������   13 Lisa Gageik, Marco Hasselkuß, and Manuela Endberg 3 Bhutanese Partnerships Between Initial Teacher Training Colleges and Educational Stakeholders ������������������������������������������������   45 Kinzang Dorji and Nandu Giri 4 Risks and Drivers of Success in Higher Education Partnerships in Conflict Contexts: A German-Iraqi Partnership in Times of Isolation and Displacement and First Steps Towards Recovery ��������������������������������������������������������   59 Heike Wendt, Felix Senger, Ankita Singh, Anwar Alfaidhi, and Raeed Alnumman 5 Cosmopolitan or Locals: Deconstructing the Patterns of Co-authorship in Higher Education Studies in Latin America��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  101 Carolina Guzmán-Valenzuela 6 Risks in Partnerships. Navigating Through Three Unsuspected Problems������������������������������������������������������������������  117 Magali Hardouin

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Part II Partnerships in Education and the Risks Emerging from Relationships of Difference 7 Working as Co-Actors, to Reduce Inequalities and Prevent Tensions in a Partnership��������������������������������������������������  143 Françoise Maria Capacchi, Isabelle Callewaert, and Sylvie Strappazzon 8 School–University Partnership for School Development: Risks and Realities of a National Policy Initiative in Norway ������������  173 Ann Elisabeth Gunnulfsen and Hilde Madsø Jacobsen 9 Student-Researcher Partnerships – Uneven Realities��������������������������  195 Kathrin Otrel-Cass and Julia Mayr 10 If You Are My ‘Development Partner’, Am I Also Yours? – A Study of the Risks of Partnership Between Teacher Education and School������������������������������������������������  213 Gila Hammer Furnes, Herner Saeverot, and Glenn-Egil Torgersen Part III Enacting Social Justice in Partnerships Between Educators and Others 11 Partnership or Rivalry? Facing the Pandemic in Hungarian Education��������������������������������������������������������������������������  237 Katalin R. Forray and Tamas Kozma 12 The Perception of Not-for-Profit Organisations on Risks in Partnership with Czech, Sicilian and Castilian-Leonese Schools����������������������������������������������������������������  253 Janet Wolf, Francesca Pedone, and Raquel Casado-Muñoz 13 Partnerships Between Schools and Civil Society Organizations – A Look at Their Role for the Social Integration and Schooling of Newly Immigrated Children and Youth in Germany������������������������������������������������������������  271 Christine Steiner Part IV Partnerships That Bring Together the Knowledge and Skills of Educationalists with Those of Other Sectors in Enacting Societal Change That Goes Beyond Educational Systems 14 Coming to Terms with Feedback from Critical Friends: Reflections of Risks in a Swedish Regional Collaboration Project������������������������������������������������������������������������������  293 Jeanette Sjöberg, Annette Johnsson, and Pernilla Granklint Enochson

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15 Partnership in Education and Formative Paths for Healthcare Professionals. The Risks, the Paradoxes and the Practice of Pretext����������������������������������������������������������������������  315 Emanuela Guarcello 16 Risk in Healthcare Collaboration: Applied Interdisciplinary Social Science in Clinical Settings��������������  337 Lydia Wysocki and Janice McLaughlin 17 Creating Transformational Change Through Partnership������������������  359 K. Laing, S. Robson, H. Thomson, and L. Todd 18 Between Losing Ground and Getting Stuck? Social Movement Organisations Collective Strategising Between Protest and Institutionalisation ����������������������������������������������  385 Susanne Maria Weber and Marc-André Heidelmann Index������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  403

Part I

Partnerships Between Groups Who Belong to Formal Educational Institutions

Chapter 1

On Promises and Perils: Thinking About the Risks and Rewards of Partnerships in Education Kathrin Otrel-Cass

, Karen Laing, and Janet Wolf

Abstract  This chapter introduces the anthology on risks in partnerships in education. We do this by taking a look at previous research evidence that examined the challenges that might occur when different partners come together with the intention of achieving a beneficial outcome for their communities. The chapter examines partnerships and the consequences when different partners come together and goes on to introduce the focus of the anthology which is based on the premise that partnerships are often associated with some risks. We use the example of our own partnership of authors who participated in this anthology to demonstrate the risks to partnership that arose during the global Covid-19 pandemic. The chapter introduces the thematic areas that make up the contribution of the anthology and presents the editors’ reflections. Keywords  Risk · Partnership · Education · Governance · Power · Inequality

Introduction In 2009, Philip Masson and Miranda Pilo edited a book called Partnerships in education: theoretical approach and case studies. In it they wrote that at the time of preparing the book the topic of partnerships in education was, as an object of research, a relatively new field of study. In their review the editors raised concerns about the growth of economic incentives since the 1960s that impact on how K. Otrel-Cass (*) University of Graz, Graz, Austria e-mail: [email protected] K. Laing Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK J. Wolf Institute of Primary, Pre-primary and Special Education, University of Hradec Králové, Hradec Králové, Czech Republic © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 K. Otrel-Cass et al. (eds.), Partnerships in Education, Transdisciplinary Perspectives in Educational Research 5, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98453-3_1

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partnerships in education are formed. Neo-liberalist interests, driven by economic and market-based ideas about how education should operate, are currently almost normalized (Apple, 2005; Ball, 2013) and this has driven the development of a greater number and variety of organisations with an interest in, or concern about, education. However, the partnerships and connections between universities, other higher education institutions, industry partners, schools, societal partners and the economy that have proliferated internationally in recent years have not always been so close. The effects of those influences have been widely discussed and are also subject to globalisation and the ideals of a knowledge economy (Patrick, 2013). Partnership ideologies have been constructed in such ways that seem to make it impossible to propose that their outcomes may not have (educational) benefits, let alone economic ones. Late modern partnerships in education like to examine and address the drivers for discrimination and exclusion and their consequences, for example, intensified migration or increased digitalisation, and the resulting growing demand to upskill students and teachers in acquiring digital competences that may lead to widening educational inequality rather than reducing it. The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the extent of digital exclusion, which has been far greater than anticipated. These inequalities that emerge through the speed of the growth of societal change have implications for partnership, as partnerships in education must take into account such inequality, both in terms of their relationships with each other, and the relationships of inequality that exist among the beneficiaries of their work together. This book is about partnerships in education. We do not argue against them but rather aim to encourage the educational research community to adopt a critical stance and devote thinking time to the differences (and similarities) between partners and their ambitions, and to the possibilities that partnerships produce, and take the time to talk about those differences and listen to each other. Economic, social and political forces that drive the construction of some partnerships in education add complexity, especially since different partners often have unique agendas and differing aims that they need to protect and pursue. To further our aim of encouraging criticality about partnerships in education, we specifically focus on risk in this book. Our chapters identify different kinds of risks that can emerge, such as the precarious arrangements, imbalances and differences that may seem benign to begin with but may flare up in the collaboration process. We suggest that risks in partnerships have to do with how we handle promises and expectations that different partners bring to the table, and what partners can and will pledge to make the partnership arrangement a success, or conversely, what they cannot do. To understand the challenges that may present themselves, it is useful to explore some underlying notions. Partnerships typically involve some form of co-operation that is organised around a central dilemma that specific partners want to solve or address. Dilemmas can act as the glue that shape the identity of the partnership, since they can give the partners focus and direction. How the partners decide to talk about the dilemma, and the ways in which they explore and work on it, will shape their trust in each other and the promises they make (Bicchieri et al., 2018). Partnerships develop over time, and there is often a phase in which individuals and organisations will develop

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relationships with each other, and explore each other’s values, skills and attributes before entering into a relationship akin to an agreed partnership. The point at which a partnership is in place can be subject to blurred boundaries and there is a risk that different partners might view their relationships differently without some form of structured agreement or a more informal, but morally binding, promise to each other. When groups enter a partnership, they usually agree on the obligations that are required to make the partnership work. There may be some contractual obligations that arise in third party funded arrangements. These are frequently expressed in contracts and reports describing milestones, key performance indicators (KPI’s), deliverables or some other detailed expectation such as a memorandum of understanding, but partners may also promise things to each other that are not subject to such structured or legal frameworks. The governance of such partnerships however, is not restricted to these kinds of formal arrangements but must also put in place ways of organising themselves and relating to each other that are specific to the context of their partnership. “Promissory obligations” explains (Habib, 2018, para 1) “are not owed equally to everyone, but rather only those we have promised”. Promises are voluntary and while partners do not have to make promises, they must keep them when they do. In a research partnership this could be the conditions of developing or sharing resources or providing materials or an offer of support not detailed in a research proposal or other agreement. Partnerships in education are also sometimes forged between public and private partners “in which they jointly develop products and services and share risks, costs and resources which are connected with these products” (Van Ham & Koppenjan, 2001, p. 598). This implies also that partnerships need to be established, cared for and nurtured so that partners can engage and agree on joint commitments. We continue with a brief overview why and how this book was produced, followed by an introduction to the different thematic areas that organise the different contributions to the anthology.

A Need to Talk About Risks in Partnerships? The preparation of this book was a result of the discussions that took place at the European Conference on Educational Research (ECER) in 2019 as part of the ‘Network 15: Partnerships in Education’ annual meeting. The conference presenters had a shared interest, namely, to better understand and talk about the dilemmas that can be witnessed in educational partnerships. Members of Network 15 decided to come together to contribute to an edited anthology that would explore these issues in depth. The community of authors now includes academics and their collaborators, including some authors who are representatives of organisations who have an interest in education, but whose core business is not necessarily usually focused on writing academic publications. Since a reviewed book represents a very specific intellectual outcome, we needed to take care of each other and support each other in the preparation of this book

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through establishing joint peer review processes, by fostering a collegiate atmosphere, and by taking each other’s different areas of interest seriously and respecting each other’s contributions. These were the promises we made to each other. And then came Covid-19. The preparation of this book has been heavily affected by the unfolding of the global pandemic. For many individuals in this community of authors, the changes we experienced included effects on our own health and wellbeing or that of our family and friends, and shifts in work patterns and modes of communication. Some authors were managing additional caring responsibilities (such as home-schooling children, or caring for elderly or vulnerable family members) alongside their professional roles, and so these various challenges that resulted from the pandemic meant that the production of the book was not business as usual. The risks we experienced in this partnership process acted as a stark reminder of what it means to pursue a shared goal while looking after each other, and dealing with potential threats. Merini (1992) defines partnership as an engagement between associates who co-share while being aware of existing differences. To successfully work on this project it was necessary to do precisely that. The aspects that present risks to education partnerships are varied and reflect different contexts, cultures and communities. As the book’s editors we organised the contributions into four thematic groups, and as part of an iterative review process we asked our authors to read and review each other’s chapters. The idea behind this approach was not only to raise our own awareness, but also all authors’ awareness, of the diversity of issues that may occur and the variety of contributors interested in partnership in education. Mayes (2021, p. 1) defines educational partnerships as the “efforts where at least two parties (including students, and educators, families, and community) come together for the common good of the school and to enrich learning and teaching”. Drawing on the diversity of contributions in this anthology, we suggest that educational partnerships go much further than this, and while learning and teaching is the core purpose of schools, who may enter into partnerships with others, the stakeholders involved in ensuring quality in education go beyond schools, and are not simply confined to, or concerned with, formal educational systems but education in its widest sense. Thus, in this book, the concept of partnership in education is expanded to individuals, groups and organisations including those who may not be focusing on schools but other educational or learning environments, or those who do not necessarily describe education as their core business. It is especially because of this variety of stakeholders that it is so important to problematise how challenging but also rewarding it is to work together on educational improvements. The great interest in the risks in partnerships that we experienced when we invited contributions to the book generated a wide range of topics our authors wanted to discuss. The editorial team read the proposals and organised them into four different thematic groups. During our first joint meeting with all authors, we asked each thematic group to think about the collective thematic focus of their group, and to inform us about the suitability of our initial descriptions or groupings. This resulted in slight adjustments and refinements and was a necessary step in the reflective process of producing this book. We will now present the different themes.

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 iversity of Risks in Partnership in Education Topics – D Four Themes The first thematic focus of this book is on Partnerships Between Groups Who Belong to Formal Educational Institutions, including school networks, school and teacher-training organisations, and university partnerships. However, the fascinating contributions of the first six chapters go beyond the institutional arrangements and tell stories about tensions that arise, for example, due to inequities and precarious constellations in global north and south arrangements, and they raise questions about urban and rural partner arrangements. The chapters also highlight cultural aspects and their significance for partnerships in education and discuss expectations about how partners ought to be treated are not always met. Lisa Gageik, Marco Hasselkuß and Manuela Endberg examine the nature of partnerships in school networks that present significant challenges to the individual actors. Examining the German DigiSchoolNet project they provide the reader with a theoretical framework that sheds light on analysing teacher collaborations. Kinzang Dorji and Nandu Giri present in their contribution the key drivers for the partnerships between their teacher training institution and key stakeholders in the Bhutanese setting of Samtse. Their chapter illustrates clearly how important culture and context are when we examine partnerships since the authors explain the significance of Bhutanese values and how they act as a societal glue to their partnerships in education. Their chapter shows that we cannot find universal recipes on how to roll out successful partnership models, but rather it serves to remind us how culture can bind people. Heike Wendt, Felix Senger, Ankita Singh, Anwar Alfaidhi and Raeed Alnumman present a partnership between Universities under extraordinary circumstances. This German-Iraqi university partnership is part of an intention to contribute to the peacebuilding process in Iraq. The risks but also the opportunities in this global North-South partnership are unique to the partnership construct but remind the readers also what education may be able to achieve for war-torn regions and the lessons that partners in the global North can learn when they reflect on conditions that are all too often taken for granted. Carolina Guzmán reports about the partnership practices in Latin-America through an examination of co-authorship practices. In academically oriented partnerships published outputs ensure the career paths of individuals and represent very specific kinds of outcomes from partnership activities. By examining publications that feature in Web of Science, Scopus and SciELO Carolina Guzmán detects North-South inequalities and advocates for authorship practices that are empowered through spaces for new knowledges and epistemic differences. Magali Hardouin is the last contribution to the first theme with her analysis of the Erasmus Mundus programme and some of the unexpected outcomes. She details how partnerships forged through this European initiative can disrupt the administrative routines of academic institutions and were felt as impositions especially for those seemingly ignored existing systems and processes. The second thematic part in this book is focused on Partnerships in Education and the Risks Emerging from Relationships of Difference. This part connects to

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the earlier contributions with a specific focus on unevenness and contrasts. Françoise Maria Capacchi introduces the term ‘co-actors’ to highlight the co-operative nature of partnerships. She describes the difference between individuals that may be due to social backgrounds and/or status and exemplifies this through a project that included a team of researchers, inspectors, principals, artists and 10-year-old students, and argues that differences that are identified between partners can be drivers of creativity and productivity. Ann Elisabeth Gunnulfsen and Hilde Madsø Jacobsen detail their observations in a mandated partnership project between university partners and Norwegian teacher training colleges. This contribution problematises the role of external policy makers, and outlines the tensions that feelings of accountability may cause and how this may affect an organization. Kathrin Otrel-Cass and Julia Mayr examine the nature of partnerships that researchers form when they work with young people and children. The authors highlight natural challenges arising when adults and children come together and how unevenness is widened in the context of schools where the power gap between adults and children is institutionalised. They provide examples from their own studies that show how they have worked with these challenges to propose ways to ensure these partnerships are productive and more balanced. Gila Hammer Furnes’ contribution centres around the Norwegian concept of ‘samhandling’ in the context of school-based Research-Practice Partnerships. Samhandling, she explains, is a Norwegian term that describes the format and perhaps expectation when different partners are working together and that ‘acting together’ involves thinking about ways of interacting, collaborating, cooperating and co-ordinating. Gila Hammer Furnes is sceptical about top-down approaches and proposes that culturally significant concepts like samhandling are best applied from the bottom-up to ensure trust between partners, otherwise she cautions samhandling may turn into a hollow phrase. Part III focuses on ways of Enacting Social Justice in Partnerships Between Educators and Others. The contributions to this part of the book are devoted to partnerships between educational institutions with entities that do not belong by their nature to the education system, but nevertheless they have, or can have, a great influence on the education sector. These entities are often civil society organizations (CSOs) and governmental organizations and institutions. Both actors shape the form of national education policies, and fundamentally affect what happens in practice. Bromley (2020) explains that the differences that were previously recognisable between government organizations, CSOs and business actors are now blurring precisely because of their greater interconnectedness and cooperation. This dramatic shift takes along with it the need for new strategies for creating partnerships, the need for re-articulating mutual expectations, and the need for reconsidering the roles of each actor and polishing current relationships. Hand in hand with this, risks that may threaten every partnership may unfold and/or change its forms. Thus, it is desirable to continuously evaluate the functioning of such partnerships. An analysis of the very dynamic changes in a school-government partnership is provided by a study carried out during the Covid-19 pandemic in Hungary by Katalin Forray and Tamas Kozma. This study observed how stakeholders would perform during an extraordinary situation, how their relationships would be affected and what risks

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they would encounter. In contrast to the Hungarian example of monitoring the unplanned and disorganized evolution of school-government partnerships during a pandemic, the Swedish project “From Great to Excellent” offers insights into the partnerships between four Swedish municipalities, schools and small Swedish universities. Jeanette Sjöberg, Annette Johnsson and Pernilla Granklint Enochson, offer their readers an examination into partnerships challenged through hierarchical arrangements. The last two chapters of this part of the book deal with the partnership of schools with civil society organizations in the inclusion of foreign students in education. Janet Wolf, Francesca Pedone and Raquel Casado-Muñoz present a study of Czech, Sicilian and Castilian-Leonese non-profit organizations and their cooperations with schools in the field of education of foreign pupils. The authors identify risks that, according to them, prevent a more balanced partnership with schools. Christine Steiner examines the issue of cooperation on the social inclusion of foreign students, examined through the eyes of lower-secondary school principals, and points to the approaches that the school takes towards non-profit organisations and why. The final section of the book explores Partnerships That Bring Together the Knowledge and Skills of Educationalists with Those of Other Sectors in Enacting Societal Change That Goes Beyond Educational Systems. In this section, Emanuela Guarcello outlines that partnership means different things to different people and different sectors, and that the differing expectations this engenders can be problematic, necessitating dialogic relationships to enact transformation. Susanne Weber and Marc Heidelman go on to describe what could be termed as a pedagogy of partnership, as they take a close look at how partnership can be enacted above and beyond personal relationships. They suggest that partnerships based on relationships between individuals run the risk of collapsing but by using forms of partnership that emphasise the collective bond over the individual and a ‘collective praxis’ (Weber, 2005) then the transformation of organisational processes and structures, social systems and individual consciousness becomes possible. They also remind us that, of course, even these kinds of collective partnerships can become exclusive if they are not carefully managed. The chapter presented by Lydia Wysocki and Janice McLaughlin reminds us of the ontological and epistemological differences that need to be exposed and understood between partners from different sectors and that those differences sometimes expose paradoxes that can only be resolved through trust or faith, both in each other, and in the partnership process. There is a risk that if those leaps of faith are not taken then transformation is impossible, relationships become strained and goals cannot be achieved. Karen Laing, Sam Robson, Helen Thomson and Liz Todd describe the compounded risks of a partnership that involves schools, universities and others in a quadruple helix partnership. They discuss how difficult it can be to maintain a shared vision and effective ways of governing themselves in such a partnership and describe how they needed to step outside their usual roles and be led by their shared values rather than their professional ways of knowing and doing, in order to make the partnership work.

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Throughout this book the contributions reveal some key themes in respect of the risks of working in partnership. What comes through strongly is the quest for social justice and equity. Education as a discipline embodies the concept of transformation in its aim to transform knowledge, life-chances and societal progress. Transformation is a theme running throughout our chapters, as partnerships often require a transformation of the way in which we normally work. This can become an uncomfortable process, particularly when it requires organisations and individuals to work together for the greater good, rather than purely for the benefit of their own needs. There is a realisation that tackling some of the most entrenched societal problems (so called ‘wicked problems’) is beyond the scope of any one organisation. However, when organisations put aside their own needs in favour of the greater good, there is a reputational risk if the joint work fails to achieve the kind of transformative change expected. The chapters in this book also highlight how ceding control in these partnerships in order to develop a collaborative approach begs a re-imagining and re-definition of accountability and governance systems. Finding a balance between the necessary self-interest of each party and the values and beliefs that are held becomes a crucial part of sustaining a successful partnership, and the chapters reveal the central importance of relationships in this process. There is a risk of hurt if one invests oneself as an individual into a partnership, as there is often no right or wrong way to develop a collaboration, but it depends more on values and experiences, and often requires a leap of faith. Exposing these to each other enables the discovery of spaces of conflict or disagreement and exposes each to challenge. The magnitude of any risk is a direct function of the quality of the social relationships that underpin the partnership and requires the equalisation of power relations in order to enable accurate perceptions of those risks (Beck, 1992). The rewards are high if we get the process right but can be damaging if we don’t and yet there can be no recipe for success in every context. The chapters expose the paradox inherent in partnerships in terms of what different partners need, e.g. speed versus slow; personal autonomy versus professional control; and faith and flexibility versus certainty. It is suggested that trust is the way in which these differences can be resolved. Where organisational processes are privileged over dialogue and developing trusting relationships, then this can risk outcomes. Organisations need to be flexible enough to respond to the opportunities of partnership while being pragmatic and realistic about the risks. Unwin (2018) explains that what is needed is a fine balance between the ‘rational’ (processes, goals and tasks) and the ‘relational’ (our values, motivations and beliefs) in a partnership. Getting the balance wrong risks success, and for those concerned with social justice, transformational change. Notions of risk and trust can be grounded in the security of our own ontological position taking, but these can be challenged by true partnership that has a greater cause, whereby the risk is balanced such that not taking action together becomes more risky than the risks that emerge from partnership. It remains that this action is underpinned by relationships of trust, encompassing reflective dialogue (Freire, 1970). Transformation needs us to create possibilities, which involves a greater leap of faith than simply managing risk (Cottam, 2018).

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Acknowledgments  We would like to give a special thanks to Andreas Kelz from the University of Graz who supported all authors with the reviewing and formatting of their chapters.

References Apple, M. (2005). Education, markets and an audit culture. Critical Quarterly, 47(1–2), 11–29. Ball, S. (2013). The education debate. Policy Press. Beck, U. (1992). Risk society: Towards a new modernity. Sage. Bicchieri, C., Muldoon, R., & Sontuoso, A. (2018). Social norms. In E.  N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Winter 2018 Edition). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/ win2018/entries/social-­norms/. Accessed 24 June 2021. Bromley, P. (2020). 4. The organizational transformation of civil society. In W.  Powell & P. Bromley (Eds.), The nonprofit sector (pp. 123–143). Stanford University Press. https://doi. org/10.1515/9781503611085-­007 Cottam, H. (2018). Radical help: How we can remake the relationships between us and revolutionise the welfare state. Hachette. Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. The Continuum Publishing Company. Habib, A. (Spring 2018 Edition). Promises. In E. N.  Zalta (Ed.). The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2018/entries/promises/ Merini, C. (1992). Du partenariat en general danys la formation des eleves-maitres et des professeurs des ecoles en particulier (115 pp.). Universite de Paris VIII. Masson, P., & Pilo, M. (2009). Partnerships in education: Theoretical approach and case studies. The Book Edition.com. Mayes, E. (2021). Politics of solidarity in educational partnerships. Encyclopedaedia of Teacher Education, 1–5. Patrick, F. (2013). Neoliberalism, the knowledge economy, and the learner: Challenging the inevitability of the commodified self as an outcome of education. International Scholarly Research Notices. Unwin, J. (2018). Kindness, emotions and human relationships: The blind spot in public policy. Carnegie UK Trust. Van Ham, H., & Koppenjan, J. (2001). Building public-private partnerships: Assessing and managing risks in port development. Public Management Review, 3(4), 593–616. Weber, S.  M. (2005). Rituale der Transformation. Großgruppenverfahren als pädagogisches Wissen am Markt (Habilitationsschrift). Springer VS. Kathrin Otrel-Cass, Ph.D., is Professor in teaching, learning and digital transformation at the University of Graz, Austria. Her research interests are often of interdisciplinary in nature, she uses in her work digital visual anthropology and a variety of qualitative, ethnographic methodologies. She works with various practitioners and experts in learning environments where people are working with science/technology/engineering practices or their knowledge products. Her research is often set in schools but is not exclusive to those environments. Her research interest in visual ethnography has led to the establishment of a video research laboratory in Graz with a focus on the organized analysis of video recorded data. Kathrin is a member of Network 15, partnerships in education of the European Education Research Association (EERA).  

Karen Laing is Co-Director of the Centre for Learning and Teaching and Senior Research Associate at Newcastle University, UK. She specialises in research about how societal structures, institutions and practices impact on vulnerable or d­ isadvantaged children, young people, families and communities. Specific interests include: how different professionals work together to deliver  

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services and opportunities for children (particularly involving schools); theory-based research approaches in project development and evaluation; and, participatory research methods. She has a keen interest in co-creation and the processes involved in stimulating change from research. She is an experienced researcher, having led over 40 research projects and collaborated on many more. Her work is guided by an overarching commitment to social justice and drawing on socio-cultural theory. Janet Wolf is an Assistant Professor in teacher training within the field of interdisciplinary subjects such as multicultural education, citizenship education etc. at Faculty of Education, University of Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic. Her research interests focus on second language learners and their inclusion in education. She is a member of various research groups involving experts from several countries. Janet is a member and reviewer of Network 15, partnership in education of the European Education Research Association (EERA).  

Chapter 2

School Development Within Networks in a Digital World: Risky Ride or Beneficial Blessing? Lisa Gageik, Marco Hasselkuß, and Manuela Endberg

Abstract  Networking is a great way to share ideas and learn from one another on a peer-to-peer-basis. This does not only hold true for individuals, but for institutions and organisations as well. Especially when tackling complex challenges combined knowledge, skills and competences may support development processes. However, as working together is not always easy and may include misunderstandings or lead to stress and conflict, it is also necessary to consider the potential risks and challenges of school networks and collaboration. The main aim of this chapter is to consider potential risks and challenges that schools face when collaborating in networks and to compare this with empirical findings to see whether partnerships between schools rather tend to be a risky ride for the involved actors or are perceived as a beneficial blessing for them. These risks are deduced from two conceptual models concerning school development in network structures and teacher collaboration, respectively. In order to examine whether the deduced risks are existent in school networks, data from the German research project DigiSchoolNet, was analysed. As the overall project structure is rather complex, a mixed-methods approach is used in this paper to combine findings from different research designs within the project. In the study schools that  engaged in school networks (with a special focus on digitalization) make up the sample. On the one hand, established networks that have worked together for several years are analysed using a retrospective, qualitative research  design by applying content analysis and on the other hand, newly formed networks are researched with a longitudinal, quantitative design using the method of ego-centric network analysis. Both network samples can provide results regarding the work in the school networks and teacher collaboration. The results are discussed against the backdrop L. Gageik Learning Lab, University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany e-mail: [email protected] M. Hasselkuß (*) · M. Endberg Working Group on Education Research, University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 K. Otrel-Cass et al. (eds.), Partnerships in Education, Transdisciplinary Perspectives in Educational Research 5, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98453-3_2

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of the deduced risks answering the question whether the risks or the benefits from partnerships in education prevail. Our results show that the benefits outweigh the risks as all actors can draw much input from engaging in the school network. Thus, we found reason to conclude that the biggest risk for partnerships in education (here understood as school networks) is to be scared of the mentioned risks and to reject engaging in a school network in the first place. Keywords  Collaboration · Education in a digital world · Mixed-methods · School development · School networks

Introduction In this chapter we shed light on how schools can and do work together in school networks by analysing cases in Germany. We understand a school network to be a partnership between stakeholders responsible for shaping the schools’ development processes. The school networks we refer to in this chapter, consist of several schools of one region, a local university, and the local municipality as well as other supporting actors (e.g. institutions for teacher professional development). All school networks mentioned and analysed in this paper take part in the study DigiSchoolNet.1 This chapter focuses on answering  the overarching research question in how far school networks as well as different forms of collaboration can yield risks for the persons involved by combining two methodological approaches. We therefore employ a mixed-methods approach to synthesize results from a qualitative interview study and a longitudinal ego-centric network analysis, where in both cases teachers at schools involved in school networks have been interviewed. Potential risks that can be associated with working together in school networks are identified from the literature and serve as a framework to synthesize the results from both methods of data collection. In the increasingly complex world of today, collaboration and networking become crucial to participate in societal development (e.g. Hobbs & Coiro, 2016; Cress et  al., 2016), a general trend which schools can hardly evade. The focus of DigiSchoolNet is to analyse how school networks help schools to overcome the challenges going along with the ongoing digitalization (e.g. Fraillon et al., 2019), thus all theoretical and empirical remarks in this paper will be linked to the broader context of digitalization. However, we understand most risks addressed in this contribution to be applicable to other aspects or challenges regarding school development in general. Therefore, digitalization is looked at exemplarily here, to gain a better understanding of how school networks and teacher collaboration can yield risks to school development processes and what schools

 For more information, please visit https://digi-ebf.de/digischulnet

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need to do in order to overcome those. Hence, the results may be (for the most part) translatable to other thematic contexts. The chapter uses data we collected in interviews and documents as well as in an online questionnaire to answer the overarching research question mentioned above to investigate whether partnerships between schools tend to be a risky ride for the involved actors or are perceived as a beneficial blessing. Even though risks have not been the main focus of the study, collected data allow us to look into potential risks that are associated with schools collaborating in network partnerships by (a) looking into self-descriptions of interview partners about negative experiences and associating the codes found in the material to risks deduced from the literature and (b) taking a deeper look into network structures to analyse for the potential risk of lack of transfer of information from the network back into the participating school as an organisation. The results are connected with the deduced risks to discuss in how far risks or benefits from partnerships in education, here understood as school networks, prevail. The chapter ends with a brief outlook on further results from DigiSchoolNet – concerning how further results from ongoing longitudinal data collection and comparisons to school networks with different thematic foci will allow further insights – as well as some practical implications.

 he Broader Context: The German School System, T Digitalization, and the Study DigiSchoolNet In the German school policy system, educational goals are defined in an output-­ oriented manner, i.e. goals (standards) are defined that need to be met by the schools and it is up to the schools to decide how they reach the goals. This requires school development. On the one hand, school development can be initiated through policy making because of updated regulations that are to be followed and on the other hand, schools can change due to intrinsic motivation by individuals engaging in developing their school. This paper focuses on the latter, as in Germany schools possess high autonomy regarding goals, decisions and processes (Miceli, 2018; Orr, 2019) and they need to find individual paths to conform to the authorities’ policies. Furthermore, Germany does not have a unified school system, as each of the 16 federal states maintains and regulates schools and other educational institutions on their own. Therefore, each federal state has its own ministry of education. As a means to coordinate and develop education beyond each state’s borders and to identify shared interests and objectives, the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs (German: Ständige Konferenz der Kultusminister der Länder in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, short Kultusministerkonferenz) exists as a consortium of all “ministers responsible for education and schooling, institutes of higher education and research and cultural affairs” (Kultusministerkonferenz, 2020).

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One of their shared interests is enabling schools to tackle the challenge of digitalization, realize and use its potentials, but also heed and conquer its risks. Concerning this aspect, the Kultusministerkonferenz has formulated a resolution for schools to foster competences in the digital world on an obligatory basis for all federal states (Kultusministerkonferenz, 2016). The resolution defines six competence areas differentiated into specific competences which all students are to have acquired by the end of compulsory schooling (i.a. based on the European Framework DigComp and the competence model of the International Computer and Information Literacy Study, ICILS). The schools, however, are granted a certain degree of autonomy and are consequently free to decide how they want to proceed in reaching this goal. Thus, teaching and learning can and need to be adapted in order to ensure students’ readiness for the digital world, which is a reason for school development. From a theoretical point of view, schools need to focus on three areas of development that belong together within a school development process in general: organisational development, staff development and teaching development (Cain et al., 2019). Fullan (2013) discerns the following three areas which need to be considered in all school development processes: change knowledge, technology and pedagogy. These three areas are interconnected and can initiate sustainable and holistic school development only if they converge. This model is suited for analysing schools’ paths in how they evolve concerning the development processes schools need to initiate to successfully deal with the challenges of digitalization. In order to initiate and implement school development on a long-term basis, a lot of different aspects need to be considered. As not one single person can have the knowledge and competence for all facets of the process, various perspectives on the matter are of value. On the level of each individual school in Germany, for instance, the head teacher, the ICT-­ coordinator and members of a steering committee can form a group to work on questions regarding school development within a digitalized world. Considering that each individual school has to work out its individual ICT school strategy on how to integrate ICT into their everyday school life, solutions may resemble one another when several schools and ICT school strategies are compared. There might also be certain ideas or strategies that other schools could adapt or expand in order to fit the school’s individual conditions. Thus, forming a network of schools may prove useful to share ideas and learn from one another on a peer-to-peer-basis. However, as working together is not always a piece of cake and may lead to misunderstandings, stress and conflict, it is also necessary to consider potential risks and challenges of school networks and collaboration in general in order to find ways to overcome them and benefit from the outcome in the long run. The research project DigiSchoolNet (DigiSchulNet – short for the German name ‘Digitale Schulentwicklung in Netzwerken’ which translates to ‘Digital School Development in Networks’) is being conducted by a research team from the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany. The goal is to identify requirements of successful collaborative school networks in the context of digitalization as part of school development processes. The project is split into two subprojects that each have a different focus that enrich each other, especially regarding triangulation of results in the last phase of the project. Subproject one retrospectively analyses the

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paths that schools in long-lasting school networks have taken to shape their school development process concerning the use of ICT and considering the broader field of digitalization. Here, content analyses of key documents (e.g. ICT programmes) as well as interviews with school staff members have been conducted. Subproject two takes on a longitudinal approach and accompanies newly formed school networks on their route to actively employ digitalization as a main factor of school development. Using an online questionnaire, the professional networks of teachers (e.g. how they are constituted, how they evolve) are analysed by means of ego-centric network analysis. Also, the content of conversations within these so-called ego-­ networks is of interest. These two subprojects translate into the two studies which in this article are integrated in a mixed-methods approach. The following Fig. 2.1 summarizes the design and questions addressed in this chapter. Results from both subprojects are presented in this paper while addressing the theme of ‘risks of partnerships in education’. It is to note that the study DigiSchoolNet was still ongoing at the time this chapter was written. Risks involved in engaging in school networks have not been the immediate research focus of this project, but we will derive risks from the analysis of several different aspects of network collaboration, e.g. benefits of school networks; it should be mentioned that this might present a bias that should to be eliminated in further analyses.

In how far can school networks yield risks for the persons involved?

Document analysis + qualitave interview study

Longitudinal egocentric network analysis Sample: newly-founded school networks

Sub-queson:

Sub-queson:

In how far have downsides and risks of networking been described by the interviewed teachers?

In how far does teacher collaboraon in newly founded school networks bear the risk of a lack of transfer back into the parcipang schools?

Qualitave view

Combined findings: • Results on engaging in school networks along themes of school development • Teacher collaboraon • Transfer from the network back into individual schools

Relaonal and structural view

Sample: Established school networks

Fig. 2.1  Triangulation of methodical approaches to assess risks in school networks

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Theoretical Framework In this contribution we would like to shed some light on how schools can and do work together in school networks by analysing cases in Germany. We will centre around the overarching question in this book of how school networks can yield risks for the persons and institutions involved and we will do so from the theoretical standpoint of collaboration within the individual schools and within school networks. Parameters that need to be considered when leading school-based networks can be found in the literature (Hadfield & Chapman, 2009). First, we deduce risks from these insights. Second, we introduce the theoretical model of teacher collaboration by Gräsel et al. (2006), and deduce risks that may go along with it.

School Networks in a Digital World and Possible Risks Networks can be very helpful for organisational development in general, which has led schools to form networks, too. School networks can be defined as one way of mass collaboration between different organisations, specifically schools (Cress et al., 2016). We understand a school network to be a partnership between stakeholders responsible for shaping the schools’ development process, in this case schools of one region, the local university, the local municipality and other supporting actors, e.g. institutions for teacher professional development. Challenges of school development, like integrating ICT, can best be tackled when working collaboratively (Drossel et al., 2016; Hobbs & Coiro, 2016). Research assumes that advantages of school networks are apparent in the following aspects: Networks can foster a positive effect on organisational and developmental change within a school, they enhance the schools’ quality as a result of reflection, and they ameliorate school and organisational processes (Maag Merki, 2009). In the literature the effects and outcomes of school networks as well as several factors for success and possible negative consequences of networking have been described. The following aims and effects of school networks can be found in the literature (summarised by Brown, 2019; Jungermann et al., 2018, extended by the authors): –– Networks can facilitate sharing of knowledge, collaboration and practice development among schools, foster reflection and “inquiry mindedness” (Brown, 2019, p.  6) of teachers, learning of teachers in networks can in turn promote innovation (Berkemeyer et al., 2008). –– Networking supports schools in pooling resources and competences, –– Networks can help develop and/or adapt strategies to the school-specific context to address challenges by exchanging knowledge and experiences, e.g. improvement of education in deprived areas (Bremm et  al., 2017), addressing school development in the context of education in a digitalized world (for an example of school-university cooperation see e.g. Kerres & Waffner, 2019). This can be

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achieved by developing new strategies or projects together in networks or transferring good practice between the cooperating schools, –– Networks can promote teaching and learning processes and positively influence school life (Czerwanski, 2003; Glesemann & Järvinen, 2015). Hindering factors and risks in school networks (cf. Czerwanski et al., 2002; summarized by Jungermann et al., 2018; Koltermann, 2013) include, among others: –– –– –– –– ––

high complexity, higher time effort especially at the beginning of a collaboration, lack of facilitation/coordination, struggles to agree on goals, lack of transfer back into ‘home’ schools.

One of the central risks of school networks as partnerships in education can be seen in this lack of diffusing new information and knowledge, circulating in the network, in the participating schools: “If the work of the network remains limited to the core group of network members no school development can take place. Thus, the school-­ internal processes, how schools proceed with knowledge from the network, is the pivotal point of networking” (Czerwanski et  al., 2002, p.  120, own translation). Team structures and functional units (e.g. working groups on school development, ICT coordinators) appear to be influential factors from the literature on transfer within schools. However, process knowledge on transfer within school networks and individual schools especially in respect to digitalization and its implied influence on communication structures is still missing (Czerwanski et al., 2002; summarised by Jungermann et al., 2018; Koltermann, 2013). Against the backdrop of the aforementioned advantages, we strongly argue in favour of collaborating and networking, even though we are going to stress certain points that beg to differ by addressing potential risks immanent in this special form of partnerships in education. Hadfield and Chapman (2009) claim that the following themes need to be considered when working in school networks efficiently: relationships, structures, commitment, recognition and funding. Based on this, we deduce risks for the partnerships concerning each of the five themes: Relationships are the heart of a network: Without relationships, there is no network. Certain activities like regular meetings and cross-school visits can have a positive effect on knitting closer relationships between the teachers from different schools. These evolving social networks may result in bringing more distance to the teachers of their ‘home’ school when networking with colleagues  from other schools. In order to build relationships, time needs to be spent together and this may be a crucial point for teachers: When networking activities are scheduled during school time, teachers lose contact time with their students but in the afternoon or evening, they sacrifice time that they would have had to spend on lesson plans, marking or parent meetings. Second, school networks need structures that interact with the internal school structures to ensure that knowledge gets transferred from the network onto the

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school level. These structures may bring about hierarchies that are different from the well-known top-down hierarchies within a school or they may even be turned upside down, e.g. if the ICT-coordinator has more expertise on technical infrastructure than the head teacher or if several head teachers need to coordinate actions within the network. The risk is to feel like losing appreciation for the teachers’ work and knowledge. Third, a school network needs commitment by the actors in order for it to work effectively and for everybody to draw something from it. The commitment needs to be shared and if one or more actors lose their motivation and engagement, this attitude may rub off on the other schools involved in the network. Also, and this goes hand in hand with developing relationships, the focus of the school network might get lost and less content-related work may be initiated than socialising with well-­ known colleagues. This may lead to an ineffectiveness of the school network that may offer only little value to the involved actors. If individual as well as organisational purposes to engage in the school network are not fulfilled, the time and resources to invest in the school network might not be balanced compared to the outcome. Fourth, research has shown that networks give recognition to the actors. If teachers share their time, their expertise and competences, they may as well be criticised, or errors might be found by peers. This risk is relevant in case of a lack of trust in each other, but it can be antagonised as relationships grow over time. This risk is connected to teacher collaboration in general as depicted below. Last, school networks promise to make funding more economical and thus affordable for a school if e.g. costs for teacher professional development are coordinated. Risking a loss of autonomy if more schools are involved in the decision-­ making process is the metaphorical price the actors need to pay. Summarising from this argumentation based on Hadfield and Chapman, the following risks may arise in school networks: imbalance of resource input and output, unknown hierarchy structures, threatening of the individual school’s engagement, recognition as well as financial and decision-making autonomy. Whether these assumptions can be proven by our empirical data is going to be discussed below. In the study DigiSchoolNet we therefore explicitly address this aspect of risks in partnerships and analyse the network structure of collaboration within schools to describe diffusion processes from school networks and within schools.

Different Forms of Teacher Collaboration Research has defined different forms of teacher collaboration depending on the degree of autonomy, trust and goal interconnectedness between the participants (Gräsel et al., 2006) These forms are characterised on the one hand by increasing levels of required goal interdependence and trust but on the other hand by decreasing teacher autonomy, although autonomy is considered a key aspect of teachers’ professional self-concept in Germany and is often referred to as the so-called

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Table 2.1  Authors’ visualisation of the different forms of collaboration based on the Model by Gräsel et al. (2006) Form of collaboration Exchange Division of work Co-construction

Degree of autonomy High Medium Low

Degree of trust Low Medium High

Shared goal(s) Not necessarily Yes Yes

autonomy-parity-pattern (German: Autonomie-Paritäts-Muster) (Kuper & Kapelle, 2012). The three forms of teacher collaboration are the basis for analysing the degree of teacher collaboration between the schools in the sample of DigiSchoolNet (Table 2.1). They can be described as follows: 1. Exchange: Teachers inform each other about professional contents and exchange material. Teachers act mostly independently while collaborating in ways of exchange. They need comparably little trust in their collaboration partners and keep a high degree of autonomy. Also, for the most part, exchange in this sense does not require a shared goal or purpose. Exchanging, generally, means collaborating at low cost as negative consequences are usually not to be expected. 2. Division of work: Teachers define a shared task or goal and work towards it. It is possible from an external view to point out which partner contributed which part. In order to reach the goal or to complete the task, all collaborating partners need to contribute their pre-agreed part of the work. This requires a certain degree of trust on all sides and goes hand in hand with a decrease in individual perception of autonomy. Teachers who collaborate in ways of division of work need to act interdependently. In the school context, this may mean that teachers prepare lessons or exams together. 3. Co-construction: Collaborating co-constructively requires an intensive teamwork regarding a task in a way that partners align their individual knowledge to develop new knowledge or solutions for tasks or problems. It is not possible from an external view to point out who contributed what as it is closely interconnected. Teachers do not only need to define their shared goal or task but also the steps in the process to achieve the goal or tackle the task. Thus, the teachers’ autonomy is very much restricted, while the level of trust towards each partner is very high. Co-construction is to be considered collaboration at high cost as there is a high probability of failure or conflict going along with a high degree of individual investment (e.g. time, knowledge, trust). Co-construction in school contexts is most likely seen in team-teaching. We deduced a risk for partnerships in education that is based on collaboration from this model as follows. Loss of Control  As indicated in the model, the closer the collaboration, the lower the level of autonomy. This may present a fear to the teachers as their teacher training at university as well as practical training in school and then their work life is mostly based on individual work (Gräsel et al., 2006). Voluntarily diminishing this freedom puts teachers in a position that they are not used to, and they might feel less

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in control of. Thus, the fear of losing control over their own actions because they rely on another teacher/other teachers is a risk that teachers might face and which would increase with more intensive levels of collaboration.

Networking and Collaboration Go Hand in Hand To recapitulate, both (a) working in school networks and specifically (b) collaboration between teachers bears inherent risks. As teachers are part of the school networks they do not only collaborate in their own school but are likely to extend their ways of working together and involve teachers from other schools as well as other external partners. Risks that go along with teacher collaboration therefore might also become a challenge for the school network as a whole. Loss of control might be an even bigger fear if one needs to reach out to other schools where different structures and social dynamics might be in place. Nonetheless, it could be argued that potential risks schools can face when engaging in a network might affect the quantity and quality of teacher collaboration within the individual schools. Especially the potential risks concerning relationships, structures, commitment, and recognition might also hold true for school internal collaboration. Whether or not, or rather in how far, this is the case, we will explore using the data from the study DigiSchoolNet.

Empirical Data from DigiSchoolNet Using a mixed method approach the empirical part in this chapter combines findings from different methods of data collection based on different samples of school networks. First, the sample and methodological considerations to analyse longstanding school networks, using a retrospective approach, are presented. Second, a different sample consisting of newly-founded school networks as well as the longitudinal approach to analyse them are introduced. Both approaches and samples are analysed regarding the overarching question of how school networks can yield risks for the persons involved by paying special attention to the network structures and the collaboration of teachers.

Retrospective Research Design: Methods and Sample DigiSchoolNet has chosen to research schools that collaborate within innovative school networks enabled by the Learning Lab, chair for educational technology and knowledge management from the University of Duisburg-Essen. This chair focuses on design-based research as it designs solutions with partners from the educational

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field based on their challenges. The Learning Lab’s school networks are one approach to facilitate the integration of ICT into schools’ everyday life by learning from one another in a network of different perspectives and expertise. The procedure has a prototypical course of action that can be individualised to the network’s or individual schools’ needs (cf. Gageik, 2019). In order to understand DigiSchoolNet’s approach, a prototypical school network is briefly described within the next paragraphs. The goal of the school network is to combine and synthesise different perspectives and expertise from various fields that shape school development in a digital world. Although both schools and teachers in Germany benefit from a high degree of autonomy, they need to function within legislative restraints (Orr, 2019). Three groups of participants make up the school network: university, schools and supporting stakeholders from the municipality. As the school maintaining body is responsible for funding the schools’ ICT infrastructure within their region and is part of the network, the participating schools are geographically close to one another. The actors all have different functions within the network as shows the following Table 2.2. The actors meet regularly in three different combinations: At the beginning, they all gather in a vision workshop to develop a shared vision within the network as to the specific goal of development. Then, the steering committee, consisting of the university and the school district works out a time table and possibilities for the agenda and workshops of the school year. Then, the head teachers meet with the Learning Lab, coordinate dates and exact content matching the schools’ needs. These considerations are synthesised within a network meeting where all schools send some of their staff (usually about five to seven teachers but on special occasions the entire staff) for peer-to-peer exchange initiating teacher professional development. The three latter steps are repeated throughout the school year as illustrated by the following Fig. 2.2 and end in a reflective evaluation of the progress: As the participants have claimed that this procedure is worthwhile for them and that they could benefit from it in various ways, the opportunity was seized to connect research as to what mechanisms lead to this positive view of engaging in a school network. Different topics were identified – deduced from current literature as well as from the schools’ input to foster a design-based approach closely knit with Table 2.2  Actors within the school network and their functions Organisation Actor University Learning Lab School Head Teacher Teachers

School district

School Maintaining Body (usually the municipality) Institutes of teacher professional development

Function within the school network Facilitate, analyse and research the network Set the school’s agenda and state their needs Participate in network meetings, share ideas and lesson material in peer-to-peer teacher professional development Answer the schools’ questions regarding the support and funding of technical infrastructure Offer workshops to qualify teachers to work with ICT

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Vision Workshop

Steering Commiee Meeng

Steering Commiee Meeng

Head Teacher Meeng

Steering Commiee Meeng

Head Teacher Meeng

School Network Meeng

Steering Commiee Meeng

Head Teacher Meeng

School Network Meeng

Teacher Meeng

School Network Meeng

Fig. 2.2  The prototypical school year of a school network by the Learning Lab Table 2.3  Sample of DigiSchoolNet for the retrospective design Networks focusing school development on education in a digital world NW a School 1 School 2 School 3 School 4 3 Teachers 4 Teachers 4 Teachers 3 Teachers NW b School 6 School 7 School 8 5 Teachers 4 Teachers 3 Teachers NW c School 9 School 10 1 Teacher 4 Teachers

School 5 4 Teachers

the schools. This has been examined by the author team in greater detail already (Hasselkuß et al., 2020). Against the backdrop of the outlined theoretical background, the research question addressed in this chapter using the data from retrospective interviews is: In how far have downsides and risks of networking been described by the interviewed teachers?

Research Design In order to answer the research question, interviews have been conducted with persons within school networks established for several years (cf. Table 2.3). Interview partners were identified as the result of document analyses (Döring & Bortz, 2016) involving central school documents (school programmes and ICT strategies). Schools develop ICT strategies elaborating on how they autonomously concretise the output-oriented standards given by the federal states. These strategies contain goals of school development processes, teacher professional development, and the implementation of ICT.  Key persons influencing school development processes, according to the documents, from each school were identified and requested for a guided interview. This paper focuses on results of the interviews and not on the document analysis.

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To retrieve data in order to answer the research question, individual, one-hour-­ long guided interviews were conducted (N = 35, cf. Table 2.3). With the help of a timeline, the schools’ development process of the previous two years was described retrospectively. The individuals’ subjective theory on how school development works and which actions relate to which outcomes becomes apparent through this method developed in the twentieth century (Scheele, 1992; Scheele & Groeben, 1988). The method by Scheele has mostly been used by sociologists and psychologists but it turns out to be effective in educational studies as well. Questions included asking for the activities within the previous two years that are related to integrating ICT into the school life and how they were interconnected with one another. Milestones – e. g. how the school network influenced the individual school, what were factors of success and how were hindering factors overcome – were noted by the interviewer and arranged chronologically by use of the timeline. The pictures of the final timeline are then analysed with the help of the software MAXQDA in the style of Mayring’s summative qualitative content analysis (Mayring, 2015). The category system is built partly inductively and deductively as the head categories stem from the literature on school development dimensions (goals, organisational development, staff development, ICT development, teaching development) and subcategories are identified inductively from the empirical data. From the category system for factors of a successful school development process to implement digitalization within a school network the following subcategories are addressed in this chapter: adaptive organisational infrastructure, collaboration within the pedagogical staff, time and space for developing lesson plans incorporating ICT, openness and trust within the school network. The results from these interviews are going to be compared to a second round of interviews with the same sample in order to see how their development has progressed. Due to the pandemic of Covid-19 the second point of measurement could not be realised in time, so only results from the first measurement are going to be taken into account in the results in this paper.

Sample Schools that are part of a school network in the federal state North Rhine-Westphalia are researched: Three networks focus on school development in a digital world and one on challenges of schools in deprived areas, e.g. teacher cooperation to foster individualised learning arrangements for their students’ needs. This chapter focuses on the three networks fostering school development in a digital world. Ten schools from three different school networks were interviewed. Each school was asked to provide five interviewees, i.e. the head teacher, the ICT-coordinator, a member of the steering committee, the teacher responsible for pedagogical decisions and a member of the staff council. As can be seen in the table above, not all schools were willing to participate in the interviews. Each network was asked to provide four to five schools for the

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interviews Their reasons for not participating are diverse, e.g. the amount of time teachers would have to spend in their free time on the interview or not teach their students. Also, the aspired number of teachers per school are not always met, e.g. because one teacher embodies several functions and thus the different perspectives are covered, nonetheless. In total, 35 teachers haven been interviewed at this point, and for this chapter this data is analysed for the qualitative view addressing the subquestion in how far downsides and risks of networking have been described by the interviewed teachers (see Fig. 2.1). The networks are made up of different school types. As Germany has 16 federal states with 16 different school systems, the terminology and structure of the schools vary between the states. This subproject focuses on networks in North Rhine-­ Westphalia. The results presented in this contribution do not analyse differences between school types. Those may become the focus of further analyses and publications.

Longitudinal Design: Method and Sample For the longitudinal design newly-founded school networks make up the sample. In order to find out whether certain forms of collaboration and, therefore, typical risks of collaboration and the lack thereof are related to the time schools have been working together, longitudinal so-called ego-centric network analysis is conducted (for reference cf. Perry et al., 2018) over the course of three years. One aim is to explore how schools begin to work together towards a shared goal and within the accompanying network structures. An ego-centric network analysis explores the social network of a focal actor (ego) and can be applied in any given social context – in our case the professional collaboration networks of teachers. More details about the research design are presented below. In the present chapter, to look into potential risks in the educational partnerships, we analyse the number of collaboration partners and the composition of ego-centric networks of teachers. Above, potential risks of partnerships were identified to be related to a lack of collaboration within schools and, thus, lack of transfer of knowledge from school networks into schools. The composition of these networks can allow insights into such a lack of transfer when analysing which organisation collaboration partners belong to. To investigate this potential risk, we address the following question: What kind of structures can be found in the relations of different forms of collaboration (exchange, division of work, co-construction) (regarding e.g. size and composition)?

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Research Design To answer the research question a – at the time of publication still ongoing – quantitative network analytical and longitudinal approach has been conducted. In an ego-centric network analysis, individual actors from a population (in this case teachers working at schools involved in school networks) participate in the study reporting their personal network. This stands in contrast to sociocentric designs where everyone of the population, i.e. all teachers, are asked to participate (cf. Perry et al., 2018). The longitudinal design has been chosen to analyse the development of newly founded school networks at repeated measurement points. As this design is time consuming for both researchers and participants, an online survey has been chosen. Since the complete set of actors of inner- or inter-school collaboration cannot be known at the beginning of the study (which is necessary for a socio-centric, whole network study), an ego-centred design has been opted for. This provides more flexibility, even though not allowing for observations at the complete network level. However, since the research interest is rather on how actors perceive their own network and how this influences their communication behaviour, an ego-centred approach is most suitable (Perry et al., 2018). Within the ego-centred design, we have chosen to employ so called name generator and interpreter questions to gather data on collaboration networks of participating teachers.

Sample Data has been collected in three school networks focusing on education in a digital world and, for reasons of comparative analysis, one school network concentrating on education for sustainable development. Criteria for selecting case networks have been the involvement of both schools and further actors, networks that have been founded no longer than around six months prior to the beginning of the study as well as networks with facilitation and an agenda. Networks involving primary and/or secondary schools as well as vocational schools (in the German dual system of vocational training) have been selected. This mix of constant and differentiating criteria for case selection allows for comparing possible differences in the network structure, actor constellations and forms of communication. The networks focusing on digitalization follow the same principles as the networks described in the paragraph regarding the retrospective design. In each network schools have been invited to voluntarily participate in the longitudinal study, aiming to reach five schools in each network. All schools involved in the selected networks have been informed about the research project and invited to voluntarily participate in the online survey. Each school has nominated at least one teacher as a contact person in the school network. These teachers have been invited to participate in the online survey every three months for the period of the study, resulting in nine measurement points. Since

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Table 2.4  Sample of DigiSchoolNet for the longitudinal design Networks focusing on school development on education in a digital world NW D1 School 1 School 2 School 3 School 4 1 Teacher 4 Teachers 1 Teacher 1 Teacher NW D2 School 1 School 2 School 3 School 4 1 Teacher 1 Teacher 1 Teacher 1 Teacher

School 5 3 Teachers School 5 1 Teacher

this means a considerable amount of effort for participating schools, they are going to receive incentives at the end of the study. Table 2.4 above shows the sample structure, where the sample of network D1 is comprised of secondary schools and network D2 is comprised of schools of vocational training (in the German system of vocational apprenticeship it is mandatory to visit specific schools besides training on the job). The sample of network S1 is comprised of primary and secondary schools. This network is mentioned at this point just to describe the sample completely, but results presented in this paper are focused on networks D1 and D2 only.

 esults on Partnerships Within School Networks R in a Digital World The results presented in the next few paragraphs are structured as follows: As explained in Fig. 2.1 above, the combination of both methodical approaches is used to assess engaging in a school network along the school development themes introduced by Hadfield and Chapman (2009), as well as teacher collaboration according to the three forms discerned by Gräsel et al. (2006). Further, data were analysed to find out whether newly-founded school networks in particular teacher collaborations bear the risk of a lack of transfer back into the participating schools the analysis included both a qualitative view of interviewed teachers as well as a relational and structural view through the lens of egocentric network analysis.

Engaging in a School Network Based on the examples included in the category system of the interviews, results of working in a school network are presented according to Hadfield and Chapman’s structure. Relationships  As all schools have agreed on a shared vision for the school network. A sense of community has brought the teachers closer together and has led to figuratively tearing down walls between schools that would otherwise have worked alone. Thus, they were given the chance to change their ways of teaching if they wanted to. Learning on a peer-to-peer basis was one of the crucial points in this

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context as they much rather accept input from peers than from experts that do not work in a school. This aspect is only valid if a direct adaption to their lesson can be made. If a method is explained with the help of a lesson plan in French, this does not mean that all teachers can adapt it to their Spanish lesson. One explanation is that they lack the time and look for material ready to be used with only small adjustments. The school network meetings were always welcoming and appreciative, so the participants were willing to even spend their free time on them. This emotional argument is closely connected to another social argument: Once the network was established, relationships were built and the meetings were seen as an opportunity to socialise with peers. Where the schools were fighting for pupils to enrol beforehand, the schools built the trust to openly state challenges they faced without having to worry about a lack of confidentiality. Collaboration with actors from the network that are not part of the teacher’s own school is important for the school development. When knowledge from the network level is adapted to the level of the individual school, the collaboration within the network can be defined as fruitful and effective, as interview partners have stated. The school network offers time and space for teachers to exchange ideas on how to integrate ICT into their lessons based on trust which is also needed to engage in discussion afterwards to transfer the learned methods and contents into other contexts and develop lesson plans together as a shared goal. As challenges and ways how to overcome them can be addressed in this peer-to-peer-setting, the trust to open up within the network has been reported by the interviewees although they can act on a high level of autonomy. The more often problems are addressed, the more teachers are willing to admit them and this can make the attendants feel like they are not alone in the journey to integrate ICT into their lessons – even strengthening their mutual trust. Structures  The schools have benefitted from working together with the university because by the Learning Lab facilitating the network, schools were saved a lot of work: In order to keep the school network running, a lot of organisational work has to be done and agreements between many actors have to be found. This has kept the school network running: a network management is of high relevance also in school networks (Endberg et al., 2020). The meetings are held on a regular basis and this always brings the topic back on the agenda when schools prepare the meetings or when reporting from them to the staff. This has helped the schools to come as far as they have where they otherwise would not have persevered on their own. The Learning Lab prepares every meeting, analyses discussion outcomes, sets and adjusts the agenda of the network. This approach has helped the schools to reflect on the development of the school network and their school in contrast to other schools inside (and outside) the network. Regarding the staff and supporting them through teacher professional development in the network has led to reflection on adaptations of the network’s structures into the individual school. By having the staff meet teachers from other schools, their horizon broadens with regard to teaching but also by comparing schools and then some teachers value their school even more than before. Presenting their expertise to other teachers can strengthen their self-esteem when receiving  positive feedback for their work. Developing new

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s­tructures in the school, implementing roles such as an ICT-coordinator or other teachers with ICT-related tasks have received appreciation which they would not (or later) have gotten if the school had not been engaged in the network. Organisational structures, e.g. how to digitalize the communication within the school, the teacher substitution plan or how to organise the school’s digital file system, were discussed and adapted from one another. On a broader basis, the head teachers benefited from sharing challenges with each other and how they overcame them, thus the school network acts as a reflective tool. In newly started school networks, the ego-centric network analysis questionnaire also covered questions on how respondents view the context and structures established in schools to (a) forward information, (b) support collaboration through division of work and (c) perform co-construction. School-internally, many teachers have reported that all three forms of collaboration happen on a regular basis, and some stated that there are specific time slots for co-construction available. Forwarding information within schools happens during scheduled meetings with other purposes (e.g. regular meetings of all teachers) but also happens during meetings or activities of the school networks. Co-construction or the division of work is structured differently. Considerably less teachers have reported that specific methods were used to support division of work or co-construction. Both school-internal and school-external collaboration has been reported to be supported by the school leaders but is not seen as a mandatory task. Also, collaboration with school-external partners happens on a regular basis but specific time slots have been reported less frequently and collaboration during network meetings has been reported more frequently as the setting to interact. Commitment  The fifth aspect highlights the school’s goals that it wants to achieve. Having worked out a vision for the network, it is up to the schools to develop a vision for their specific school. This can be rather hard but if comparing different schools, they either adapt ideas they approve of or reject others. This comparison can help them to develop their own goal. Recognition  Regarding DigiSchoolNet, reflecting on the school’s and the networks’ journey in the interview was helpful to the schools as it visualised their path of development. Being aware of what they have achieved on the one hand but also on the other hand what steps they are going to take next and in how far the school network has supported them in the past has helped to bring out the importance of school-to-school collaboration. Funding  Splitting costs between schools and the school maintaining body gave the possibility to arrange meetings in a nice atmosphere which the teachers were not used to from other activities of teacher professional development. As the school maintaining body finances the school network, the schools did not worry about it although the ICT infrastructure is something often discussed with the school maintaining body  – inside and outside the network. Network schools supported each

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other by clarifying what worked best for them in order for other schools to learn from their experience. In that way, resources from the school funds could be saved.

 eacher Collaboration in School Networks Focusing on School T Development in a Digital World Following the first part of the results we will now dive into the findings regarding teacher collaboration. Collaboration within the school plays an important role in school development processes in a digital world. The relevant key persons need to find arrangements and structures on how to collaborate in order to foster the school’s development. Schools in Germany are led by the head teacher and he or she can be supported by a team (distributed leadership). Each member of the team has different tasks and when the work is divided and overarching questions are answered co-­ constructively, i.e. the team has a self-conception of a team where everybody contributes and it is built on trust, school development processes in a digital world are likely to be effective. The schools in the sample each have a steering committee. It may concern all school development processes and see the big picture or it may focus on ICT matters only. The latter is more common in the sample. Prototypically the committee consists of the ICT-coordinator leading the committee and other interested teachers. This group reports to the head teacher who decides on crucial points but otherwise their work is divided. Exchange  Exchanging, but especially receiving, teaching material, knowledge and contact information of peers to get in touch with informally outside of the network meetings, has been a great benefit for all schools involved. The teachers engaged in the school network have received a lot of input on how to develop pedagogically and how to integrate ICT into their teaching. Some schools have established workshops on a regular basis, have fostered peer-to-peer exchange within the school or have worked on making material available for a broader audience of teachers from the school. Collaboration with the Learning Lab in the context of DigiSchoolNet is found fruitful by the interviewees. Many teachers looked at the ‘images’ that resulted from their explanation and were positively surprised that (a) this much had happened in the past which they had not been aware of in sum and (b) they had reflected on the school development process led by the interviewer’s questions that otherwise they would not have taken the time to do. Some had already identified further areas for development with the help of the questions asked that they could not answer, e.g. how integrating ICT, teacher professional development and the overall development strategy could be interconnected. This research was based on a high level of trust to admit insight into the school’s development processes including challenges. The teachers exchanged information with the researcher with a shared goal: to retrospectively look at the school’s development in context with ICT. Also, rules for students on where and how to use their digital devices and ICT

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school strategies were exchanged within the network , thus each school could build on existing ideas and adapt them to their individual needs. The main finding supporting the work in school networks is that teachers claimed that they could learn something from the input in the school network, thus the level of exchange is the most apparent for the teachers, namely exchanging information and knowledge. There is no pressure to adapt, so their autonomy is high. The exchange can be further detailed for the different key persons of each school that mostly value learning on the peer-to-peer-level as laid down for the head teachers and ICT-coordinators as is explained in the following paragraph. The head teachers exchange ideas on overall strategies on how to implement ICT with the goal that it changes the lessons if they offer additional value compared to traditional teaching. Head teachers also exchange ideas on infrastructure, which operating system to choose for their school, how to formally value very engaged teachers, or how to apply for funding at the school maintaining body. They are in contact with one another, even outside the formalised meetings of the school network. The ICT-coordinators exchange ideas on how to use ICT in their lessons and discuss challenges that go along with them. This exchange is only valued if the adaptation to their specific needs is clear because the interviewees stated that they do not have the time to translate the newly learned input to their concrete needs themselves because of a lack of time. Especially learning from bad experiences is found fruitful because then, these obstacles do not need to be overcome again and again. This is one of the main benefits the school network offers. Division of Work  The steering committee can initiate exchange between the teachers, e.g. when they need to decide within the group of their taught subject which ICT they integrate in which form. Different school subjects cover different competences that are taught with the help of ICT and thus on a teacher-wide perspective within one school, work is divided with a shared goal and a medium degree of autonomy. Co-construction  Co-construction is less easily found within the sample as it is a challenge for the teachers to find time slots to work together. In addition, team structures are mostly based on organisational tasks that do not foster common lesson development but rather formal aspects, such as agreements within one form as to which book to read but not how to deal with it pedagogically. This is where the school network can support the engaged teachers. Lack of Collaboration  In contrast to the findings above that describe where collaboration with and between teachers is found to be a benefit, there are also tendencies fostering explicitly working alone. On the level of the individual school, some teachers do not want to exchange lesson plans because they are scared that peers might find errors or criticise their teaching approach. Also, collaboration in face-to-­ face meetings is not supported by the school system as teachers usually leave school after the lessons and then work from home alone. A lack of institutionalised struc-

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tures can hinder teacher collaboration. If it is left up to the teachers to collaborate voluntarily, the engaged teachers may not find partners to collaborate with. Thus, a degree of obligation can help to support teacher collaboration. Interviewees have indicated that the schools differ in the degree as to how much ICT they have integrated into their everyday life at school. Schools that feel less developed than others may feel frustrated to see what would be possible if they had the technical equipment. This makes them feel like they have to work alone because they would slow down the process for the others. The same holds true for how important the protection of private data is seen in the schools and whether this is their first priority to settle before looking at the possibilities certain ICT brings. If the school has the hardware but does not want to use it because of this fear but other schools from the network do not see the risk, this makes the first want to work alone because it is not understood by its partners. To summarise, the schools tend to rather use division of work as a degree of collaboration in committees within their own school; exchange and co-construction exist but only rarely. In the network, schools stress the importance of exchange to collaborate and highlight the benefits the school network brings.

Longitudinal Ego-Centric Network Analysis: First Results In this section, following the twofold methodical approach (see Fig. 2.1), we assess risks in network partnerships from a relational and structural view. This part addresses in how far collaboration in the observed school networks bears the risk of a lack of transfer back into the participating schools as well as not making use of the possible links to other schools and organisations in the network. It is used in triangulation with the qualitative view presented above to assess overall risks. First results from three waves, hereafter referred to as t1, t2, t3 (equalling nine months of network partnerships), of data collection of the ego-centric network analysis are presented. The ego-centric network data can be visualized as network maps of each teacher’s professional network. This allows for an easily assessable impression of different network constellations, also comparing schools in a longitudinal perspective. The following figure is one example of such a network map to illustrate the potential avenues for analysis. Below an explanation of the symbols can be found. The Fig.  2.3 illustrates the evolution of communication structure and actor constellations from t1 to t3 using ego-centric network maps. The figures show the ego-centric network of exchanging information (received and forwarded information, relating to the theoretical model by Gräsel et al., 2006) of the same teacher from t1 to t3. The arrows indicate the direction of exchange, showing if information was coming from alters to ego, if information was forwarded from ego to alters or both. The development of this particular teacher’s ego-centric network shows how the network grew from just two alters to seven alters at t3.

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Fig. 2.3  Example of a network map showing the development of a teacher’s network of exchanging materials or information over three waves of data collection

Further, it shows how a working group on ICT implementation at this school developed over time so that at t3 all alters from the school are member of this group. The colours of nodes indicate the forms of organisations in the network, showing that most contacts of ego are within the same school. This finding is discussed in the next paragraph in greater detail. Network composure shows that in newly founded school networks collaboration is concentrated on partners at the same school in all three forms of teacher collaboration. However, some interesting details can be found when looking at the following descriptive figures on a global level (Fig. 2.4). These numbers do not reflect any differences in individual teachers’ networks or differentiate between schools but can show general trends in all ego-centric networks. The general trend that the majority of named collaboration partners are located at the same school as ego is obvious in all cases. One reason for this could be that the data shown here reflects the beginning of school partnerships and it might take time before all partners in the network get to know each other better. Trust builds up gradually as one important aspect of collaboration especially in more complex forms. Generally, highest variation can be observed in the first column of receiving information. Here, sources of information came from different organisations like the university involved in the school networks and – increasingly in the third wave of data collection – also from other schools in the networks. A similar tendency can be observed when looking at the alters information was forwarded to: In the third wave an increasing number of alters are located outside the school of ego. The observation that during t1–t3 the majority of collaboration partners are located at egos’ schools in all forms of collaboration goes to show that the risk of lacking transfer of knowledge from the network into the schools seems to have been mitigated.

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Interestingly, for the most complex form of collaboration – co-construction – already in the first wave of data collection a number of external collaboration partners can be seen. This trend is increasing throughout the survey waves and especially actors from school authorities and those categorized as other were named. This is a somewhat surprising finding and should be investigated in further detail. Looking at the corresponding free-text answers on topics of collaboration can help to shed some light on these aspects. The following two aspects were described several times: • Teacher professional development: Apparently, here participants felt that taking part in a teacher professional development offered the possibilities to co-­construct new solutions and gain new knowledge in a collaborative way. Since more context is missing in the data, we can only assume the circumstances but possibilities to design teacher professional development in such a way to stimulate collaborative learning can be found in the literature (Tondeur et  al., 2016; Twining et al., 2013). • Working collaboratively on ICT school strategies: To implement ICT in schools some federal states in Germany encourage schools to develop an ICT school

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strategy describing how a school is going to link ICT and curricula – sometimes this is even mandatory. In North Rhine-Westphalia, schools are required to ­submit their strategies to school authorities. Some of the cases described co-­ constructively working together with school authorities on ICT strategies. Again, more context cannot be seen in the data but it could be concluded that the school network offers a space for such rather uncommon collaboration and, thus, made it easier for schools to develop their ICT school strategy in direct interaction with school authorities. This is clearly an advantage of such partnerships involving actors from these organisations. Since collaboration with school-external partners in tendency appears to be less pronounced, the full potential of networking might not be used. For future analysis collaboration with internal and external partners will need to be analysed for each individual school in more detail. This leads to further results regarding the content of collaboration: Participants are asked to select which category of school development fits best to describe what a collaborative contact was about. The following Fig. 2.5 presents results on thematic categories of co-construction in waves t1–t3. The descriptive data here shows that technical development as well as developing lessons are core themes of co-construction. It is worth to mention that also strategic questions, e.g. developing a school’s ICT strategy, was named as a topic of co-constructive collaboration several times.

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Discussion Based on literature on school networks with a special focus on Hadfield and Chapman’s findings (cf. e.g. Cain et al., 2019; Fullan, 2013; Hadfield & Chapman, 2009) and a model of teacher collaboration (Gräsel et  al., 2006), the benefits of school networks were described. Deducing risks from the literature has set the structure of analysis in this paper. The research project DigiSchoolNet was introduced, also referring to the prototypical network structure that the sample is a part of. Two research designs were described as to their individual research questions, samples, methods and retrospective/longitudinal design respectively. Descriptive results from the interviews as well as the ego-centric network analyses were presented. These results are going to be linked to the risks that go along with engaging in a school network and with teacher collaboration which were deduced from the theoretical approaches are going to be discussed.

 ngaging in a School Network: Risky Ride or E Beneficial Blessing? To recapitulate, above we deduced risks for working in school networks synthesised from the literature review of Hadfield and Chapman (2009), which include (a) the imbalance of resource input and output, (b) unknown hierarchy structures, (c) threatening of the individual school’s engagement, (d) recognition as well as (e) financial and decision-making autonomy. On the backdrop of results of the retrospective interview study on how the schools benefit from engaging in the school network, the aforementioned risks do certainly get qualified as less of a threat than assumed. The network’s meetings do support the knitting of relationships and thus the formation of a real network. This finding aligns with the literature (Hadfield & Chapman, 2009). The relationships with teachers in other schools are not as close as they are with the colleagues from the teacher’s own school, thus a threat of distancing themselves cannot be empirically proven. The risk to lose contact time with students has been reported by the school in the sample and poses a problem depending on the time of year. Especially before the end of terms, before holidays, during the time of exams when having to mark them is very crucial. All other times are welcome for network meetings. Schools have worked out strategies to overcome this challenge: Either less than expected teachers go to the meeting, the meeting is set in the afternoon only, or they attend the next meeting and only work through the documentation of the missed meeting. The second risk, not being willing to work within the network’s structures, has not been an issue for any of the interviewees. Neither the head teachers have uttered

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that they find it difficult to be on a par with other head teachers, university and the school maintaining body. Third, a shared commitment was found in most of the interviews. Only one head teacher indicated that they felt a relief and a good excuse to not have worked as much on the topic as had been agreed. As a period of two years was the basis for analysis, and only one school one time felt less motivated because others had not done their ‘homework’, this risk is thought of to be less important than the benefits from working in a school network. Fourth, none of the teachers reported that they were overly appreciated which they did not know from their own school. One explanation could be that they are all highly valued at their school but also that they might not have been recognised from the network-peers as much as had been hoped. The same holds true for the fifth aspect, financial and decision-making autonomy. None of the interview partners hinted at a loss of autonomy relating funding or making decisions within the network. To summarise, the schools of the sample took the risks and had not found them to be overwhelming but that the benefits outweighed them. Based on the model on teacher collaboration as depicted above (Gräsel et al., 2006), a loss of autonomy and thus a loss of control are the main risks to partnerships in education when working together. Based on the empirical data of subproject one, a loss of autonomy has not been explicitly mentioned in the interviews but the focus was on how the Learning Lab supports the schools by taking over organisational tasks. Thus, this risk seems to be not worth mentioning and supposedly is outweighed by the benefits collaboration brings about. Regarding possible risks in partnerships in education we described the problem of transfer from the network into individual schools. At least in the first three waves of the ego-centric network survey it shows that there is rather a lack of inter-school collaboration in the networks. In this regard it will be interesting to see in upcoming waves if inter-school collaboration increases and, if so, whether school-internal collaboration decreases at the same time. This would indicate that a core team of network members develops over time, excluding teachers not directly involved in the school network from collaborative activities. To sum up, the quantitative results at a global level can only partly inform about the role of collaboration in the school networks, which is why network maps and measures need to be considered to reflect individual traits of schools. A lower share of school-external contacts does not necessarily indicate a risk for partnerships. It can either suggest that few contacts can also help to gain new perspectives but it could also mean that network activities do not fit to a school’s individual situation or goals. Further data, e.g. results from triangulation with complementary interview data, can help to clarify these questions.

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 orking in a School Network: The Benefits Outweigh W the Risks To conclude the research on risks of working in a school network from our data on school networks focusing on  education in a digital world as their main goal of school development, it should be stressed that most risks discussed in this chapter apply to collaboration in school networks in general, regardless of their thematic focus of school development. These risks relevant for networking in general  – related to themes of school development, collaboration and transfer – seem to have been mitigated quite well by the schools in our samples, as discussed above. Some aspects can, however, be seen as specific to networking on the topic of education in a digital world: (a) digital tools can themselves offer potentials and risks for communication and collaborative work in networks, (b) the topic is related to a great variety of different aspects of school development which might be too many to handle in a school network collaboration, (c) the Covid-19 pandemic happening during the time of data collection brought along whole new challenges and a push of needs for digitalization in schools, leading to new perspectives but also risks. Due to the pandemic, communication via digital tools certainly has gained more relevance for schools in general and it is, thus, not possible to judge on the basis of our data whether this is a specific aspect of school networks focusing on education in a digital world. What can be seen in the ego-centric network data is a very broad range of topics in collaborative activities of teachers both within their schools and with partners in the networks. Since digitalization can affect almost any part of school development the topics range from technical problems of implementing wireless internet access, copyright issues of digital teaching materials, privacy, digital tools for administrative tasks, lesson development using ICT or developing a school specific ICT program – in short, such broad range of topics can overwhelm teachers involved in the network and the network itself. Against this backdrop it becomes crucial to develop a vision and mission with specific, manageable goals for school networks and schools to follow as well as hands-on experiences or professional development to really profit and learn from networking. The empirical data from the retrospective interviews, however, shows that schools are willing to take the risk to engage in a school network and do find it valuable to engage in it. One factor that has not been described yet supports this empirical data: One school network renewed their vision after the interviews and schools were free to leave the network or to stay and all of them committed to the network. The schools were asked for the most important milestones that supported their development in a digital world. Much focus was brought to the technological aspect but on a strategic level of organisational development, engaging in the school network was one major factor of success that the schools stressed. They would not be where they are now if it had not been for the school network, interviewees reported. The main risk researched in the longitudinal network analysis  – lack of transfer back into individual schools – did not show to be a problem in the sampled networks. The majority of interactions have taken place within the same school during

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the first waves of data collection, while collaboration with teachers from other schools or other organisations made up around 30% of collaboration partners at maximum. Thus, this risk seems to have been mitigated. From the literature review and comparing our results against the deduced scheme of risks in school networks, we conclude that not collaborating at all and not engaging in a school network poses a greater risk than all other risks mentioned above combined: missing out on other schools’ experiences, sharing their own progress, learning and progressing together and therefore taking on a role model function for students as well. As collaboration and networking are key aspects when it comes to participation in this world growing more and more complex every day (cf. Cress et al., 2016), schools are well-advised to take the minor risks that come with collaborating and networking to fulfil this central aspect of the education mandate.

Limitations Regarding the particular structure of the study, some limitations should be mentioned. Our findings are based on case study with a limited number of cases (school networks) being compared and not all teachers involved in those networks have been included in the data collection. The school networks moreover have a regional focus on North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Also, the topic of the school development process is digitalization, so it might be interesting to see whether our results do also hold true for other topics that are worked on within school networks. The sample is formed by schools that voluntarily entered the school networks and the teachers voluntarily participated in the interviews, thus schools that did not benefit from the school network as much and the ones not engaging in the school network in the first place are not part of the study. If their perspective had been included in the study a different assessment of risks might have resulted. These aspects should be kept in mind when considering to generalise findings.

Outlook Having presented a broad theoretical and mixed-methods approach as well as a number of findings, open questions remain whether these findings can be replicated and in how far they are valid in an international context within different school systems and other mechanisms influencing the integration of ICT into schools (e.g. the school autonomy, country- or school-specific ICT programs, staff development). Our samples also consist of school networks focusing other topics. It would need further research if networks focusing other topics are related to other risks (e.g. risks of using ICT also for collaboration in school networks, platforms for collaboration).

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According to our intermediate results digitalization as a topic for school networks does not seem to take a specific role here, except for the mentioned broad range of topics. Comparing the work within school networks internationally would be interesting to analyse with our research approach. To extend the perspective, it would be interesting to include all the actors in the school network in a further in-depth interview study, i.e. also the school maintaining body, the facilitators of the Learning Lab and other supporting stakeholders. Regarding the network analysis, the descriptive results at the global level presented here will be further analysed focusing on individual network structures and specific actor constellations, e.g. asking if ICT-­ coordinators are more likely to collaborate with other ICT-coordinators or specific structures of collaboration can be found regularly. The following aspects appear are key learnings for us: –– Collaboration and networking increasingly are key aspects in the complex world today, and to enable development of future-oriented skills, schools are well advised to seek collaboration, –– Risks can be overcome when teachers experience collaboration as trustful and meaningful for their immediate needs –– Problems of transfer can be overcome by forming school-internal structures such as working groups/steering committees on education in a digital world and support them by the head teachers, as the relational analysis points out –– Risks of overwhelming variety of topics/needs for development should be met by defining clear goals and visions to achieve through participating in a school network. The influence of the Covid-19 pandemic on distance learning and thus using ICT and maybe even integrating ICT into the school development even more than anticipated is going to be an interesting aspect in the comparison of the first with the second investigation of results. Also, analysing the influence – if there is any – of the school type might be interesting to see and could be used in practice with the schools to fulfil the close relationship of research and practice in a design-based research approach. Practical implications that can be derived from our findings shall also be mentioned: We strongly argue that ‘taking the plunge’ into engaging within a school network is most likely worth it. Naturally, we are not going to sugar-coat immanent risks and personal insecurities, as they are outlined within this chapter, but regarding our results it becomes clear that in the analysed cases the benefits do outweigh the risks. We would, however, strongly recommend to keep in mind, that collaboration and networking takes (a) time and patience, (b) trust and commitment, (c) funding and structures. Good relationships with other teachers and effective network structures will not be achieved over night. Bearing in mind that both the individual school as well as the whole school network can benefit from learning experiences might help form a mindset ready to overcome barriers, conflicts and stressful situations in favour of effective school development and personal growth.

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Acknowledgements  DigiSchoolNet has received funding from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Germany, as part of the initiative Digitalization in the Field of Education (2018–2021), grant number 01JD1818. The project has been conducted jointly by the working group on education research at the Faculty of Educational Sciences, Institute of Education, at the University of Duisburg-Essen and the Learning Lab, chair for educational technology and knowledge management.

References Berkemeyer, N., Manitius, V., Müthing, K., & Bos, W. (2008). Innovation durch Netzwerkarbeit? Zeitschrift Für Soziologie Der Erziehung Und Sozialisation, 28(4), 411–428. Retrieved from https://content-­s elect.com/media/moz_viewer/527fcb40-­5 460-­4 7c9-­8 42168cd2efc1343/ language:de Bremm, N., Eiden, S., Neumann, C., Webs, T., Ackeren, I.  V., & Holtappels, H.  G. (2017). Evidenzorientierter Schulentwicklungsansatz für Schulen in herausfordernden Lagen: Zum Potenzial der Integration von praxisbezogener Forschung und Entwicklung am Beispiel des Projekts “Potenziale entwickeln – Schulen stärken”. In V. Manitius & P. Dobbelstein (Eds.), Schulentwicklungsarbeit in herausfordernden Lagen (pp. 140–159). Waxmann. Brown, C. (2019). Exploring the current context for Professional Learning Networks, the conditions for their success, and research needs moving forwards. Emerald Open Research. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.12688/emeraldopenres.12904.2 Cain, T., Brindley, S., Brown, C., Jones, G., & Riga, F. (2019). Bounded decision-making, teachers’ reflection and organisational learning: How research can inform teachers and teaching. British Educational Research Journal, 45(5), 1072–1087. Cress, U., Jeong, H., & Moskaliuk, J. (2016). Mass collaboration as an emerging paradigm for education?: Theories, cases, and research methods. In U. Cress, J. Moskaliuk, & H. Jeong (Eds.), Computer-supported collaborative learning series: Vol. 16. Mass collaboration and education (1st ed., pp. 3–27). Springer. Czerwanski, A. (Ed.). (2003). Schulentwicklung durch Netzwerkarbeit: Erfahrungen aus den Lernnetzwerken im “Netzwerk innovativer Schulen in Deutschland”. Verl. BertelsmannStiftung. Czerwanski, A., Hameyer, U., & Rolff, H.-G. (2002). Schulentwicklung im Netzwerk: Ergebnisse einer empirischen Nutzenanalyse von zwei Schulnetzwerken. In H.-G.  Rolff (Ed.), Eine Veröffentlichung der Arbeitsstelle für Schulentwicklungsforschung der Universität Dortmund. Jahrbuch der Schulentwicklung: Daten, Beispiele und Perspektiven (pp. 99–130). Juventa Verl. Döring, N., & Bortz, J. (2016). Forschungsmethoden und Evaluation in den Sozial- und Humanwissenschaften. Springer Berlin Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-­3-­642-­41089-­5 Drossel, K., Schulz-Zander, R., Lorenz, R., & Eickelmann, B. (2016). Gelingensbedingungen IT-bezogener Lehrerkooperation als Merkmal von Schulqualität. In B. Eickelmann, J. Gerick, K. Drossel, & W. Bos (Eds.), ICILS 2013 – Vertiefende Analysen zu computer- und informationsbezogenen Kompetenzen von Jugendlichen (pp. 143–167). Waxmann. Endberg, M., Gageik, L., Hasselkuß, M., van Ackeren, I., Kerres, M., Bremm, N., Düttmann, T., & Racherbäumer, K. (2020). Netzwerke(n) in einer digitalisierten Welt: Warum und wie? Schulentwicklung gemeinsam in einer digitalisierten Welt gestalten. Friedrich Jahresheft, 42–45. Fraillon, J., Ainley, J., Schulz, W., Friedman, T., & Duckworth, D. (2019). Preparing for life in a digital world: The IEA international computer and information literacy study 2018 international report. International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). https://research.acer.edu.au/ict_literacy/23 Fullan, M. (2013). Stratosphere: Integrating technology, pedagogy, and change knowledge. Pearson.

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Gageik, L. (2019). Integrating digital media into schools: A research to practitioner approach within regional school networks. In K. Graziano (Ed.), Proceedings of society for information technology & teacher education international conference (pp. 1163–1167). Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). Retrieved from https://www.learntechlib. org/p/207792/ Glesemann, B., & Järvinen, H. (2015). Schulische Netzwerke zur Unterstützung der Einführung und Konzeption des Ganztags an Gymnasien. In H. Wendt & W. Bos (Eds.), Auf dem Weg zum Ganztagsgymnasium: Erste Ergebnisse der wissenschaftlichen Begleitforschung zum Projekt Ganz In (pp.  129–151). Waxmann. Retrieved from http://digitale-­objekte.hbznrw.de/storage2/2015/10/24/file_17/6477008.pdf Gräsel, C., Fußangel, K., & Pröbstel, C. (2006). Lehrkräfte zur Kooperation anregen  – eine Aufgabe für Sisyphos? Zeitschrift Für Pädagogik, 52(2), 205–219. Retrieved from https:// www.pedocs.de/volltexte/2011/4453/pdf/ZfPaed_2006_2_Graesel_Fussangel_Proebstel_ Lehrkraefte_Kooperation_anregen_D_a.pdf Hadfield, M., & Chapman, C. (2009). Leading school-based networks. Routledge. Retrieved from http://site.ebrary.com/lib/alltitles/docDetail.action?docID=10289042 Hasselkuß, M., Gageik, L., & Endberg, M. (2020). Research-Practice-Partnership in Schulnetzwerken – Erfahrungen aus der Zusammenarbeit zur Schulentwicklung in einer digitalisierten Welt. Journal für Schulentwicklung, 24(3), 37–44. Hobbs, R., & Coiro, J. (2016). Everyone learns from everyone: Collaborative and interdisciplinary professional development in digital literacy. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 59(6), 623–629. Jungermann, A., Pfänder, H., & Berkemeyer, N. (2018). Schulische Vernetzung in der Praxis: Wie Schulen Unterricht gemeinsam entwickeln können. In Netzwerke im Bildungsbereich – Praxis: Band 2. Waxmann. Kerres, M., & Waffner, B. (2019). Digital school networks: Technology integration as a joint research and development effort. In R.  M. Reardon & J.  Leonard (Eds.), Integrating digital technology in education: School-university-community collaboration (pp.  227–241). Information Age Publishing. Koltermann, S. (2013). Innovationskompetenz?: Eine qualitative Exploration des Handelns von Lehrkräften in Innovationsprozessen – rekonstruiert am Beispiel von schulischen Netzwerken. Kultusministerkonferenz. (2016). Bildung in der digitalen Welt: Strategie der Kultusministerkonferenz. Retrieved from https://www.kmk.org/fileadmin/Dateien/pdf/ PresseUndAktuelles/2017/Strategie_neu_2017_datum_1.pdf Kultusministerkonferenz. (2020). Information in English. Retrieved from https://www.kmk.org/ kmk/information-­in-­english.html Kuper, H., & Kapelle, N. (2012). Lehrerkooperation aus organisationssoziologischer Sicht. In E.  Baum, T.-S.  Idel, & H.  Ullrich (Eds.), Kollegialität und Kooperation in der Schule (pp. 41–51). VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Maag Merki, K. (2009). Kooperation und Netzwerkbildung: Eine Einführung. In K. Maag Merki (Ed.), Kooperation und Netzwerkbildung: Strategien zur Qualitätsentwicklung in Schulen (1st ed., pp. 7–13). Klett/Kallmeyer. Mayring, P. (2015). Qualitative Inhaltsanalyse: Grundlagen und Techniken (12., überarb. Aufl.). Beltz Pädagogik. Beltz. Retrieved from http://contentselect.com/index. php?id=bib_view&ean=9783407293930 Miceli, N. (2018). Schulautonomie als Element neuer Steuerung. Dissertation. Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2F978-­3-­658-­20494-­5.pdf. https://doi. org/10.1007/978-­3-­658-­20494-­5 Orr, D. (2019). Germany. German school system and autonomy. In S. da Cruz Martina, L. Capucha, & S. Joao (Eds.), School autonomy, organization and performance in Europe: A comparative analysis for the period from 2000 to 2015 (pp. 91–100). CIES-IUL. Perry, B. L., Pescosolido, B. A., & Borgatti, S. P. (2018). Egocentric network analysis. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316443255

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Scheele, B. (1992). Struktur-Lege-Verfahren als Dialog-Konsens-Methodik: Ein Zwischenfazit zur Forschungsentwicklung bei der rekonstruktiven Erhebung subjektiver Theorien. Arbeiten zur sozialwissenschaftlichen Psychologie: Heft 25. Aschendorff. Scheele, B., & Groeben, N. (1988). Dialog-Konsens-Methoden zur Rekonstruktion Subjektiver Theorien: die Heidelberger StrukturLege-Technik (SLT), konsuale Ziel-MittelArgumentation und kommunikative Flußdiungen // Dialog-Konsens-Methoden zur Rekonstruktion subjektiver Theorien: D.  Heidelberger Struktur-Lege-Technik (SLT), konsensuale Ziel-Mittel- Argumentation u. kommunikative Flußdiagramm-Beschreibung von Handlungen. Francke. Retrieved from https://nbn-­resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0168-­ssoar-­10293 Tondeur, J., Forkosh-Baruch, A., Prestridge, S., Albion, P., & Edirisinghe, S. (2016). Responding to challenges in teacher professional development for ICT integration in education. Educational Technology & Society, 19(3), 110–120. Twining, P., Raffaghelli, J., Albion, P., & Knezek, D. (2013). Moving education into the digital age: The contribution of teachers’ professional development. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 29, 426–437. Lisa Gageik is a research associate for the Learning Lab at the Faculty of Educational Sciences at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany. Her research focus is on school development in the context of digitalization and regional school networks to support development processes. Before September 2017 she worked as an English and French teacher, gathering experience with using ICT in her teaching. She is currently mainly involved in the research project “DigiSchoolNet – Digital school development within networks” and is a PhD-student at the University of Duisburg-Essen.  

Marco Hasselkuß is a research associate for the Working Group on Educational Research, Faculty of Educational Sciences at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany. He completed his PhD on networks between schools and companies working on education for sustainable development. His research focus is on school networks, school development in the context of education in a digital world and education for sustainable development. He is currently mainly involved in the research project “DigiSchoolNet – Digital school development within networks”.  

Manuela Endberg works as a research associate for the Working Group on Educational Research, Faculty of Educational Sciences at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany. She holds a PhD in Educational Science. Her key research topics include school development in the context of digitalization, competences and attitudes of teachers in the context of digitalization, digitalization and educational justice, digitalization in the context of teacher training and teacher professional development as well as support systems for school development.  

Chapter 3

Bhutanese Partnerships Between Initial Teacher Training Colleges and Educational Stakeholders Kinzang Dorji and Nandu Giri

Abstract  Educational partnerships play a pivotal role in achieving the set goals of teacher preparation programmes. This is also true for Samtse College of Education, the only Bhutanese secondary teacher training college. This chapter presents the authors’ reflections on the risk involved in sustaining healthy partnerships between the teacher training college and relevant educational stakeholders. Presented as a case, the chapter talks about the partnerships involved in student-teachers practicum teaching. The uniqueness of this partnership setting is not only shaped by the intention to prepare teachers but also by the country’s deep-seated intention to shape its own unique approach to balancing social, cultural, spiritual, political, economic and ecological wellbeing (also often referred to as the Gross National Happiness). However, this causes unique challenges. A model of educational partnership has been developed to identify indicators of key professional skills to support the development of student-teachers during the initial teacher preparation programmes. We suggest that Bhutanese values and principles have to be infused in those models since they bind Bhutanese partners and strengthen the ambition of the educational partnerships to collaborate on a shared vision. This ambition is exemplified through resource sharing, curriculum innovation, and an overall improving of the quality of education in the initial teacher preparation programmes. Keywords  Gross National Happiness · School Immersion and Teaching Practice · Bhutanese practice schools · Bhutanese partnerships in education

K. Dorji (*) · N. Giri Samtse College of Education, Royal University of Bhutan, Thimphu, Bhutan e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 K. Otrel-Cass et al. (eds.), Partnerships in Education, Transdisciplinary Perspectives in Educational Research 5, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98453-3_3

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Introduction The cultural historical development of education in Bhutan that originated in monastic education and embraces the ideal of happiness has resulted in a unique configuration of partnerships between those engaged in the formal part of teacher preparation and those where practice takes place, Bhutanese schools. Bhutan’s unique socio-economic development is guided by a philosophy based on the concept of Gross National Happiness (GNH), which emphasizes the importance of achieving GNH over Gross National Product (Marikina, 2018). The concept of focusing on the growth of societal happiness thus shapes the ambitions of the education sector in Bhutan. The Constitution of the Kingdom of Bhutan mandates “the state shall provide free education to all children of school going age up to tenth grade and ensure that technical and professional education is made generally available, and that higher education is equally accessible to all on the basis of merit” (p. 20) (Tobgye, 2014). Bhutan’s recent trajectory towards focusing on Bhutanese values and principles in the educational system has introduced innovative approaches and new challenges for the nation’s educational community (Gyamtso et al., 2017). One resulting program, the ‘Educating for Gross National Happiness (EdGNH) Initiative’ has sought to improve curricular relevance through the incorporation of GNH values and principles into schools and higher educational institutions across the nation (Drupka & Brien, 2013). The infusion of GNH concepts in teacher preparation programmes and the school curricula is expected to result in a purposeful and happy life for the future citizens of Bhutan. Subsequently, the Bhutan Vision 2020 (e.g. Education Blueprint, 2014–2024) places importance on the nation’s educational development in terms of the accessibility, equity and inclusivity of the twenty-first century curriculum goals (Ministry of Education [MoE], 2014). Accordingly, all educational institutions have shifted their focus of education towards improving the quality of education through child-centered learning approaches that align with twenty-first century pedagogy through their teaching, learning and assessment approaches at all levels of educational institutions. However, despite these remarkable educational developments, internationally comparative studies present Bhutan with a declining trend in the quality of school education, and the successful implementation of new emerging innovative approaches remains elusive. For example, the recent findings of the Programme for International Students Assessment for Developing Countries (PISA-D) in 2018 showed that while Bhutanese students excel at tasks requiring lower cognitive skills, they are challenged when performing higher cognitive tasks (Bhutan Council for School Examinations and Assessment [BCSEA], 2019). The reasons for such results could be partly attributed to the professional development of skills and knowledge provided to student-teachers during their initial teacher preparation programmes. However, a narrow focus on improving only the programmes in teacher preparation institutions will not be the only answer to improving educational outcomes. A lack of strong partnerships with shared visions among various educational stakeholders

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such as policy makers, teacher training colleges, schools, curriculum developers, where each of this agent working in insolation may influence the quality of initial teacher preparation programmes (Matorevhu, 2019; Smith, 2016). Therefore, this chapter outlines how a small country, Bhutan, that is determined to shape its own unique approach to balancing social, cultural, spiritual, political, economic and ecological wellbeing faces very unique challenges to do with preparing their future teachers. To better understand the unique setting of these partnerships the next section provides a brief overview of the development of the Bhutanese education system.

The Bhutanese Education System The early form of education in Bhutan was most commonly practiced in the form of monastic education (Tobgay, 2014). However, the origins of modern education can be traced back to 1914 when His Late Majesty the first King of Bhutan Gongsa Ugyen Wangchuk established the kingdom’s first school in the valley of Haa, western Bhutan that ran parallel to the monastic education (Sapam & Ratna, 2019). During the early onset of modern education, the majority of teachers were from the neighbouring country of India, and only a very few Bhutanese teachers were involved in teaching. This was mainly due to the lack of subject-specific expertise and human resources. The curricula were mostly borrowed from India and teaching was done in Hindi, the national language of India. In 1962, His Late Majesty the third King Jigme Dorji Wangchuk set up several English medium schools in Bhutan. He was the driving force behind the modern education system in Bhutan, and known fondly by all Bhutanese as the “Father of Modern Bhutan”. Today, the education system in the country has diversified into many major forms. These include Monastic Education, Modern/Western Education, Technical Education, Vocational Education, Non-Formal Education and Wholesome Education (Tobgay, 2014). Samtse College of Education started as a Teacher Training Institute (TTI), inaugurated by His Late Majesty King Jigme Dorji Wangchuck on 29 May 1968 as the nation’s first teacher preparation institution. The institute began with an initial enrolment of 41 students. Since its inception, the college has provided teacher education programmes to over 5000 graduates with awards, in different levels of programme, such as Primary Teacher Certificate (PTC), Bachelors in both Primary and Secondary Education (B.Ed), Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PgCE), which is now replaced by the Postgraduate Diploma in Education (PgDE) programme, and in-service Masters programmes in Education in different subject-specific disciplines. It is imperative that the efficacy of teachers who facilitate students’ learning in schools depends on the quality of initial teacher preparation programmes since they constitute the first form of professional study or training that the student-teachers complete to enter the teaching profession. However, the way in which the teacher preparation programmes are conceived and delivered at the teacher training colleges

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is currently facing some misalignments of the planned vision versus the reality of current teacher preparation programmes. Such misalignments can influence the quality of education if collaborative efforts and strong partnerships do not exist between the teacher training colleges and key educational stakeholders during the initial preparation of student-teachers. The key stakeholders in this context include school principals, mentor teachers and focal persons. For example, field practicum teaching for the PgDE programme accounts for 33% of the overall duration of the course, and is essentially designed and developed to enable students to acquire actual classroom professional teaching experiences and undertake personal development, which is critical for any successful teacher preparation programme. If a student-teacher who is on field practicum teaching in a practice school does not get adequate and effective mentoring support, it compromises the quality of a field internship programme. Lack of effective mentoring and support from a school-­ based mentor would result in depriving the opportunities for the student-teachers to acquire the basic initial fundamental development of professional skills, knowledge and experiences. This is deemed so important in providing quality education and shaping our school children into functional members of GNH society with the right national values and world views, thus crucial for the growth of a nation. While innovative change and collaborative efforts are needed to revitalize the educational training programmes, the success of every teacher preparation programme depends also on the nature of how GNH infused curriculum aspires to facilitate the holistic approach of education that would support some of the humanistic values we need in building strong partnerships. The GNH, on the other hand, continues to strive for the overall socio-economic development of the nation through deeply rooted values of cultural, spiritual and material wellbeing of the citizens. Although individual acquisition of cultural, material and spiritual wellbeing is achievable, the pursuit of collective happiness is the main goal for Bhutan (Zangmo, 2014). Therefore, GNH infused curricula at all levels ensures a meaningful education to every Bhutanese child in the GNH society. Research has also indicated that a key responsibility for a good education system lies with the collaborative efforts of various stakeholders such as policy makers, researchers, teacher educators, school teachers and parents (Magolda, 2001; Smith, 2016). Thus, teacher preparation programmes carry enormous responsibilities to foster healthy collaborative relationships/partnerships for future teachers, who in turn should respond to societal, economic and digital needs, to prepare the children of a future generation. A teacher can make a huge difference in a child’s life, and the right person must be selected, trained and prepared well to do so. This is only possible through the prevalence of healthy partnerships between the teacher training colleges and relevant key educational stakeholders. Therefore, the following section takes a closer look at various aspects of partnerships between the Bhutanese teacher training college and the relevant educational stakeholders that are deemed critical for the effective delivery of any initial teacher preparation programmes. We will also reflect on the specific risks involved in partnerships between teacher preparation programmes and practice schools, in the case of practicum teaching in Bhutan.

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Partnerships According to Dolan (2011), the term ‘partnership’ suggests much sensitivity with its implicit connotations of sharing and trust. On the other hand, Gutierrez (2008) describes ‘partnership’ in terms of respect, equality, reciprocity and ownership. In the Bhutanese context, partnership can be defined as a mutually beneficial relationship that exists between two individuals or organizations (Ura et al., 2012). This echoes the Bhutan’s development philosophy of GNH that entails a partnership bringing about a positive impact for the partners. The outcome of the partnership ultimately brings happiness in the community which leads to the sustainable development of the nation. Based on this, the working definition of partnerships in this chapter is ‘a partnership between the teacher training college and relevant educational stakeholders who work together towards a shared goal to improve quality of education at all levels’. Thus, partnerships in teacher preparation programmes should go beyond rhetoric, and need to overcome multiple challenges and concerns of the education system. Sandholtz (2002) stated that partners should have trust in each other and be open to accepting the sometimes differing opinions and solutions of their partners. The existence of such partnerships has high potential to strengthen relationships between teacher training college and school. Magolda (2001) and Zeichner (2010) however, highlighted that tensions can develop in partnerships relatively often, because it is difficult to work as a team. In order to embrace healthy partnerships, it was noted that the partners should be inclusive and respectful of the views and opinions expressed by each other. The GNH values and principles state that partners are often represented by various types of organizations or individuals with different visions and missions. Further, the principles highlight that an obstacle in partnerships should be viewed as something that can turn into a mutual benefit for both partners (Burns, 2011). With a healthy professional institutional relationship built on trust and confidence in each other, teacher preparation programmes are expected to function with collective responsibility adhering to the GNH values and principles, thus contributing towards the realisation of larger educational goals and aspirations of producing nationally rooted and globally competent teachers (Ura, 2015). The partnership posits the collaboration as a rich and powerful learning space, where academics, teacher educators, and various relevant educational stakeholders come together with different expertise that are conducive to the development of future teachers for the twenty-­ first century education system. Figure 3.1 below depicts that the teacher preparation programmes in Bhutan involve four essential partnerships. These include (i) teacher training college-student-teachers partnership; (ii) teacher training college-­ community partnership; (iii) teacher training college-curriculum developer partnership and (iv) teacher training college-practicing school partnership.

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Fig. 3.1  Partnerships in teacher preparation programmes

Teacher Training College – Student-Teacher Partnerships The partnership between a teacher training college and student-teachers plays a vital role in ensuring quality learning and teaching processes. In our contextual example of Samtse College of Education, the student-teachers are considered members of the education community and their participation in various college decision making committees (e.g. college academic committee, school immersion and teaching practice committee, college ethical committee etc.) shows that the collaboration between student-teachers and the teacher training college is of utmost importance. This process should also allow for student-teachers’ opinions and suggestions to be taken into account in decision-making by committees on any issues or resolutions related to student-teachers. One of the benefits of student-teachers becoming a part of the various committees is that this will help them to develop the necessary skills and experiences in acquiring the essential knowledge of academic leadership qualities that are critical for the future leaders in the schools. Therefore, coexistence of healthy relationships between the teacher training college and student-teachers can improve the quality of any teacher preparation programmes. This emphasis is also supported by studies that indicate the student-teachers’ participation in decision making and policy implementation have an inherent value beyond benefitting measurable outcomes, where democratic values, engagement and learning for the future profession are promoted (e.g., Bergmark & Westman, 2018). The risk in partnership arises when the students are not involved in the decision-­ making processes. Cook-Sather (2002) takes a critical look at student-teacher and student-researcher roles to highlight that there is a power imbalance, and while student-teachers are adults, they are also students and dependent on their teachers and the opportunities they are being given, so processes that ensure that student-­ teachers are being listened to and where their opinions and views are taken seriously is equally important.

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 eacher Training College and Curriculum T Developer Partnerships The Royal Education Council (REC) is the national center for setting the national school curricula from kindergarten to 12th grade (K-12) and teacher professional development programmes. Their core mandate includes: to review and develop the curricula and teaching and learning materials for school education; to work in collaboration with relevant national and international stakeholders (e.g. teacher education; MoE, Royal Civil Service Commission etc.); to facilitate academic and professional discourses at national and international levels; and, to provide teacher professional development programmes for efficient implementation of school curriculum (Royal Education Council [REC], 2019). In the pursuit of this vision, REC continuously strives towards education innovation and transformation. Each year the REC carries out activities that take it a step closer to realising the vision by fulfilling its mandates in curriculum development, professional development, educational research and educational technology. Since REC functions as the core national agent for the development of school curricula, its cordial partnership with the teacher training colleges is of paramount importance because graduates of teacher training colleges will ultimately be appointed as beginning teachers in the schools to teach the curricula that the REC has designed and developed. However, the chances of success remain slim if the initial teacher preparation programmes are offered in isolation, where the teacher preparation curricula are misaligned to national school curricula. International studies indicate that the misalignment between teacher training programmes and school curricula can result in student-teachers who are unable to handle the school curriculum effectively in the later part of their teaching career (Wooten, 2000). Therefore, collaboration between those responsible for shaping the curriculum and teacher training colleges seems vital for ensuring the success of initial teacher preparation programmes. Select faculty represent teacher training colleges as members of REC subject committees where the committee meet periodically for review and development of school curriculum based on GNH values and principles. Moreover, GNH infused curriculum is the preferred curricula by the MoE for their schools because it has the attributes needed for providing a holistic education (Zangmo, 2014). This has helped the college faculty to get the insight and have an input towards the development of the GNH infused school curriculum. Therefore, partnership between the teacher training colleges and REC also ensures that visions are developed jointly. However, when college faculty staff are asked to be involved in REC school curriculum related tasks for longer durations, the time commitment presents a risk in this partnership, since ‘normal’ teaching duties still need to be covered. Another kind of partnership that is important for the success in Bhutan’s teacher education is the partnership with the community, which will be presented next.

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Teacher Training College – Community Partnerships The community plays an important part in the smooth functioning of any organizational set up like teacher training college or school and maintaining a good partnership with the community has many advantages, such as building a shared vision and common values and the potential for further discovery and creation of unique partnerships (Barton-Arwood et al., 2016). The college believes in community partnership as an important educational strategy to support the student-teachers during field practicum. Further, the student-teachers also need the support from the children and their parents and members of the community to learn about their responsibilities. The trust the community places in their new student-teachers is repaid in various ways. For instance, Samtse College of Education organizes free remedial classes for the school children in the nearby schools. The PgDE and BEd final year student-­ teachers get the opportunity to conduct these remedial classes. The student-teachers talk to the school children and find out about difficulties faced by them in understanding some of the concepts taught in school. Once the topics are identified the student-teacher plans a lesson in consultation with his or her tutor. In the remedial classes the student-teachers teach the school children in small groups. In doing so, the student-teacher experiences teaching in real classroom situations. The school children are supported learning about difficult concepts. In this case, there is a mutual benefit for the student-teachers and the school children that supports a healthy community-college partnership. Aside of their classes the student-teachers are also encouraged to support the community when they conduct various projects as a part of their course assignments and assessments. The community in turn takes part in various cultural activities that the college organizes, and this supports a feeling of unity and harmony between the community and the college. The college also invites people from the community to give talks (as guest lecturer) to the student-teachers within the scope of the curriculum. For example, the involvement of a member of the community as a guest to give a talk on sustainable farming practices, sustainable environment management, or building community vitality are examples of these talks resulting from strong college-­community partnerships. The preservation of such a healthy partnership with the community supports the quality of the teacher preparation programme. Evidence of this partnership can also be seen by parents’ interest in the student-­ teachers’ progress in their training. Another kind of community partnership is expressed when the college buys local organic farm products such as vegetable and meat products for the consumption of student-teachers who reside in college hostels. The community benefits directly from this partnership and does not need to transport their farm products to other places to sell. Smith (2016) points out that strong relationships with the community have an effect on the initial teacher preparation programmes. The partnership activities between Samtse college of Education and the community show that Bhutanese

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people care in general for others and have high expectations in aiming to live in harmony with each other which can be attributed to the Gross National Happiness philosophy which every Bhutanese tries to achieve (Ura, 2015). The most obvious partnership that shapes teacher education is that with the schools that give student-teachers their first opportunities to experience what it means to be and become a teacher. This will be described next.

Teacher Training College – Practice School Partnerships It is imperative that initial teacher preparation institutions must retain a strong partnership with the practice schools where their student-teachers acquire the necessary classroom teaching learning experiences to become fully-fledged teachers (Van Velzen et al., 2009). Practice schools in this context can be defined as the collaborating schools or partnering schools at which student-teachers receive quality mentoring supports and guidance from the school-based mentors during their practicum teaching. Partnering schools comprise of both government and private schools. Establishing practice partner schools requires that college and school work closely together to jointly mentor student-teachers and is one effective way in which teacher education can contribute to an improved education system (Robinson, 2016). Fostering professionalism and positive attitudes in student-teachers is one important area of teacher education to cater for the needs of diverse learners. It is here where initial teacher preparation programmes should play a critical role in preparing future teachers for the complexities of today’s inclusive classrooms. Therefore, building a strong collaborative partnership between the college as a pre-service teacher education institutions and practice schools as the implementing or collaborating partners is highly critical and instrumental. However, college-school partnerships can contain both collaboration and risks involvement. The teaching practicum in initial teacher preparation programmes can be viewed as a key part of any teacher preparation programmes. It provides a learning place where novice student-teachers will be provided with an opportunity for practicing their mastery in transforming the theory learnt at the college into classroom practice during the course of study (Kiggundu & Nayimuli, 2009). The teaching practicum is crucial because it enables pre-service student-teachers to acquire the required practical professional teaching experiences, which is critical to the success of any teacher education programmes. More importantly, the teaching practicum provides opportunities for the pre-service student-teachers to gain insights into the professional aspects of teaching through routine practicalities of classroom teaching that involves rigorous daily lesson planning, pre-conference, lesson delivery, and post-­ conference with their school-based mentor, and self-reflection. In Bhutan, at Samtse College we found, if partnering schools are not actively involved in the preparation of the student-teachers, we face risks for the success of initial teacher preparation programmes as the following example from the PgDE programme demonstrates.

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The feedback and official evaluation from External Examiners, the Annual Programme Monitoring Report (APMR), students’ feedback, and the report from a school visit by the College President, Dean of Academic Affairs and two other faculty members in 2016, together indicated that the quality of the field teaching practicum was compromised through the short timeframe of the school practicum and affected the overall outcomes of the initial teacher preparation PgDE programme. Compromise on quality was mainly attributed to brief field teaching practicum duration (only 6  weeks), and instead relevant stakeholders (e.g. student-teachers, principals, external examiners etc.) expressed the need for a longer duration for field teaching practicum. They stressed that this would improve the authenticity and reliability of the monitoring and supervision exercise; validate student-teachers’ assessment and evaluation practices; and, provide adequate time and opportunity for practicing mastery in transforming theory into practice in real classroom teaching environments. The college was also concerned about the rationality of the mentoring and evaluation processes by the school-based mentors since the short field teaching practicum did not allow for an adequate opportunity to provide professional support and feedback to student-teachers, thereby compromising the evaluation process for field-based student-teachers’ performance. This was worrisome for the teacher preparation institutions in the country, as it could place the school education system at risk. Therefore, the programme underwent a thorough review and major changes, which will be discussed under the following sub-heading.

Responding to Risk in Partnership In an attempt to address the issues and challenges highlighted above, the college launched in response a new 18  month PgDE programme in February, 2020 that included a semester long field internship/practicum of school teaching. Its first cohort is currently experiencing the new mode of field practicum teaching as part of the PgDE programme, placed in different practice schools across the country. Hence, strengthening the field practicum teaching can be seen as one noticeable change in the current PgDE programme. All relevant educational stakeholders such as policy makers, government agents, curricula developers, school teachers, and representatives from non-governmental organization (e.g. UNICEFF, Bhutan) were engaged in the development of the programme. In addition to addressing the concerns of too little practicum time, the revision also focused on the values and principles of inclusive education. It is anticipated that the new programme with an extended duration for field practicum teaching will provide adequate time for the student-teachers to gain transferable skills and knowledge into classroom practices. The field teaching practicum was also renamed as the School Immersion and Teaching Practice (SITP), emphasizing the significance of student-teachers working in schools. The programme is redesigned to engage student-teachers in developing awareness of their own strengths and weaknesses through constant observation of their classroom teaching, critical reflection and analysis of their learning as an integral part of the PgDE programme. The programme should allow student-­teachers to

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practically apply the theoretical content knowledge acquired in the College into practice in actual classroom situations. The SITP accounts for 33% of the overall duration of time taken to complete this study programme, which is a significant change to the old approach. However, the quality of pre-service teachers’ professional learning and growth; the depth of personal insight and maturity gained; and, the overall success of the SITP programme rests essentially on the collaborative efforts of pre-service student-teachers, mentor teachers, focal persons, school management, college and the MoE. A strong collaborative partnership between Samtse College of Education as a pre-service teacher education college, practice schools as the implementing or collaborating partners, and the MoE as the primary employer of pre-service teacher graduates is, therefore, critical and instrumental. Towards this, the college has recently provided a 2-day webinar training on effective mentoring and orientation to the new mode of SITP programme, to a total of 31 partnering schools across the country. Participants were comprised of school-based mentors, principals, academic heads, SITP focal persons and officials from the MoE. Therefore, building and equipping stronger partnerships between teacher education colleges and practice schools is of paramount importance to accredit the teacher preparation programmes and maximize the performance of student-teachers at the initial point of their teaching career, and this exercise could motivate the twenty-first century students to be lifelong learners (Mohanty & Dash, 2018).

Conclusion With utmost trust and confidence vested upon the key stakeholders in the schools (viz. school principals, focal persons and mentor teachers) who play a critical role in the success of any teacher education, teacher preparation colleges in Bhutan commit to strengthen its partnerships in producing high quality teachers along with implanted GNH values and principles. With GNH values and principles infused into our curriculum, it is anticipated that student-teachers are mindful of present and future educational perspectives, believe in collaborative efforts, think critically and be more reflective of their words and actions. Thus, the chapter advocates that initial teacher preparation institutions need to function collaboratively in terms of how the institutions can build a sustainable high-quality partnerships with practice schools aimed at accomplishing the twenty-first century educational goals. However, the quality of educational programmes can be improved significantly through breaching the gaps and becoming more collaborative in implementation (Smith, 2016). Hence, partnerships with relevant education stakeholders play a key role in boosting teachers’ preparation programmes. The teacher training colleges in Bhutan will have to maintain cordial relationships among various key educational stakeholders. The teacher training colleges in Bhutan are given high priority by the Government as it is the agent for implementing decisions of policymakers in preparing teachers who will in turn prepare the citizens of the future Bhutan.

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References Barton-Arwood, S., Lunsford, L., & Suddeth, S. W. (2016). University-community partnerships in teacher preparation: Changing attitudes about students with disabilities. Journal of Public Scholarship in Higher Education, 6, 4–20. Bergmark, U., & Westman, S. (2018). Student participation within teacher education: Emphasising democratic values, engagement and learning for a future profession. Higher Education Research & Development, 37(7), 1352–1365. Bhutan Council for School Examinations and Assessment. (2019). Education in Bhutan: Findings from Bhutan’s experience in PISA for development. Retrieved from https://www.oecd.org/pisa/ pisa-­for-­development/Bhutan_PISA_D_National_Report.pdf Burns, G. W. (2011). Gross National Happiness: A gift from Bhutan to the world. In Positive psychology as social change (pp. 73–87). Springer. Cook-Sather, A. (2002). Authorizing students’ perspectives: Toward trust, dialogue, and change in education. Educational Researcher, 31(4), 3–14. Dolan, A. (2011). The meaning of partnership in development: Lessons in development education. Policy and Practice: A Development Education Review, 13, 30–48. Drupka, K., & Brien, K. (2013). Educating for Gross National Happiness: A new paradigm for education in Bhutan. Antistasis, 3(2), 11–15. Gutierrez, D. (2008). Beyond disappointment: Transforming ideology and practice in North-South research partnerships. NORRAG News, 41, 19–21. Gyamtso, D.  C., Sherab, K., & Maxwell, T.  W. (2017). Teacher learning in changing professional contexts: Bhutanese teacher educators and the Educating for GNH initiative. Cogent Education, 4(1), 1384637. https://doi.org/10.1080/2331186X.2017.1384637 Kiggundu, E. M., & Nayimuli, S. T. (2009). Teaching practice: A make or break phase for student teachers. South African Journal of Education, 29(3), 345–358. Magolda, P. (2001). Border crossings: Collaboration struggles in education. Journal of Educational Research, 94(6), 346–358. Marikina, M. (2018). Gross domestic product or gross national happiness–which is the better alternative for economic measurement? In Economic and social development: Book of proceedings (pp. 188–193). University of National and World Economy. Matorevhu, A. (2019). Partnerships in mathematics and science teacher preparation in Zimbabwe. International Journal on Teaching and Learning Mathematics, 2(2), 39–51. Ministry of Education. (2014). Bhutan Education Blueprint 2014–2024. Rethinking Education. Retrieved from https://www.globalpartnership.org/sites/default/files/bhutan_education_ blueprint_2014-­2024.pdf Mohanty, A., & Dash, D. (2018). Bridging the gaps between school curriculum and teacher education Programme in India: A sustainable approach. Journal of Education, Society and Behavioural Science, 26(3), 1–11. Robinson, M. (2016). Professional practice schools as a form of school-university partnership in teacher education: Towards a social justice agenda. Education as Change, 20(2), 11–26. Royal Education Council. (2019). Annual report. Royal Education Council. Retrieved from https:// rec.gov.bt/annual-­reports/ Sandholtz, J. H. (2002). In-service training or professional development: Contrasting opportunities in a school/university partnership. Teaching and Teacher Education, 18(7), 815–830. Sapam, R., & Ratna, D. R. (2019). Education in Bhutan: An observation from sustainability perspective. Journal of Critical Reviews, 6(3), 55–59. Smith, K. (2016). Partnerships in teacher education-going beyond the rhetoric, with reference to the Norwegian context. Center for Educational Policy Studies Journal, 6(3), 17–36. Tobgay, S. (2014). Education system in Bhutan-past, present and future a reflection. Retrieved from https://www.judiciary.gov.bt/publication/educationCJB.pdf Ura, K. (2015, December). The experience of GNH as development framework (ADB South Asia Working Paper Series, No. 42). Asian Development Bank.

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Ura, K., Alkire, S., Zangmo, T., & Wangdi, K. (2012). A short guide to gross national happiness index. The Centre for Bhutan Studies. Van Velzen, C., Bezzina, C., & Lorist, P. (2009). Partnerships between schools and teacher education institutes. In becoming a teacher educator (pp. 59–73). Springer. Wooten, R. (2000). “The curriculum: Misalignment or” missed-alignment? In Building diversity in the university and the community-fifth annual National Conference (p. 26). Digital Commons@ University of Nebraska. Zangmo, S. (2014). A gross national happiness infused curriculum: The promise of a more meaningful education in Bhutan. Master thesis. Western Michigan University. Zeichner, K. (2010). Rethinking the connections between campus courses and field experiences incollege- and university-based education. Journal of Teacher Education, 61(1–2), 89–99. Kinzang Dorji is a teacher educator of Samtse College of Education (SCE), at the Royal University of Bhutan (RUB). He began his teaching career as a Biology teacher and mostly served in lower and higher secondary schools in different parts of Bhutan (2000–2003). During his tenure as secondary education teacher, he contributed a great deal to students’ emotional and psychological well-being through pastoral care, inculcation of values, attitudes and citizenship. He joined the college as a full time Lecturer in 2005, after having acquired his master degree in Botany from the University of New England, Australia. Kinzang Dorji earned his PhD in Freshwater Ecology from the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Australia in 2016. Dr. Dorji’s ongoing 16 years of university-level teaching involves multi-disciplinary teaching areas such as Teaching Methods; Environmental Education; Functional Information Technology; Educational Research; besides core modules in Biological sciences. His multi-disciplinary areas of teaching at both undergraduate and post-graduate levels add value in designing and developing programme specific modules for any new programme in the college. He serves as a Programme Leader for Postgraduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) programme.  

Nandu Giri is Professor at Samtse College of Education, Royal University of Bhutan. He has 35  years of enriching experiences in teaching, designing and reviewing curriculum for teacher training college and schools. He has worked very closely with the Royal Education Council of Bhutan in designing the school curriculum. He has written science textbooks for grade 4–8 students. He has conducted several professional development workshops for teacher educators and school teachers. His teaching subjects include research methods, science education, teaching methods besides core modules in chemistry at undergraduate and post graduate level. He has also served as Dean of student affairs. Apart from his role in the university teaching, designing and reviewing programmes, currently he serves as a Programme Leader for Master of Education in Chemistry (MEd) programme.  

Chapter 4

Risks and Drivers of Success in Higher Education Partnerships in Conflict Contexts: A German-Iraqi Partnership in Times of Isolation and Displacement and First Steps Towards Recovery Heike Wendt, Felix Senger, Ankita Singh, Anwar Alfaidhi, and Raeed Alnumman

Abstract  Higher education partnerships have the potential to bring benefits to the collaborating partners. Nevertheless, power asymmetries mean that they are regarded with scepticism when it comes to North-South collaboration. In this chapter, we present the unique case of such a partnership where the southern partner is not only short of resources but also located in a conflict-ridden region. The case of a special German-Iraqi partnership provides an interesting opportunity to examine a higher education partnership with a focus on peacebuilding initiatives. In doing so, we develop a framework for the risk and success factors that explain the dynamics of North-South higher education partnerships (N-S HEPs). Based on analysis of the reflections of some of the key participants, we found that the success of and risks to higher education partnerships for peacebuilding are not merely determined by security concerns. Rather, a complex array of dynamics, both within and between the partnering organizations, play a role in illustrating when such collaboration might be successful and what factors may pose risks to its success.

H. Wendt (*) · A. Singh Faculty of Environmental, Regional and Educational Sciences, University of Graz, Graz, Austria e-mail: [email protected] F. Senger Faculty of Spatial Planning, TU Dortmund University, Dortmund, Germany A. Alfaidhi Faculty of Sciences, Mosul University, Mosul, Iraq R. Alnumman Faculty of Engineering, Mosul University, Mosul, Iraq © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 K. Otrel-Cass et al. (eds.), Partnerships in Education, Transdisciplinary Perspectives in Educational Research 5, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98453-3_4

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Keywords  University partnerships · North-south collaboration · Peacebuilding · Transformative partnerships · Risks

Introduction There is a vast array of literature on the importance of higher education partnerships (HEPs) and their benefits to participating institutions and context (Hagenmeier, 2015, 2018; Maringe & de Wit, 2016; Milton, 2018a; Pherali & Lewis, 2017, 2019). In HEPs the partnering institutions come together to leverage the complementary capacity they bring on board. However, HEPs also face a variety of challenges that may affect the partners, the partnership or the achievement of the goals of cooperation. HEPs between foreign universities and countries afflicted by conflict are increasingly proposed as a way of developing higher education in such regions (Milton, 2018a; Pherali & Lewis, 2019). Pherali and Lewis (2017, p.  13) argue that they might be able to facilitate knowledge exchange and the development of research ideas and promote innovative ways of addressing economic, political and social challenges in the era of globalization. However, their potential for peacebuilding processes and reconstruction, and the accompanying risks, have not been discussed or analysed. Based on reflections on the current Rethink Science and Education in Iraq (RESI) HEP between TU Dortmund Germany (TUD) and University of Mosul Iraq (UoM), we identify risk and success factors which might affect international university collaborations in general and are particularly crucial for N-S HEP. We propose a framework where we identify how internal and external factors can facilitate and inhibit the partnership at individual and institutional level, and differentiate between the immediate effects (input), process and final outcomes of the cooperation. The chapter is organized into two major sections: the first section discusses existing theories relating to HEPs and the second section presents the findings of analysis of the current RESI project. We begin by discussing the HEP and its transformative potential, particularly when such partnerships are forged between institution/s in a region afflicted by conflict. We propose a framework of salient factors that can affect the course and outcome of the partnership. Thereafter we illustrate the unique case of the RESI partnership, and in the light of theoretical analysis we present the findings and conclude the chapter with a discussion of them.

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 igher Education Institutions and Their H Transformative Potential Universities, as institutions for higher education and research, have existed around the world for more than a millennium. With their tripartite mission of supporting individual development, promoting knowledge creation and providing services to society, universities contribute to the development both of their local regions and of society as a whole (Millican, 2018; Pasternack, 2002). Violent conflicts in their immediate surroundings can impede universities’ capacity to function and may have devastating effects on education and research at universities, impacting on their physical, human, institutional and social circumstances (Barakat & Milton, 2015). Physically, universities may be affected through destruction, looting or occupation of buildings and other relevant infrastructure (Reddy, 2005). Even after the crisis, the physical reconstruction of a university depends primarily on the allocation of government resources and the flow of development aid to the sector. It has been argued that this significantly impedes not only the reconstruction of university infrastructure but also strategic planning (El-Ghali et al., 2010). Institutionally, universities often face a shortfall in finances and other resources, making it hard for them to perform basic functions. Both personnel and students at universities in areas affected by conflict are frequently forced to take refuge in, or expelled to, areas that are a long way from their universities; they may be targets of violent attacks or even assassinations (Krieger, 2007; Milton & Barakat, 2016). Consequences of conflicts in terms of universities’ social structure may include the challenges of integrating refugee students, dealing with large numbers of traumatized students and providing equal access for all social groups (Milton, 2013, 2018a). Nonetheless, in the aftermath of conflict-situations, universities are asked to contribute expertise to support reconstruction and reconciliation processes and a growing body of research emphasizes the role of universities in peacebuilding and post-conflict development (Davies, 2004; Milton, 2013, 2018a; Omeje, 2014, 2015). Higher education institutions (HEIs) can play a crucial role in integrating regions torn apart by sectarian conflict and help convince disaffected sections of society of the merits of nation building. Studies have shown that HEIs can contribute to social cohesion internally (through the people involved in them) and externally (through territory surrounding them) (Aranguren et  al., 2016; Caleiro, 2018; Faine et  al., 2016). HEI plays a bigger role in the territory through the positive effect on students of acquiring education, which has a positive impact on the surrounding territory/ society. HEI enhances employment opportunities and furthers economic activities as an institution in its own right, through its research and through the provision of education and training that enhances human capital (Pusztai & Hatos, 2012; Rego et al., 2012, 2014), which is of particular importance in the regions where networks are weak in comparison to more robust territories (Rego et  al., 2012). Reducing disparities between regions and hence ensuring justice and sustainability may support peacebuilding (Tvrdon, 2012). Outcomes of higher education such as responsible citizenship and economically relevant skills have been identified as the basic

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requirement for administrative reform in post-conflict-contexts (Ghani et al., 2005). HEIs are also important for cohesive societies (Baltazar et al., 2011), playing a critical role in the creation of social capital, social inclusion and social mobility (OECD, 2011). HEI are also places where young minds interact with each other, creating social capital, and acquire ethical norms, contributing to the creation of common good (Heuser, 2007). Hence universities “play an important role in promoting understanding between social groups and building a sense of unity in diverse societies” (Heyneman et al., 2007, p. 55). Additionally, it is argued that universities contribute to the development of citizenship, by serving as arenas where young people can engage in non-violent conflict resolution and discourse (den Boer & van der Borgh, 2011; Feuer et al., 2013; Pherali & Lewis, 2019). However, universities’ ability to contribute to conflict contexts has also been questioned. Samson Milton, (Milton, 2018b; Milton & Barakat, 2016) argues that, especially in countries that have undergone liberal peace-building transformations, universities might be unable to catch up with the requirements of the new economic systems (Milton, 2018b) and successful graduation may not lead to successful integration into the labour market (Barakat & Urdal, 2009; Urdal, 2004, 2006). In this case, opportunity costs to younger people of participating in violent conflict might be relatively low and universities themselves may become settings for conflicts, with student political activity leading to civil disobedience and unrest (Milton, 2013; Thyne, 2006; Warden, 2011). Inequalities in access to higher education for different social groups may amplify conflicts (Academics at risk, 2020). Furthermore, universities’ institutional practices and organizational characteristics, and their relationships with the societies of which they are a part, can foster and inhibit post-­ conflict recovery processes (Barakat et al., 2013; Bush & Saltarelli, 2000; Milton, 2018a; Smith & Vaux, 2003). Higher education may contribute to conflict transformation through changes in individuals, structures and relationships within society (Wilson, 2017). However, it is arguable that the credibility of higher education in this context depends largely on the transformation of universities’ internal organisational structures. Institutional and social reconstruction is a lengthy and complex process as universities are pluralistic organizations (Jarzabkowski, 2003) with loosely coupled systems (Weick, 1976) and whose professional and cultural characteristics are influenced by their environment. According to the dynamic organizational systems model (Burke & Litwin, 1992) the challenge is to implement the required transformational change in interaction with external forces, leading to changes in the interactions between people and groups within the institution. Studies also outline the importance of environmental events/factors in strengthening and legitimising top management, particularly where they are linked to possible increases in resources – human, technical or financial – or to the development of organizational processes (Normann, 1977). It should also be kept in mind that the professional bureaucratic nature (Mintzberg, 1983) of universities makes them peculiarly resistant to change. Behavioral inertia is the tendency to preserve the existing organisational structure, even when it is clearly inefficient and unsuited (Rumelt, 1995, p.  103) to “new official goals” after a crisis. According to the

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interactive strategic planning model (Nickols, 2004), an organization’s ability to manage change depends largely on its intrinsic structure and the management therefore needs to devise a system conducive to the adaptation of routines and practices. Research shows that for change processes to be effective, resource development, organisational learning and power management need to be aligned (Rebora & Turri, 2010), creating a virtuous circle with energy deriving from multiple links with the external context. Leaders who wish to activate change processes have to be prepared to relate to internal and external events and use them as a stimulus and source of energy. In addition, certain types of stakeholders and collaboration may play decisive roles in the success of projects: the literature highlights the importance of change agents with a transboundary role, both inside and outside universities, for risk mitigation and successful change management (Buller, 2015; Leiber, 2019; McGrath et al., 2016). By establishing a link between the university and the external environment, such stakeholders significantly increase resources and facilitate transformation. The constant presence of change agents/actors within local administrations and external bodies immensely enhances relations between participating institutions and the external world.

Framework of Inhibiting and Facilitating Factors in HEPs The role HEPs can play in post-conflict-development is not much touched on in literature (Milton, 2013). According to guidelines on good practices in educational partnerships written by Africa Unit (2010) a partnership is defined as a “dynamic collaborative process between educational institutions that brings mutual though not necessarily symmetrical benefits to the parties engaged in the partnership” (p.  18). According to Foskett (2013), partnerships can be seen as “a grouping of interested and skilled people from a range of organizations which are working together to tackle major problems (mainly identified by the political agenda)” and are ideally characterized by “mutuality and benefit” as well as changes in “process, product or output as a result of the partnership” (p. 141 f.). In general, HEPs lead to increased international visibility and reputation, synergies through the sharing of resources and modernization of research and teaching (Hénard et al., 2012). All the intended outcomes listed above might be especially relevant for southern partners in post-conflict contexts.

Factors Influencing Higher Education Partnerships However, the extent to which HEPs may support post-conflict development depends on the scope and quality of the partnership itself. To improve understanding of the influencing factors, Hagenmeier (2018) introduced a distinction between partners within the same geographic region (usually referred to as South-South cooperation

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in higher education) and partnerships where one of the partners is located in the Global South and the other in what is referred to as the Global North or West. It is argued that South-South partnerships “leverage their respective strengths for [the] mutual benefit and facilitate endogenous development in higher education” (Hagenmeier, 2018 p. 2). North-South partnerships are believed to be favourable for the development of teaching capacity, knowledge production through joint scientific research, curriculum development and academic programs, which immediately tackle issues of conflicts and fragility (Pherali & Lewis, 2017). Literature looking at these types of partnerships in higher education (also sometimes referred to as university development cooperation) discusses a variety of factors affecting the nature of cooperation, outcomes and the individuals involved, both positively and negatively. Building on the literature, in Tables 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, 4.6 and 4.7 we list facilitating or inhibiting aspects of internal and external factors that influence HEPs at the individual and institutional level, differentiating immediate effects (input), process and final outcomes of cooperation. As internal and external factors are context-specific and dynamic, we do not further classify factors and related aspects. Aspects that are specifically relevant to asymmetries pertaining to North-­South relationships or projects involving partners from societies affected by conflict are highlighted in the tables and further discussed in section “Risks in higher education partnerships”.

Table 4.1  Influence of place and features inhibiting or facilitating individual or institutional involvement in the partnership

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Table 4.2  Influence of money received through the partnership and related guidelines and restrictions inhibiting or facilitating individual or institutional involvement in the partnership

Geographic Location North-South partnerships can be defined as differences in geographical location that provide access to other world regions. How differences in geographic access may inhibit or facilitate individual involvement in the partnership is listed in Table 4.1, with factors of special relevance for conflict contexts highlighted in bold. Larsen (2017), drawing on spatial/mobility theory, highlights the source of inequality here, where “HEP parties and academics are compelled to work within and across (…) transnational spaces utilizing physical, virtual and communicative travel” (p. 208) but due to differences in geographies and access, which she refers to as network capital, are very uneven in meeting this requirement. Therefore, it is important to acknowledge that geographies also result in unequal access to resources required to ensure access to a specific world region, such as travel funds, visas or social connections.

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Table 4.3  Influence of project content, goals and activities at individual and intuitional level

Funding Funding may also become a major differentiating factor in North-South partnerships, coming from a national or supranational institution from the North, as HEPs are part of a bigger development strategy within donor countries (Gaillard, 2001; Hagenmeier, 2015, 2018). We list related inhibiting or facilitating factors at the micro and meso level in Table 4.2. A major challenge for the partnership, as Koehn (2013) found, is that the content of the partnership might be very much shaped by the donors’ funding framework and the foreign policy of donor host countries, leading to activities that are not aligned with the needs of Southern partners. Besides, short term funding and limited attention from policymakers may hinder the sustainable development of an educational partnership (Carbonnier & Kontinen, 2015). Hydén (2016) found that national context could play a decisive role here. Based on an analysis of such corporations, she showed clear national differences in the rationales, strategies and aims of funding schemes for such partnerships. Whereas some donor countries and organizations aimed to foster change through educational/cultural influence, for others – including Germany – developmental transformation was the main motivation. Another important difference was that some donors targeted

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Table 4.4  Influence of capacity at individual and institutional level

collaboration at institutions and others at individuals. Differences were found to be strongly related to the foreign policy of the donor country (Altbach & Peterson, 2007; Trilokekar, 2010). Different roles in projects often result in differences in project administration, budget management and possibly in the distribution of power within the project. Another challenge for the partnership arises from the different roles partners may take in proposal writing and financial project management, as donors often want universities from the North to be the lead partners. Baud & Post (2002) argue that

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Table 4.5  Influence of status and prestige at individual and institutional level

this leads to the partner from the Global North being in control of which/whose questions are raised and receiving most if not all of the funding. Initial asymmetries may emerge or be intensified. Table 4.3 lists inhibiting and facilitating factors at micro and meso level. Capacity According to Bradley (2007) asymmetry can also become evident in the resources and capacity of partner institutions, including expertise, infrastructure, skills, access to knowledge and information. Table 4.4 lists inhibiting and facilitating factors at micro and meso level. Big inequalities and intercultural differences are often seen as a major constraint on the success of North-South partnerships and include language barriers (Rieckmann, 2011), different research cultures and expectations as regards reporting, communication and evaluation (Pherali & Lewis, 2019).

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Table 4.6  Influence of individual and institutional roles, relationships and communication on the partnership

Status and Prestige North-South HEPs may be also affected by the status, prestige and culture attributed to partner institutions and the partnership itself. Table  4.5 shows inhibiting and facilitating factors at the micro and meso level. In universities the role of status and prestige is decisive because unlike private companies, universities “do not seek exclusively to maximize profits or to minimize costs and their behaviour seems to be driven to a large extent by the goal of achieving prestige, status and quality” (Gonzalez Sauri & Rossello, 2019, p. 4). In processes that are mediated through a global system of university rankings, the status and prestige of a university might, in turn, have an effect on its stance regarding the production of knowledge (Collyer, 2013), the attraction of students (Dearden et al., 2019), the success of their academics on the international job market (Amsler & Bolsmann, 2012; Gonzalez Sauri & Rossello, 2019) or even the success of companies founded as “academic spinoffs” of universities, (Civera & Meoli, 2018) to name but a few. Internationalization efforts have been characterized as playing an important role in improving the status and prestige of participating universities, whereas conversely “status anxiety” might also impede the internationalization of universities (Grove, 2016). In North-South cooperation, the former is more likely to hold true for the Southern partner, whereas the latter is more likely to be a concern of the Northern partner. Perceptions of the value of a partnership and joint work on an international project may therefore be very different.

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Table 4.7  Influence of project management factors at individual and institutional level

Roles, Relationships and Communication The literature also suggests that roles, relationships and communication have an impact on HEPs. Ownership, respect, trust, transparency, reciprocity, intercultural competencies, sincerity, voluntary participation, clarity and openness are all mentioned as critical success factors for HEPs (Africa Unit, 2010; Dye et  al., 2004; Mikkola & Snellman, 2006). Table 4.6 lists inhibiting and facilitating factors at the micro and meso level and indicates how they play out throughout the duration of the project. Project Management Factors A large amount of literature highlights the importance of project management for successful HEPs. Chou (2012, p. 86 referring to Barnett, 2010) emphasizes the following factors: Involvement of top-level leadership in decision-making; alignment

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of goals with community needs; an effective public relations campaign; strategic planning and the development of long-term goals; and effective management and staffing structure; shared decision making and local ownership; shared recognition and credit for all personnel involved; appropriate and well-timed resourcing; intensive technical assistance; formal written agreements; and patience. Table 4.7 lists the factors and indicates how they play out at the micro and meso level throughout the duration of the project.

Risks in Higher Education Partnerships With regard to HEPs, we argue that two types of risk need to be considered, namely a) the risk of not achieving the desired or hoped-for results, which may result in the termination of the partnership; and b) the risks to the security and well-being of involved partners. Risk management literature builds on organizational and project management approaches and proposes an array of strategies and tools to avoid the first kind of risk and thus reduce the chances of the partnership failing (Beecher & Streitwieser, 2019; Irazábal et al., 2015). As shown in section “Factors influencing higher education partnerships” a number of internal and external factors can influence HEPs at the individual and institutional level and at various points during a partnership, with some factors being specific to North-South partnerships (see highlighted factors in Tables 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, 4.6 and 4.7). Those factors may become additional challenges and may prevent institutions and individuals from achieving the desired results. We argue that it is important to distinguish between individual and institutional level factors since they will have differential effects on the resources required for project implementation, ongoing processes throughout the project and the results and impact of the project. Furthermore, in many cases, the risk and success factors listed implicitly include the opposite effect: the lack of a risk factor could contribute to the success of the project whereas a shortage of success factors might lead to the project being at risk. Hence, Tables 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, 4.6 and 4.7 should be seen as an exemplary classification giving an overview of potential risks and success factors affecting university collaborations. The risks aspects mentioned have the potential to inhibit collaboration both initially impede the success of the project once it is underway and negatively impact on the results in generally; this applies to all partnerships and not exclusive to North-South partnerships (Hagenmeier, 2015, 2018; Maringe & de Wit, 2016). Of particular relevance where a HEP involves unequal partners is the fact that risks may be unequal for the partners, or be perceived by them as such. Whereas a large number of risk factors may have relevance for any HEP, another notion of the associated risks is of particular relevance for partnerships with institutions in conflict contexts, namely risks relating to “a dangerous situation” (Cambridge Dictionary, 2020). These comprise factors related to the security and well-being of all individuals involved with the collaboration. Factors related to

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geographic location (see section “Geographic location”) are of major importance here. Depending on the accessibility of the locations of joint activities and the infrastructure concerned, travel may be associated with risk. Political contexts define how a higher education partnership is perceived; this depends largely on national affiliations, foreign policy, travel restrictions and the mission and policies of partner institutions themselves. In conflict situations, nationality or perceived affiliation to certain political actors may pose a risk to life, or involve risks of imprisonment, abduction, harassment etc. for the academics in question. Depending on the political and legal situation, academic freedom may be restricted and activities that are considered an integral part of academic scholarship in one country may be judged as political activity or provocation in another. The contravention of legal and cultural norms may also have severe consequences for individuals and institutions. Individuals involved in HEPs may be differently affected depending on the nature of specific conflicts. How these factors play out is not well documented or discussed in the literature.

Method Research Questions The literature review set out in the two preceding sections with reference to the discourse around the roles of universities in conflict-affected areas and the asymmetries that tend to occur in North-South collaborations suggests that there is a lack of research on the specific success and risk factors that affect collaboration between universities based in northern and southern countries, where the latter are affected by conflict. Most of the literature reviewed considers contexts where conflicts are only distant factors in the wider perspective. This might especially be the case because a stable environment tends to be considered a prerequisite for successful international cooperation. As will be shown, the HEP between TU Dortmund University in Germany and Mosul University in Iraq provides a rare opportunity for such analysis. To further understand risk factors for higher education partnerships in conflict contexts we ask the following questions: (a) In the view of core participants in the collaboration, what are the main risks to the success of the project and to them personally? (b) How do these risks affect cooperation between universities? (c) What are the factors might help overcome the resulting obstacles and lead to the successful implementation of the project? In order to examine the research questions, the members of the RESI project scientific committee were interviewed. Seven in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with the core players who had participated in the partnership over a

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five-­year period, two from the German and five from the Iraqi side of the partnership. German interviewees were core participants in project management, representing different gender, age and status. The Iraqi interviewees were professors at UoM from a range of faculties, representing different gender, age, social group and status. They all had central roles in project coordination and implementation, each running a network of about 30–50 academics who were involved in various activities in their respective academic fields. On average, the interviews lasted for 89 minutes. Due to travel restrictions in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, these interviews were undertaken via video phone calls and, with permission, recorded; whenever participants were not comfortable, recording was stopped and their points noted down. Interviews took place primarily in English, which is the working language of the partnership. Interview guidelines with questions in both Arabic and English was shared with all participants about a week prior to the interview. Where participants expressed themselves in Arabic, recordings were later translated into English. Participants have been anonymized in both transcription and analyses in order to protect their identity. The primary data was supplemented with archival reports and documents from various sources for the purposes of triangulation. The interviewers came from the Northern side of the N-S HEP and were aware of the role that power asymmetries can play in data collection. It appeared likely that interviewees would be cautious in expressing themselves freely or commenting openly on partners, since the collaboration was still underway at the time of data collection. Conflicts at various levels within the University and the wider surroundings are only mentioned in generalized terms in order to protect interviewees. The resulting categories and framework were made available to interviewees to enable them to check the validity of the findings and the interpretation, and their feedback was taken into account. All the interviews were transcribed into English and content analysis was undertaken (Mayring, 2002) using MAXQDA software. In order to include the northern perspective we drew on written reports, notes and reflections on the project from the northern side of the N-S HEP; these had been written after major activities and also included annual reports, documentation and accountability information presented to the funding agency, and comprised a total of 125 pages. Data analysis led to the emergence of the following four final categories: status and prestige, access, sovereignty, and participants. These categories were generated deductively through an iterative process involving a team of researchers, which ensured validity of the findings. Interviews were coded in close consultation with the extant literature on N-S cooperation and the emerging themes were refined accordingly.

Context In the following section, we will discuss risks that can arise in higher education partnerships, drawing on examples from a unique German-Iraqi HEP between TUD and UoM. It was initiated in 2015 with a view to supporting the development of UoM at a time of displacement due to the occupation of the university infrastructure

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by ISIS, and to facilitate transformation in the aftermath. To provide some political background, the situation of UoM and the HEP is explained in the section below. The Situation of the University of Mosul Since 2003 Mosul University is the second-largest university in Iraq and is located in Mosul, the second-largest city in Iraq. The society in which UoM is embedded has been characterized by numerous conflicts, both on the political stage and in the form of violent military confrontations, that date back well before the downfall of the Saddam Hussein regime in 2003. Four wars in four decades and more than ten years of severe sanctions played a big role in the destruction of infrastructure. Fundamentalism combined with elements of Arab nationalism and xenophobia towards many religious and ethnic groups in Iraq and beyond provided ideological foundations for these conflicts (Sazonov & Ploom, 2019). The violent measures targeted not only the most vulnerable elements of society, such as members of minority groups and women, but also the academic elite (Dawisha, 2013; Krieger, 2007). The turbulent context did not just emerge as an immediate consequence of the rise of ISIS but has its roots in much older power struggles and resentments. As one of the oldest and largest universities in Iraq, UoM has always been and remains on the frontline of these conflicts. This has a significant impact on the quality of teaching, equality of academic opportunity and academic life in general. More than once over the past 20 years, UoM academic staff and students, like academics elsewhere in Iraq, were threatened with assassination and kidnapping, and even forced to flee the city or the country. The resulting brain-drain and embargo meant subsequent generations of teaching staff received a lower quality of training, which was also affected by the looting or destruction of infrastructure in some cases (Krieger, 2007; Reddy, 2005). For UoM, the situation intensified when ISIS approached the university campus to seize the city in 2014. Mosul, which had been a multi-ethnic and multi-religious city of about 2 million citizens, turned into a dark city of heat and death and was until recently considered one of the most dangerous cities in the world; only 1 million citizens remain. Many students and academics died or lost family members during the terror; the crimes of mass murder, ethnic cleansing, enslavement, abduction and mass rape against the Yazidi, Christian and Shia minorities have been officially recognized as genocide. Members of all non-Arab and non-Sunni Muslim communities were systematically targeted and many were directly affected by torture, death threats or other forms of violence and forced to flee their homes, losing all their belongings. Under occupation, civilians within the city suffered a regime of terror (including looting, mass executions, abduction, imprisonment, death threats, bans and curfews, lack of medication and basic facilities, bombings and shootings, and religious indoctrination) with traumatizing effects on almost everyone. At the University, buildings were turned into chemical factories for the development of new lethal weapons. The destruction of University infrastructure went further, with the main library and the university printing press being prominent casualties of the

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conflict with ISIS, which lasted until the city was liberated by Iraqi government forces in 2017 (Fox, 2017; Murray, 2017); however, liberation itself also contributed further to the destruction. ISIS not only (mis)used the educational infrastructure but also took over the functioning parts of Mosul’s education system (Arvisais & Guidère, 2020), introducing its own curricula (Olidort, 2016). Students were not just taught fundamental religious values and given military training; they were also educated to become keepers of morals at home. On the basis of UNICEF data, Arvisais & Guidère (2020) estimated that over 45,000 children and young adults living in the Nineveh region were enrolled in a school in the ISIS-occupied area. Responding to the actions of ISIS, the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research published a decision cancelling exams that had been due to be held in regions under ISIS control, deeming education in those regions to be null and void, and calling upon students to continue their education in other ‘free’ Iraqi cities. In return, ISIS issued legal opinions (fatwas) pronouncing government education provided in Iraqi and Syrian schools and universities infidel. Students and teachers who participated in the government education system or refused to participate in the new ISIS system risked severe punishments, ranging from public flogging to partial or total expropriation of property to the death penalty (Arvisais & Guidère, 2020). Since about half the population including students and academics fled the Mosul region in 2014, the decision was taken to run UoM as a university in exile within the Kurdish autonomous region in northern Iraq. Around 1200 lecturers and 10,000 B.A., M.A. and PhD students from 22 different faculties were involved. Engineering and sciences classes were taught in the city of Kirkuk, humanities classes in Duhok and Sumel and some medicine lectures in Zakho. Other students continued their studies at universities in cities within the Iraqi central state such as Baghdad and Basra. After liberation from ISIS in 2017, UoM resumed its work on the campus. However, there are considerable shortcomings in terms of infrastructure, money for reconstruction and qualified personnel. Academic life in particular has suffered since a considerable proportion of students and teaching staff still live in Iraqi Kurdistan and commute 70 kilometres per day, due to ongoing security issues. Teaching staff and students continue to be significantly affected by the psychological and physical consequences of the conflict. At the same time, there is a strong wish for normality and revival of the university campus, and to re-establish academic life (Placket, 2018). RESI-Project: A German-Iraqi University Cooperation The RESI-Project is university-level cooperation between TUD (Germany), the UoM (Iraq) and since 2019 Graz University (Austria) established in 2015 in reaction to the situation of UoM, which at the time was strongly affected by the ISIS occupation. Funding for the project comes from the German Academic Exchange Agency (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, or DAAD) which in turn is

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primarily financed by the German Federal Foreign Office. Germany is one of the largest donor countries globally when it comes to supporting Higher Education in low-income countries and puts a strong emphasis on institution building. This motivation is reflected in various programs proposed by DAAD, for instance as part of an overarching geopolitical strategy where university partnerships are deliberately used to foster the transformation of higher education institutions in middle-eastern countries. In addition to the building of long-term cooperation between German and Iraqi universities, the DAAD German-Iraqi University Partnerships program identifies as its core objectives the qualification of Iraqi lecturers, the modernization of the higher education system in Iraq, regional and international network building and the introduction of “good governance practices” to Iraqi universities (DAAD, 2020). The RESI project mirrored the DAAD strategic objectives, identifying its own objectives as follows (Wendt, 2020): 1. Academic exchange: Establishing an interdisciplinary and international network of academics to discuss core issues relating to challenges to reconstruction and reconciliation within Mosul, UOM and the region; 2. Capacity building: Supporting UoM lecturers with the development of their careers and in their teaching through the provision of insight into teaching and research at a German university, mentoring and academic exchange, attendance of workshops and training on forward-looking and internationally relevant topics and higher education teaching methods, and through collaboration and the building of trust and working relationships with academics from a German University. 3. Support for reconciliation within UoM by creating safe opportunities for learning and dialogue, in which Iraqi students of diverse backgrounds can learn about and discuss scientific theories and models in interdisciplinary student-centred, problem-oriented workshops and apply and transfer concepts to real-life challenges. 4. Support for network-building and interdisciplinary institutional structures within UoM and across universities in the region. Initially, the scope and criteria of the RESI-project were developed in partnership with the vice-president of UoM and his team between 2014 and 2015. At that time, the idea was to initiate a HEP that has an interdisciplinary focus and to foster activities that would promote dialogue, reconciliation and an appreciation of science at both staff and student level. The objectives were differentiated and developed further over time, but in essence remained the same. Over the years, project decisions were always discussed with both the scientific committee and the university presidency, but the proposal was written and discussed by the project leadership at TUD. TUD therefore also had final authority over both design and funding decisions on the basis of the criteria set out in the partnership agreement in line with the funding criteria. Activities aimed at achieving the objectives – the joint preparation, organization and conduct of four large-scale student conferences, which were attended by a total of about 1200 students of different academic backgrounds as

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well as by lecturers engaged in a range of academic fields. The visit to TUD was for many visitors the first time they had travelled outside of their own country. Collaboration began when Mosul and UoM were under ISIS occupation and university leadership was in exile in Duhok, a city in northern Iraq about 70 kilometres from Mosul but under Kurdish governance. At that time UoM was run by exiled university personnel and comprised only about 14,000 exiled students. UoM was supported by public universities in the Kurdistan region at various levels, through the granting of permission to use university facilities, for instance, or the acceptance of students as guest students. Under the partnership, prior to Mosul’s liberation it made sense to use other universities’ facilities for project activities, as none of the partners were able to travel to Mosul itself. Both partners already had a well-­ established HEP with Duhok University, and given the fact that the UoM leadership was based in the city and had a good relationship with Duhok University, that institution’s facilities presented a convenient location for project activities. With the liberation of Mosul, the political decision was taken to reopen UoM only a few months later in late 2017, as a symbolic act and to promote the return of displaced staff and students. Today the university is once again serving up to 40,000 students. As of now 2020/2021 the project activities of both programmes are largely curtailed by the COVID-19 pandemic, which make it impossible to engage in personal, face-to-face international encounters. Online activities such as webinars and conferences have proven not to be sufficient for achieving the project’s objectives. Nonetheless, the project partners are working on developing the project further and are in continuous discussion.

Results As pointed out in section “Framework of inhibiting and facilitating factors in HEPs” of this chapter, the extant literature highlights a variety of factors that might lead to tensions and conflicts in N-S HEP projects. In the light of this and our interview analysis, we identified the risks, areas of tension and drivers of success for the project. The risks were primarily related to the security and well-being of partners and the non-achievement for the desired and hoped-for results, which could lead to a termination of the partnership. The risks were partly related to the context but emanated mainly from the differences between partners, which have also been identified in the literature as one of the inhibiting factors for North-South HEPs. We will further discuss the areas of tension with regard to status and prestige, geographical and social access, conceptual sovereignty, funding and partners and participants. However, rather than considering them as distinct from one another, we view them as being intertwined over the course of the partnership. To ensure a balanced/holistic approach, we also distinguish drivers for success that can lead to effective project implementation despite the challenges.

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 isks Relating to the Security and Well-Being of Partners R and Participants Risks relating to the security and well-being of the partners were present from the very beginning of the partnership and included barriers caused by external factors and differing personal judgments on the security situation, and internal factors related to the activities organized by the partnership. Externally, the location of UoM in Iraq had a key impact on project activities over the years. The partnership started when the university itself was working in exile, without facilities or staff and with students who were displaced from their homes. The war and terror in the area meant that partners of the UoM, especially displaced people and those representing targeted minorities, were directly exposed to a serious threat to their security and well-being. Given the uncertainty about how wars develop, the commuting and crossing of checkpoints that was necessary for the university in exile to function was particularly dangerous if it involved displaced and targeted minorities. For partners from Germany and other parts of Europe, access to Iraq depended entirely on the evaluation of national security agencies. Travel warnings impacted on the granting of travel permits and the availability and affordability of travel insurance. In Germany, the decentralized governance structure and autonomy of higher education institutions meant that leaders of different universities had different interpretations of travel warnings from the ministry of foreign affairs and in consequence came to different judgements about whether to permit travel. Rapid changes in political developments made it almost impossible to follow regular application procedures for regular visas so the country was entered through the international airport in Erbil, where regional short-term visitors’ permits were granted upon entry. This brought the risk of being convicted of illegal migration if it became necessary to leave the region by a route other than the airport (for instance during the shutdown of the airport in 2018). In addition to official travel warnings, security evaluations and possible insurance coverage, the perception of security in Iraq on the part of academics from Europe remained a major challenge, and made many academics, especially those with families, reluctant to even consider visiting the partner country (project reports 2016, 2017 & 2018). For Iraqi participants, travel to Germany was characterized by security and financial risks. Depending on their residence, applicants were dealt with by the consulate in Erbil or the embassy in Baghdad. This required the academics to be ready to travel to Baghdad at short notice, which created a great deal of professional conflict as well security and financial challenges (as these costs were not covered by travel grants). Furthermore, the visa process for travel to Germany took several months and applicants were subjected to highly vigilant scrutiny by the German authorities: every academic had to undergo security procedures, with a negative outcome potentially leading to stigma. In addition, the periods of validity assigned to visa varied greatly throughout the project’s duration, making it necessary for core players with periodic travel obligations to reapply for visa on a regular basis.

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The project and activities themselves were associated with risk for the organizers as well as for the participants. The establishment of a partnership between UoM in exile and a German University entitled “Rethink Education and Science in Iraq after ISIS occupation” in 2015 – when ISIS was still controlling Mosul – was itself a pre-­ existing public statement against ISIS doctrine. The organizers of the public student conferences in 2016 and 2017 were concerned about the socio-political scenario. Some organizers, such as those from Germany or those representing targeted minorities, were worried about possibly becoming a target themselves. Bringing together young men and women of different backgrounds with lecturers and professors to discuss and debate concepts and their importance for reconstruction and reconciliation in the region was perceived as risky, but at the same time the advocacy of freedom of expression and peaceful coexistence was brave. The grim reality of the region did not dampen spirits and up to 450 students attended the conference. As is apparent from the quotes in Table 4.8, the organizers were concerned about their own security and the security of the students as well as the success of the program. The concerns and perceptions changed Table 4.8  Concerns expressed about program activities (selected quotes)

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Table 4.9  Changes in concerns, different perspectives (selected quotes)

over time with the political situation and as experience improved in the region, as shown in the quotes in Table 4.9.

Areas of Tension Affecting the Success of the Partnership Some of the risks observable in our partnership did not merely result from security issues and related aspects. It was not only tensions, which emerged particularly within the organisational structure of UoM but also between the partnering universities. As will be shown below, these tensions revolved around a variety of themes, such as physical access, funding, scope, project management and questions of status and prestige. Infrastructural Challenges or the Challenge of “Where to Meet When the University Is Not Accessible for All?” From the very beginning and throughout the course of the partnership questions of access to significant areas have been a constant issue. In 2018, the question of where joint activities could take place became a constant debate between the partner universities. UoM strongly expressed the wish to host activities at the campus in Mosul for a number of reasons (see Table 4.10; quotes 1&2), whereas TUD members could not attend activities in Mosul due to travel restrictions and insisted that joint activities had to involve both partners together. As a compromise, project activities were undertaken in parallel in both Mosul and Duhok, with conference output limited to virtual contributions, a shorter, more limited joint summary, and closing activities in Duhok (project report, 2018). Project coordination raised critical concerns from the German side concerning the quality of the activities, whilst the UoM leadership was burdened with symbolic, (“Our University is in Mosul, not in Duhok!” UoM president, meeting notes, 2018) organizational and financial costs. Consequently, organizational work associated with project activities was another major source of tension. Without proper office space and infrastructure, manual sorting of hundreds of students in the various lists became a huge task. The disagreement over the location of activities and meetings remained unresolved and had a significant impact on the project in general (notes of meeting between university presidents, 2019).

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Table 4.10  Reasons for relocating activities from Duhok to Mosul (selected quotes)

Funding, or the Challenge of “What Do You Have Money for?” Both partners were bound by funding constraints, which limited the scope of cooperation. The specific nature of the program required special funding (such as for venues or transport due to an inaccessible university, high cost due to the problems with long-term planning given unpredictable conditions, additional travel costs including insurance since regular policies did not provide cover) that was not covered in the broad funding scheme. Some participants simply decided to top-up their insurance privately. Insufficient funding for activities in Iraq thus became an area of tension. Since the funding scheme did not cover participants’ local travel costs or the costs of venues within Iraq, transporting students to venues and negotiating the use of venues for conference activities was a time-consuming job that also significant funding (e.g. to transport up to 450 students) and negotiations at several levels of university leadership. The budgetary requirements were met with the help of another German governmental organization, further adding to the documentary burdens. Another challenge was that travel costs would only be refunded when Iraqi partners reached Germany, which meant that almost all such costs had to be met in cash initially, as almost none of the Iraqi counterparts had an internationally accepted credit card. As visas were only granted very close to the intended travel date, travel costs were high, and could not be fully covered by the travel allowances reimbursed by the funding body (project report, 2018) (Table 4.11).  onceptual Sovereignty or the Challenge of “What Is the Scope C of the Cooperation?” Initially, the vision was for the partnership to have an interdisciplinary focus, fostering activities that would promote dialogue, reconciliation and the value of science at both staff and student level. This meant the rehabilitation of the university as a place of science and academic dialogue. As ISIS propaganda and rules are based on a totalitarian worldview that eschews political pluralism, competition, science and diversity, demonizes European and Western culture and criminalizes free thought and the idea of the “other”, and many Mosul students thus grew up in a powerful

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Table 4.11  Impact of inadequate funding on the project and activities (selected quotes)

ideological environment during the four years of occupation, the core aim became to bring young men and women of different backgrounds round the table with lecturers and professors, to discuss and debate academic concepts and their importance for reconstruction and reconciliation in the region. The quotes in Table 4.12 illustrate this. However, given the extensive destruction of the university, it was difficult to communicate the scope of the program, as can be seen in the quotes in Table 4.13. As one interviewee puts it: “I think the university hoped the programme would involve material support, but as we know, the DAAD does not provide funding for tools or equipment.” This was heightened when, after a change in university leadership in 2018, the new presidency expressed a strong desire to transform the partnership so that the University could profit more of the general attributes of a German Technical University (notes of meetings with the president and vice president, 2018 & 2019). Given that more concrete, infrastructural aims would have changed the whole nature of the project, some phases of the negotiation involved risks that the project and the program would not be able to continue.  roject Management or the Challenge of “Who Can Decide What P and When?” Another challenge for the project is the decision-making chain, or organizational differences between the partners in terms of how they arrange and situate the project within the university structure. At the UoM, the project is formally coordinated by an individual within the international affairs unit who reports directly to the presidency, and who has a number of other professional duties. At TUD the project is a third-party-financed project under the leadership of a university professor, with funding allowing for the appointment of a full-time project coordinator. UoM, on the other hand, is expected to cover the costs of a coordinator from its own budget. As one coordinator from the German side put it: “The situation with coordination of

4  Risks and Drivers of Success in Higher Education Partnerships in Conflict Contexts… Table 4.12  Core aims of activities in the words of the program organizers (selected quotes)

Table 4.13  Discussions relating to the scope of program activities (selected quotes)

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the project being an additional task alongside other responsibilities made it difficult to work as equal partners. (…) I often prepared all the documentation myself and everyone else just reviewed it (…) sometimes this led to misunderstandings and difficulties that came up at the last minute but could have been solved earlier.” At TUD, within the general collaboration and project agreements the project coordinator has relative autonomy, whereas at UoM almost every project task must be approved by the presidency. These differences resulted in asymmetry in terms of time, responsibilities, decision-making capacity and procedures, which led to difficulties. As one member reflects, “Each time I think, ‘That’s it. That’s the end,’ because we have a lot of problems, technical problems or logistical problems or some other problem. So, I think: This is the end. Maybe it’s going to end right now.” Status and Prestige or the Challenge of the Symbolic Value of Participation Due to the asymmetries between the two universities, the HEP was perceived as a cooperation between two unequal partners from its very inception. TUD views the partnership as being part of universities’ global social responsibility and appreciates the fact that it contributes to the university’s third-party funding indicators. Such perceptions are reflected in the degree of openness and enthusiasm of the TUD academics with regard to meeting colleagues from Iraq and participating in joint activities, and are understood by their Iraqi counterparts (see Table  4.14; Q7). From UoM’s perspective, cooperation with a German university is perceived as being crucial for the improvement of its own international reputation, research and teaching and for the enhancement of its international visibility. It can be seen that the Iraqi partners frequently perceived Germany and TUD as sophisticated, well organized and conceptually advanced (Table 4.15, Q8). The visit to the Northern partner was of different practical and symbolic value to the Southern partners, and was therefore associated with many positive emotions (see Table 4.15, Q1, Q3, Q6 & Q7). Given the limited opportunities to get a visa to travel outside Iraq, let alone to Europe, involvement in the project was also seen as special access to scarce resources. In combination with limited resources and the screening of participants to ensure they were representative, this was a challenge to the partnership from the beginning of the project. It could not be solved either by transparent selection processes and criteria or by careful review to ensure representative participation (project reports 2016 & 2017). UoM leadership regularly expressed the desire to change or rotate members of the core project team (steering committee), as it was seen to be unfair that only a few people would benefit from the collaboration in that regard (notes on meetings with university presidents, 2019). This ran counter to the fundamental aim of the project, which was to develop sustainable cooperation structures; these are built on professional and personal relationships and need to develop over time. Trust is a core value for overcoming conflicts that are encountered in newly formed intercultural partnerships, especially in the context of language barriers, a high degree of uncertainty and personal burdens due to crisis (project report, 2017). Only the extension of the cooperation with a second pillar, namely the Connect for

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Table 4.14  Reflections on the importance of the project for the universities (selected quotes)

Change program, 2017 (project report 2018), that allowed a further 60 visits annually, was able to resolve the situation. However, discussions on this matter and the introduction of the necessary procedures consumed a great deal of time for the partners over the years and limited the opportunities for academic exchange (project reports, 2017, 2018 & 2019). Although there was generally high demand to participate in a delegation traveling to Germany, it was difficult to find female applicants. Due to the embargo, only a few academics ever travelled abroad. For women with family responsibilities, especially younger academics with children, traveling abroad for work purposes was often not possible. Developing equitable activities and convincing female academics and their families took a great amount of time (Table 4.16; Q5). Travel to TUD provided professional opportunities to see, feel and discuss teaching and learning at a German university. To many visitors, all travel-­ related experiences (such as being on a flight, using public transport, using public

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Table 4.15  Reflections on the emotions of committee members from Southern partners when visiting the Northern partner (selected quotes)

Table 4.16  Reflections on issues related to the selection of participants for project activities (selected quotes)

services and restaurants or making use of English as a foreign language) felt a little overwhelming (see evaluation reports, 2017 & 2019).

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Drivers of Success As shown and argued in the previous sections, the project was associated with a number of risks from the beginning; these were primarily a function of the attributes/asymmetries the partners brought to the table. Security concerns, geographical factors, budget constraints, institutional reputations and challenges to project management resulted in tensions between the partners that at certain times risked the termination of the partnership. However, the interviews not only highlighted the challenges; the interviewees also emphasized the ways in which they considered the partnership to have been a success. They underscored the factors that served as success drivers and that motivated them to overcome challenges or put aside worries about risks. Our theoretical framework helped us to categorize these drivers as input, process and output factors, which also helped to promote timely reflection on the evolution of the collaboration. Input factors Table 4.17 shows the necessary basic factors mentioned; these are also widely discussed in the literature and include funding and strategic planning and the support of the presidencies of both partner universities. Input and training, as opportunities for learning and personal development, were also characterized as input factors, especially teaching methods and exchanges of views. But the most important driver for the project organizers emerged from the project itself and was the hope, if not belief, that they might be able to contribute to the rehabilitation of the university and reconciliation in the society. The quotes mentioned in Table 4.17 show the different implications this had for steering committee members. This highlights the importance of aligning project goals with institutional needs, especially in conflict contexts. Process Factors As discussed in section “Framework of inhibiting and facilitating factors in HEPs”, the literature underscores the crucial role played by management and interaction between partners in the success and survival of a partnership. Table 4.18 shows the management factors that were highlighted as key success factors, namely communication with the leadership, the steering committee as a central organisational structure, commitment from the participants in the collaboration network, and support from other universities and academics. The steering committee, as a cooperative executive management group, became an especially important structure for the success of the project, developing, executing and coordinating the organization of all project activities. However, enthusiasm, perseverance and the will to continue the collaboration emerged as one of the biggest drivers for success, as it quite often

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Table 4.17  Input factors highlighted as drivers of success (selected quotes)

led to a “now-more-than-ever” attitude and resilience. This resilience may originate primarily from the hardships many of the participating academics had to endure in their private and professional lives as a result of the crisis in their region and their strong hope and belief in the necessity of the activities and their positive outcome. In addition, the concept and the innovative nature of the activities was highlighted as being a key driver of success (see quotes in Table 4.19). It can be seen that the concept of the student conferences and the methods applied in them and other activities were judged as “new” by interviewees. Collaborative learning, context-­ relevant problem solving and student orientation were highlighted as being particularly innovative teaching methods. In addition, the communicative and democratic elements of the conferences were found to support the aims of dialogue and reconciliation, and to enhance student motivation. On the basis of this, it can be argued that the relative autonomy given to the steering committee as a group to develop the concepts for activities, but also the autonomy of each lecturer to work with a student group and apply the overall ideas in line with their own preferences, teaching aims and experience, served as a key success factor and ensured that activity planning was context-sensitive and flexible. Roles, relationships and communication were highlighted as important drivers of success (see Table 4.20). Teamwork characterized by mutual trust, understanding

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Table 4.18  Project management process factors highlighted as drivers of success (selected quotes)

and support was highlighted as being especially central for overcoming challenges. The joint work over the course of five years involved intercultural learning, personal growth and communication and cooperation skills, as well as knowledge. The acquaintances and relationships that developed were sometimes described as being “like in an extended family”. In addition, interviewees emphasized that feelings of responsibility for their students or as a representative of their institutions were important factors for their involvement. For some, especially representatives of possibly marginalized social groups, a sense of “pride” or “honor” of being involved in the international project was an important personal motivation. The perceived success of the program and positive recognition by participants and colleagues contributed to the resilience and perseverance discussed above. Outcomes As shown in sections “Input factors” and “Process factors”, belief in the importance and success of the activities and positive recognition by others were important input and process factors for the collaboration itself. In this section, therefore, we report

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Table 4.19  Process factors related to innovative activities as drivers of success (selected quotes)

on the outcomes highlighted as drivers of success. We distinguish between factors relating to the main target groups, namely the students involved in the activities and personal and institutional factors, where the interviewees expressed the belief that the act of collaborating itself had had an impact. Table 4.21 shows selected quotes highlighting different aspects related to student participation and student outcomes. Aspects emphasized here include positive experiences with regard to intergroup-­ relations, high participation rates and the interest of the students in the activities, which were reflected in improved student-student relationships, higher overall motivation and more positive self-concepts. The time, concept and relevance of the activities, especially the four student conferences (workshops) in 2017, 2018 and 2019, resulted in immediate and directly observable changes in the behaviour and attitudes of the students which had a lasting impact on student-student and student-­ lecturer relationships. Changes in participants had an impact on regular teaching and learning activities and were not only important outcomes in themselves but also supported the process of collaboration. To what extent the changes observed could be directly attributed to the activities is difficult to determine. However, given the lack of any other large-scale structured opportunity to encounter and engage in dialogue with students from different backgrounds, it is – in our view – plausible to

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Table 4.20  Process factors related to roles, relationships and communications as drivers of success (selected quotes)

claim that the conferences served as an important opportunity for nearly 1000 students and more than 120 lecturers to “break the ice” and talk to each other again. The interviewees also highlighted outputs at the institutional level (see Table 4.22). One observation was that the teaching methods and materials developed for and used in the workshop were transferred and integrated into regular teaching at the Southern partner university. Possibly a small indication that the partnership, as the donor wished, may bring about sustainable lasting change and modernize teaching and learning at the Southern partner institution. The other observation was the positive experience of participants from both partner institutions, and their increased self-confidence, that resulted from being involved in the partnership. Together with some personal outcomes, this can serve as an input factor for engaging in partnerships in the future. Personal values were transformed, as can be seen in the selected quotes in Tables 4.22 and 4.23, which refer to changes in personality, experiences and travel opportunities as well as academic outcomes. However,

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Table 4.21  Student-level outcomes highlighted as drivers of success (selected quotes)

everyone involved clearly stated that although personal outcomes were nice benefits, they were not the core drivers for their involvement.

Discussion Literature drawing on N-S HEPs has provided a comprehensive overview of risks relating to the program structures and activities in question as well as a variety of conducive factors, particularly with regard to project management, which might still

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Table 4.22  Institutional-level outputs highlighted as drivers of success (selected quotes)

Table 4.23  Personal outputs (selected quotes)

lead to successful project implementation. However, the theoretical implications of the literature reviewed for this book chapter seems not to be fully able to capture the complex dynamics arising from the interplay of individuals, processes and the external environment, which were particularly evident in academic partnerships where one of the partners is located in a conflict-affected area. The study presented here reflects on the experiences of core participants in this cooperation so far. Building on this, it aims to construct an initial theoretical framework for further research reflecting on the risks and success factors for HEPs, involving partners from conflict-affected areas in the global south. This framework addresses factors that have been highlighted as relevant in that context, including access to geographical areas and financial resources, which are key factors for international cooperation, especially in North-South HEPs, and may be very unequally distributed. Other factors include differences in organizational capacity, issues relating to the status and prestige of participating individuals and institutions, and decision making processes. These may not be as immediately decisive in determining the success or failure of project activities, but will have a significant effect on outcomes over the longer term. Consultation of the core participants in the long-standing HEP between TUD and UoM led to highly diverse reflections on the nature of factors affecting project input,

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process and results/impact, including at individual and institutional level. Security issues affecting the well-being of individuals involved in project activities was seen as a central risk factor, arising from the conflict context, but it was far from being the only one: social transformation processes, which were also mirrored in university organizational structures, led to changes in university leadership and administration that were sometimes disruptive. This was especially the case for areas where project-related processes might be perceived as impacting on governance structures and there was considerable potential for conflicting interests. Geographical access was another crucial external risk to the project, with security concerns relating to war and a two-way challenge in the context of travel policies; this was a complex interaction and neither university had sufficiently flexible structures to deal with it. In particular, scarcity of resources as regards access for Iraqi scholars to other regions such as Europe and the United States frequently resulted in competition and envy, challenging the project’s core objective of contributing to reconciliation processes. At the same time risks, generally attributed to N-S HEPs such as asymmetries between partner organizations with regard to funding, academic reputation and other capacities, were significant impediments to the project’s potential, and remained mostly uncontested among the participants concerned. However, these risks were in part integral to the overall project setup and the overarching strategy proposed by DAAD, the donor organization. The interesting finding here was that risk-taking played out differently for different individuals: it was not determined merely by the overall asymmetries between the partners, but also related to position of participants within the university and society. In view of this, we strongly recommend that partnerships allow enough time to build trust within and between partners at an interpersonal level, and create as many opportunities as possible to do so in order to enable continuous discussion, review and acknowledgement of the perception of risks, ways of dealing with them and communication. It is essential that personnel are deployed sensitively and have the necessary intercultural, communication and interpersonal skills as well as formal qualifications and management skills. Despite all this, the perception of the collaboration as unique, precisely because of the conflict situation under which it was established, has also made a positive contribution to the success of project activities so far. The desire to promote academic discourse and dialogue as opposed to the ISIS ideology and to contribute to the processes of reconciliation and healing, were the main factors reported as driving participants’ will to persevere. Working with young students as representatives of a new generation of Iraqi citizens was also highly motivational for the more seasoned academics from the University of Mosul. Other benefits such as individual intercultural experiences, the sense of being part of a successful team characterized by mutual understanding and respect, and the support of university leadership have all played a role in keeping the project going for the last five years. Although the role of higher education institutions in the processes of peacebuilding and development has been discussed and addressed in the literature, we believe it will be for future researchers to study the extent to which activities initiated within

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the partnership framework may or may not have supported UoM and the key role it plays within Iraqi society. So far, it can be savely concluded that the interdisciplinary conferences held in Iraq by both partners have created platforms for academic dialogue and reflection for more than 1200 students from diverse backgrounds and over 400 academics, and that provides hope that collaboration between universities may have a nascent, albeit transformative potential.

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Rieckmann, M. (2011). Internationale Hochschulpartnerschaften  – Förderung nachhaltiger Entwicklung und Globalen Lernens? Zeitschrift Für Internationale Bildungsforschung Und Entwicklungspädagogik, 34(2), 10–16. Rumelt, R. (1995). Inertia and transformation. In C. A. Montgomery (Ed.), Resource-based and evolutionary theories of the firm (pp. 101–132). Springer. Sazonov, V., & Ploom, I. (2019). Insights into the ideological core and political pillars of ISIS. Sõjateadlane, 13, 87–115. Smith, A., & Vaux, T. (2003). Education, conflict and international development. DFID. Thyne, C. L. (2006). ABC’s, 123’s, and the Golden rule: The pacifying effect of education on civil war, 1980–1999. International Studies Quarterly, 50(4), 733–754. Trilokekar, R. D. (2010). International education as soft power? The contributions and challenges of Canadian foreign policy to the internationalization of higher education. Higher Education, 59(2), 131–147. Tvrdon, M. (2012). Cohesion policy, convergence and regional disparities: The case of the European Union. WSEAS Transactions on Business and Economics, 9(2), 89–99. Urdal, H. (2004). The devil in the demographics: The effect of youth bulges on domestic armed conflict, 1950–2000. World Bank. https://documents.worldbank.org/en/publication/documents-­ reports/documentdetail/794881468762939913/the-­devil-­in-­the-­demographics-­the-­effect-­of-­ youth-­bulges-­on-­domestic-­armed-­conflict-­1950-­2000 Urdal, H. (2006). A clash of generations? Youth bulges and political violence. International Studies Quarterly, 50(3), 607–629. Warden, R. (2011). Egypt: Universities incubators for the revolution. University World News. Weick, K. E. (1976). Educational organizations as loosely coupled systems. Administrative Science Quarterly, 21(1), 1–19. Wendt, H. (2020). Hochschullehre in Krisenregionen. Nach dem IS: Die Universität Mosul beim schwierigen Neuanfang. Weiterbildung: Zeitschrift Für Grundlagen, Praxis Und Trends, 3, 38–41. Wilson, E. (2017). The role of higher education in fragile contexts. ECCN. https://www.eccnetwork.net/learning/role-­higher-­education-­fragile-­contexts Heike Wendt is professor for Education Research at the University of Graz, Austria. She has for many years served as research coordinator in international comparative studies and higher education partnerships, publishing widely on education systems and issues of equity in education. Since 2015, she has led the higher education partnership between the Universities of Mosul, Dortmund and Graz which aims to strengthen academic reconstruction and reconciliation at Mosul university and the region.  

Felix Senger is a trained school educator and educational researcher formerly working at the Institute of School Development Research (Institut für Schulentwicklungsforschung, IFS) at TU Dortmund, Germany. He is now affiliated with the Faculty of Spatial Planning at TU Dortmund and serves as coordinator of the project Rethink Science and Education in Iraq, which is an interdisciplinary cooperation with University of Mosul (Iraq) and University of Graz (Austria). Felix Sengers’ research interest is internationalization/transnationalization in higher education with a focus on capacity building projects as well as higher education in post-conflict situations.  

Ankita Singh is a Lecturer at the University of Graz, Austria. She holds a PhD in Organizational Behavior from Indian Institute of Management,  Calcutta, India. She worked as a post-doctoral project assistant at the Department of Empirical Educational Research, University of Graz. Her doctoral dissertation examined the process of courageous work through the experiences of women Self Help Groups, and public servants working in high-risk conditions. Her key research interests include higher education partnerships, management in self-help groups and sustainability.​  

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Anwar Alfaidhi is a Professor of Molecular Physics in the department of physics at University of Mosul, Iraq. He served as Dean and the head of the quality insurance committee at the Faculty of Science until 2019. Through his career Prof. Dr. Anwar Mustafa Ezzat Alfaidhi issued numerous publications, holds two internationally acknowledged patents and recently in 2020 became a member of the editorial board of the American Journal of Nano Research and Applications (NANO). His main research fields include nanotechnology, molecular Physics, quantum mechanics, and laser spectrometry. Furthermore, he serves as the head of several scientific and administration committees. Since 2017, he has been a group speaker of the organizing committee of the international and interdisciplinary university cooperation Rethink Science and Education in Iraq (RESI) with TU Dortmund and the University of Graz.  

Raeed Alnumman is an Assistant Professor at the College of Engineering at University of Mosul, Iraq. He is looking back on almost 20 years of experience in teaching and research in the field of architectural design. His main research interests are contemporary architectural design, building information management, flexibility in architectural design and perspectives for sustainable reconstruction processes in post-conflict-surroundings. Raed Salim Ahmed Alnumman is currently member of the exam committee at his department and served in the department council from 2016 until 2019. Furthermore, he is core member of the organizing committee of the international and interdisciplinary university cooperation Rethink Science and Education in Iraq (RESI) with TU Dortmund and University of Graz since 2017.  

Chapter 5

Cosmopolitan or Locals: Deconstructing the Patterns of Co-authorship in Higher Education Studies in Latin America Carolina Guzmán-Valenzuela

Abstract  In this chapter, the distinction between ‘cosmopolitan’ and ‘local’ established by Gouldner in the 1950s is used to examine universities in the context of global higher education systems. It is suggested here that cosmopolitan universities are research-oriented and  enjoy international visibility, wealth, and prestige. Although being a cosmopolitan university has a positive connotation, it is argued that there are geopolitical considerations that do not always come into view in examining universities and internationalisation trends. Some prestigious universities enjoy and reinforce their academic capital while others are on the fringes of research and academic productivity. By analysing the patterns of international collaboration exhibited by Latin American academics in the field of higher education, this chapter offers a critical perspective on co-authorship as an expression of academic dependency. Geopolitical considerations for a more fruitful development of international collaboration in higher education are offered. Keywords  Cosmopolitan university · International collaboration · Co-authorship of papers · Geopolitics · Higher education · Latin America

Internationalisation as a Mantra Internationalisation is comprised of a set of features that most universities and countries want to emulate (Altbach, 2006; Barnett, 2016; Cantwell & Maldonado-­ Maldonado, 2009; de Witt, 2011). Being part of an international network that facilitates not only academic exchange but also transactions of academic capital is an ultimate goal for many academics and their institutions. The role exercised by both international rankings and competition for prestige and research income among C. Guzmán-Valenzuela (*) Facultad de Educación y Humanidades, Universidad de Tarapacá, Arica, Chile © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 K. Otrel-Cass et al. (eds.), Partnerships in Education, Transdisciplinary Perspectives in Educational Research 5, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98453-3_5

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universities is key here (Hazelkorn, 2009, 2018; Naidoo, 2018). As a result, internationalisation has become a mantra for universities. According to the Cambridge dictionary, mantra is a word or phrase that expresses a belief that is used repeatedly. As is  known, beliefs work as drivers for action. Higher education systems and institutions across the world have been often guided by mantras that emerge from time to time. Over the last decades, there have been a succession of mantras identified,  such as ‘competencies and skills for the labour market’ (Barnett, 1997), ‘value for money’ (Sabri, 2011), ‘world-class universities’ (Shin & Kehm, 2012), and ‘excellence’ (Madsen & Adriansen, 2020; Moore et al., 2017; O’Regan & Gray, 2018), among many others. One of the mantras that has repeatedly appeared in the literature of higher education in the last two decades is ‘being/becoming an international university’. Many universities around the world seem to follow this mantra and so have developed a series of mechanisms and programmes to become an ‘international university’. ‘Being an international university’ means that the university enjoys a great degree of international visibility and interactivity (Barnett, 2016). That is, the university is seen by others and projects itself as an international institution. For prestigious universities, being an international university seems like an inherent condition. When we think about Oxford University, for example, we assume that it is an international university. The more prestigious a university is, the more international it can become so attracting international attention. Academic prestige and being international are mutually constitutive and reinforce each other and they both secure research, prestige and income (Fyfe et al., 2017). They act as powerful narratives that orchestrate efforts and aspirations about what it is to be a university in the world and how to reach it. In this chapter, attention will be given to one of the dimensions of internationalisation, that of international collaboration. International collaboration can materialise through a series of actions, activities and programmes that are pushed forward by international alliances that share a common goal (Blessinger, 2015). In higher education, such collaboration is realised through joint efforts to conduct research and teaching, and  to put into practice institutional programmes or agreements about academic mobility, among others (Guzmán-Valenzuela, 2019). Specifically, in this chapter, co-authorships of academic articles in the field of higher education as an expression of international collaboration in Latin America – a region considered to be part of the Global South or the periphery (Connell, 2020; Santos, 2015) – are scrutinised. The distinction between ‘cosmopolitan’ and ‘local’ (Gouldner, 1957) is used here in relation to internationalisation and universities so that being a cosmopolitan university – in contrast to a local university – implies an inherent openness to the world. However, in this chapter, it is proposed that there is a set of complex relationships among disciplines, colonial past, language, power, wealth and prestige which underlie the distinction (between ‘cosmopolitan’ and ‘local’) and which are largely invisible. As a result, some regions in the world (usually those in the Global South)

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are in the margins of science and academic productivity while others are in the centre so reinforcing their epistemic power, based on prestige and wealth. In examining the patterns of co-authorship by Latin American researchers in the field of higher education, what it means to be a local or a cosmopolitan university in the production of knowledge is unveiled. Finally, considerations for a more fruitful development of international collaboration and partnerships in higher education are offered.

Cosmopolitan or Locals? The word ‘cosmopolitan’ is understood here as being international in the sense of having a ‘worldwide rather than limited or provincial scope or bearing’ (Merriam dictionary). In a well-known and influential paper, Gouldner (1957) – based on a distinction made by Merton in the 1950s in organisational studies – established a dichotomy between cosmopolitan and locals among academics in colleges. Local academics are less oriented to research and their reference group is within the organisation they belong to (Rhoades et al., 2008). According to Gouldner, cosmopolitan academics (among other characteristics) (1957: 295–296): (a) Were more likely to believe that faculty members should have their loads lightened to make more time available for research, writing, or other work in their own fields. (b) Were more likely than locals to maintain that if they saw no opportunity to do their own personal research at a (specific College) they would find their jobs less satisfying. (c) Were more likely to feel that there were very few people around the college with whom they could share their professional interests. (d) Had published more than locals. (e) Showed less organizational loyalty than locals. (f) Showed less organizational loyalty than locals in that they would more readily leave (specific College) …for another. (g) Were more likely to get most of their intellectual stimulation from sources outside of the college than were locals. (h) Were more likely to compare their salaries with those in other colleges. Some of these characteristics might be regarded as intrinsically positive while others (such as being more or less loyal to the home institution) are debatable. Being a ‘local’ academic might have a negative connotation since the label implies that an academic is rather parochial. Conversely, being a cosmopolitan academic, open to the world, would be, therefore, a desirable feature for academics. Gouldner’s distinction might well be applied to universities, especially regarding their research orientation and international visibility and networks. Being a cosmopolitan university points to a university open to the world that:

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(a) Gains satisfaction through international visibility and prestige  expressed, for example, in occupying high positions in international rankings. (b) Is more likely to focus on research activities. (c) Tends to display better research outcomes, especially in the form of academic papers in prestigious journals. (d) Attracts large blocks of international grants, which then constitute a significant income stream for those universities. (e) Contains several science hubs internationally recognised and leads international teams. (f) Tends to have and develop many connections and networks with other universities around the world. (g) Attracts high levels of both international students and academics. (h) Considers itself to be a major player in global knowledge production. (i) Sees itself  as  a global, world-class organisation which, although located in a specific country, projects an image as an international corporation (which may include an expansion through international (both psychical and virtual) campuses). Being a, and belonging to, a cosmopolitan university, therefore, may be considered to be a desirable feature for both academics and universities since it involves the possession of academic capital. However, the cosmopolitan/local  distinction is problematic since it contains an assumption (Dale, 2006) that universities are classified either as cosmopolitan or local, and in which being a cosmopolitan university is desirable. Being a cosmopolitan university, therefore, becomes a hegemonic narrative into which all universities around the world should fit. In Latin America, for example, there are conflicting narratives about the internationalisation of higher education, with its excessive focus on research, especially regarding international visibility and productivity (Guzmán-Valenzuela & Muñoz, 2018; Guzmán-Valenzuela & Gómez, 2019; Guzmán-Valenzuela & Barnett, 2019; Guzmán-Valenzuela, 2017). While an important part of the higher education sector looks at internationalisation and research productivity as desirable goals for all universities, others question them as taken-for-granted narratives that attempt to homogenise a single way of conceiving higher education institutions. In the pro-­ internationalisation and research view, neither the matter of unequal resources and differential academic capital (which tend to reinforce positions of power) nor the specificities of higher education institutions (in legitimately responding in their own way to the particular constellation confronting them of historical, financial, cultural, language and geopolitical exigencies) are questioned.

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Being a Player in University International Rankings International rankings have been built around a series of indicators mainly attached to research (Hauptman Komotar, 2019). Some of these indicators include publications in journals with the highest impact, international reputation and research capacity and productivity (Pusser & Marginson, 2013; Shin, 2011). The reader does not need to be a connoisseur of those indicators. A scan of the major international rankings will suffice, for the top positions are characteristically occupied by a recurring set of institutions in the world. The Shanghai Ranking (ARWU) (http://www.shanghairanking.com/, 2020) shows that the first three positions are occupied by Harvard University, Stanford University, and the University of Cambridge, while in the Times Higher Education (THE) ranking (https://www. timeshighereducation.com/world-­u niversity-­r ankings/2020/world-­r anking#!/ page/0/length/25/sort_by/rank/sort_order/asc/cols/stats, 2020), those positions are occupied by Oxford University, California Institute of Technology, and the University of Cambridge. As for the QS ranking (https://www.topuniversities.com/ qs-­world-­university-­rankings, 2021), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University and Harvard University occupy  the top three positions. The USA is represented most strongly in the 10 top positions across all three rankings followed by the UK.  In the case of the QS ranking, Switzerland with the ETH Zurich – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology – appears in the ten highest positions. If the reader has a closer look at universities beyond the top ten positions, s/he will find that other countries emerge (for example, Canada with the University of Toronto (18th position in the THE), Singapore with the National University of Singapore and the Nanyang Technological University (11th and 13th position in the QS ranking, respectively), Switzerland with the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne and China with Tsinghua University (14th and 15th position in the QS ranking, respectively)). However, if the reader does not live in the US, the UK, Canada, Switzerland, Singapore, or China, it is likely that s/he will have to spend quite some time in finding her/his home university. Further, if the reader lives in a peripheral region such as Latin America or Africa, s/he will have to spend even more time to find a local university. Probably, in the case of Latin American universities, s/he will be disappointed with the outcomes. A quick look shows that, for example, Brazil with the Universidad de Sao Paulo occupies the highest position (in the  ARWU  ranking position 101–150 and in the  THE ranking  251–300) while in the QS ranking,  Argentina with the Universidad de Buenos Aires occupies position 66 and Mexico with the Universidad Autonoma de Mexico occupies position 100. The other Latin-American universities are much further below those positions. The top players in international rankings can be easily distinguished from the rest. That rest is composed of different groups of universities that compete with more or less success in acceding to the top positions. Some of them closely follow the top-100 positions and could be considered to be part of that elite group. Others are more distant from the elite group and may considered to be  as ‘striving’

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universities (O’Meara, 2007: 123). They are aware of their position and invest considerable effort and resources in imitating more successful colleges and universities (Véliz & Gardner, 2019). Other universities closely observe the rankings even though they may be far below the top 100 positions. This is the case of Chile, for example: every time that there is a release of results of the main international rankings, the outcomes are discussed in leading newspapers in the country and a detailed analysis as to how certain universities have improved over the previous year is offered. However, and despite the trace of optimism often present in these analyses, and the general cosmopolitan aspiration, it is evident that Chilean universities – while they are improving – do not perform well in international rankings. A driver for being a cosmopolitan university boosted by international rankings is built on an unspoken narrative of an equal competition among universities across the world, although universities have very different levels of resources, capacities and starting points (Kraemer-Mbula et  al., 2019). Probably, universities in the top-100 positions have taken for granted that they are positioned in the top handful of universities and they do not need to do anything different to maintain that position. The rest, though, compete in aligning and changing their institutional policies and practices to better match the indicators measured by international rankings. One of the main indicators is the publication of papers in mainstream journals. However, publishing papers in leading journals is challenging, especially for authors from peripheral regions of the world. Latin-America – considered to be a peripheral region (Connell, 2020) and a part of the Global South – and its higher education institutions have been debating about the extent to which they could become more international (Bernasconi, 2013) and research-oriented so as to pursue a position in the international rankings. Many of these debates have been focused on academic publications in prestigious journals. Thus, some countries, like Chile, have put into practice a series of policies of internationalisation that have encouraged its higher education institutions to become more international. Some of these policies have been focused on increasing the number of (a) academics with doctorates obtained in the most prestigious universities (which are placed in the Global North); (b) publications in international and well-ranked journals, and (c) international collaborative research projects. Co-authorship of papers by national academics with academics in other countries is expected to be a natural result of such policies (CONICYT, 2015).

 o-authored Papers in Higher Education Studies as a Mean C of International Visibility Co-authorship of papers is usually seen as an indicator of collaboration – although there are debates about how to establish the degree of involvement of each of the authors (Youtie & Bozeman, 2014). Further, international collaboration through

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co-­authorship is presumed to be beneficial both for academics and for their institutions since it enhances the quality of research (Persson, 2010) and promotes the publication of more papers and so develops research impact (Khor & Yu, 2016). As a result, there has been an explosion of co-authored papers across countries (Marginson, 2018). While co-authorship of papers by authors across different regions of the world may well be seen as an indicator of international collaboration and as a means of increasing academic productivity and international visibility, caution is needed. In a previous work (Guzmán-Valenzuela, 2019), I critically addressed the concept of international collaboration through co-authorship in the field of higher education by examining the asymmetries underpinning such collaboration, especially when involving academics from countries and universities with significant geopolitical imbalances (such as Latin American authors co-authoring with colleagues in North America and Europe). The main conclusions were that the very process of collaboration and partnership is problematic, not least given the geopolitical background. Historical, financial, political, cultural, linguistic and colonial factors matter in collaboration and knowledge production, and this becomes especially complex in the social sciences and the humanities, where knowledge quite frequently focuses on local contexts, practices, and concerns, and is written in a national language. In the following section, the patterns of international authorship of papers in the field of higher education and co-authored by Latin American authors and authors in other regions of the world receive a deeper examination.

Systematic Review Web of Science (WoS) and SCOPUS are the two most comprehensive indexes containing  the most prestigious journals  in most disciplinary fields (Vessuri et  al., 2014). Both indexes include journals with the ‘greatest impact factors’ (Vessuri et al., 2014: 656). The Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO), in turn, is an open access index and has positioned itself as a benchmark for scientific production in emerging economies, particularly for the Latin American region, with an increasing global presence and circulation (Alperin et al., 2011; Beigel, 2014). SciELO is a well-known journal index, therefore, in Latin America that commonly includes journals that publish in Spanish and/or Portuguese. Since 2013, SciELO has been owned by WoS. However, it is not part of the main collection of the WoS, being relegated to a secondary place in terms of visibility and recognition (Vessuri et al., 2014). In Latin America, open access journals are usually housed in public universities that bear their costs while WoS and SCOPUS  work  mainly on a commercial basis. A total of 130 papers in the WoS core collection (WoScc), 844 papers in SCOPUS and 1,240 papers in SciELO published between 2000 and 2015 and written by at least one author affiliated to a Latin American university were initially identified.

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Subsequently, co-authored papers were selected in order to examine the countries of origin of the authors. Graph 5.1 depicts the extent to which Latin American academics publish with academics in other countries in WoScc journals and SCOPUS.  It shows that, although there is international collaboration, it is limited. However, the proportion of WoScc papers that result from international co-authorship (38.46%, equivalent to 50 papers) is larger than that in SCOPUS papers (17.42%, equivalent to 147 papers). On the other hand, international co-authorship among academics publishing in SciELO journals is particularly low (6.85%, equivalent to 85 papers). There is, therefore, a gradation in the pattern of co-authored papers across the leading indexes. By disaggregating international co-authorship within and outside Latin America, it is possible to detect another pattern. Graph 5.2 (below) shows that a significant number (46 out of 50) of WoScc papers with an international co-authorship is produced by Latin American academics with academics outside Latin America. As for SCOPUS, this number is 128 (out of 147). And although, as we saw above (see Graph 5.1), international co-authorship is near non-existent in the case of SciELO papers, when international co-authorship does take place in SciELO papers, there is a marked tendency to co-publish with academics from outside Latin America rather than within Latin America (59 papers out of 85). Overall, Latin American academics tend not to co-publish with researchers within the region, and especially within SciELO papers,  a phenomenon that is counterintuitive since one might have expected more co-authorship of papers within the Latin American region. Looking further into these data, and just considering co-authorship with academics outside Latin America, we see that Brazil leads both SciELO and SCOPUS

Graph 5.1  Percentage of international paper collaboration in journals indexed in WoS core collection, SCOPUS, and SciELO between 2000 and 2015. (Source: Own source)

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Graph 5.2  Number of co-authored papers by academics within and outside Latin America indexed in WoS core collection, SCOPUS and SciELO (period 2000–2015). (Source: Own source)

publications in higher education while Chile leads WoScc publications (see Table 5.1): Brazilian academics tend to publish more with colleagues from Portugal (across the three indexes), while Mexican and Chilean academics publish more with colleagues from Spain and the USA. To sum up: –– International co-authorship within and outside Latin America is rather low but tends to be higher for WoS papers compared with papers in both SCOPUS and SciELO (Graph 5.1). –– Although international co-authorship of papers is rather limited across all the three indexes, when publishing in major journals – such as those in the WoS core collection – Latin American scholars tend to publish with academics from Spain and Portugal (Table  5.1). Also, co-authorship of papers with the USA across all three indexes is notable.

 o-authorship of Papers, Academic Dependency, C and International Visibility In this chapter, one part of the push to become a cosmopolitan university has been examined, specifically, patterns of co-authorship in the field of higher education in Latin America. It emerges that academics from a region of the Global South (Latin

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Table 5.1  Number of publications with academics outside Latin America by country and collaboration countries in WoS core collection, SCOPUS, and SciELO indexes (period 2000–2015) SciELO Outside LA Country Collaboration Brazil England France Portugal Spain Sweden USA Total

Mexico Spain

UK

Germany Total

Chile

Canada Romania; Germany Spain USA

Total Total: 59 Source: Own source

SCOPUS Outside LA pubs Country Collaboration 1 Brazil Portugal 2 UK 16 USA 9 Spain Canada 1 Hong Kong; UK Spain; USA 8 Sweden UK; Sweden 37 UK; Sweden; Japan Total 9 Mexico Spain USA UK Canada 1 France Netherlands Netherlands; Belgium; Spain; USA; UK; Slovenia 1 Portugal Spain; UK 11 USA; South Korea; France; Lebanon; Turkey; Germany; Italy; Australia 1 Total Chile Spain 1 UK USA 2 Canada Canada; USA 1 Germany; Romania USA; Spain 5 Total Total: 128

WoScc Outside LA pubs Country Collaboration 9 Chile USA 6 England 6 Spain 5 Australia 4 Scotland 1 Total 1 Brazil Portugal 1 Spain 1 USA 1 Sweden

pubs 4 3 3 1 1 12 3 2 2 1

35 13 5 3 2 1 1 1

1 10 3 1 1 1 6 3

USA; Canada Total Mexico USA Canada Spain England Total Colombia Spain

1 1 1

29 7 4 4 2 1 1

USA Spain; Switzerland

Total Argentina USA Australia England Spain South Africa

Total

1 20 Total: 46

2 1

6 2 1 1 1 1

6

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America), are making efforts to become visible through collaboration, especially in international journals. Although the percentage of international co-authorship in higher education studies by Latin American academics is still incipient, some patterns, especially in relation to journals indexed in well-regarded indexes (WoS and SCOPUS), have been identified. It appears that Latin American academics tend to co-publish with academics from the Global North, and specifically with Spain, Portugal and the USA. This is not surprising since there are many ties between Latin America and Spain and Portugal, especially in historical, cultural, language, and economic terms (Guzmán-Valenzuela & Bernasconi, 2018). Language seems to be a key issue here since academics in the field of higher education may feel more comfortable with academic writing in their lingua franca, namely Spanish or Portuguese (Guzmán-­ Valenzuela & Gómez, 2019). However, this pattern could also be understood as a form of academic dependency between Latin American countries  – as former colonies  – and Spain and Portugal, at least in the field of higher education studies. According to Alatas (2003), this dependency relationship may involve all sorts of dimensions such as ideas and knowledge, educational technology, research, teaching, investment in education, and provision of PhD education in western countries. A question that emerges here, though, is whether Latin American academics in the field of higher education tend to co-publish more with their counterparts in Spain and Portugal as result of an academic dependency relationship or rather as a means of  establishing strategic forms of collaboration so as to become more internationally visible. Or perhaps it is both. Also, a pattern of co-authorship between Latin American academics and academics in the USA in well-regarded journals has been identified. A possible explanation for such a pattern may be that many Latin American academics obtained their PhD degrees in the USA, and this is particularly the case for Chile (CONICYT, 2015). In Chile, the central government has implemented a series of initiatives to promote internationalisation, aimed especially  at increasing international co-­ authorship, particularly with countries outside Latin America. The goal guiding this initiative is that international collaboration should have a positive impact on research outcomes and productivity (in terms of the number of published papers). The role of a country such as the USA is key here not least considering its supremacy in international rankings. Such supremacy may well be seen as an expression of imperialism (Raju, 2011) through which a country in the Global North (the USA) exercises domination of Global South universities, specifically in Latin America (Bodenheimer, 1971; Larraín, 2000).

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Being a Cosmopolitan University In this chapter, the concept of ‘cosmopolitan university’ has been simmering. The concept refers to an international or world-class university that gains visibility and income through research and networks, and the concept endorses one global model of university. On the one hand, this model represents the interests of a global academic elite, and strongly  influences the type of university that is valued across the world and should be emulated (Ordorika & Lloyd, 2015). This model is far beyond the possibilities of universities in peripheral countries, which are usually oriented to professional education and lack the resources, infrastructures, and technologies to conduct research on the extensive scale that the model requires. In spite of this, an aspiration to be considered as part of these circuits of prestige and international visibility remains, and many national policies in peripheral and semi-peripheral countries steer universities to fulfil this hegemonic model of cosmopolitan university. On the other hand, the label of ‘cosmopolitan university’ does not accord due space to the variety of disciplines involved in research and knowledge production. In Latin America, research in the social sciences and humanities are heavily embedded in local contexts and cultures and tend to publish in the local language while research in the hard sciences is not so context-specific and tend to be published in English (Guzmán-Valenzuela & Gómez, 2019; Marginson, 2016; Marginson & Ordorika, 2011). Publishing in English, therefore, has become a requirement in knowledge production such that there is little space for other languages (at least in well-regarded journals). To some extent, the humanities and the social sciences are intended to be ‘parochial’ disciplines, at least in Latin America. What is considered to be a ‘cosmopolitan university’, therefore, does not take into account both geopolitical and disciplinary disparities in academia. Indeed, any extensive adoption of the idea is likely to produce such disparities within countries in the Global South. As a result, the driver to publish in international journals and to improve research outputs through co-authorship deserves careful consideration of its complex layers.

Conclusion In the co-authorship of papers in the field of higher education studies in Latin America, a dual pattern of international collaboration can be observed, both inward and outward. On the one hand, Latin American academics in higher education studies tend not to co-author papers with academics in other countries. This denotes an inward stance, part of the explanation of which is that higher education studies are embedded in the social sciences and humanities, and studies in those disciplines tend to focus on higher education systems, processes and institutional matters within specific nations and specific contexts.

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On the other hand, when international co-authorship of papers is involved, Latin American academics prefer to publish with colleagues from outside Latin America, particularly from the Global North, and especially with academics from former coloniser countries (Spain and Portugal) and the USA.  This outward orientation might be interpreted in a two but interrelated ways: as an academic aspiration to gain more international visibility so as to become more ‘cosmopolitan’, and as a form of neo-colonialism that involves tolerates an epistemic dependency between former coloniser countries and colonised countries. Being cosmopolitan through international collaboration and the co-authorship of papers is attractive for academics and universities, since it promotes cross-national collegiality and joint efforts in reaching a common goal. However, a less evident aspect needs to be acknowledged and questioned. In international research collaboration and partnerships, risks attach to geopolitical factors that reinforce a north-­ south divide. Literatures on the north-south divide (Quijano, 1993), southern theories (Connell, 2020) and decolonialism (Mignolo, 2003) can be helpful here. These literatures point to the historical imbalances in political, economic, cultural, and epistemic terms between countries. Countries in the Global North tend to concentrate wealth, power and prestigious higher education institutions while higher education systems in the Global South are marginalised. Collaborative arrangements that emerge under these conditions are ambiguous. They may provide relationships positive collaboration and networks, but they may also hide deleterious patterns of dependency. In such dependency relationships, both the dominant and the dominated countries co-­ exist and are interdependent. Further, mantras in higher education such as those identified here (such as internationalisation, world-class, and cosmopolitan universities) need some unpacking. Such fashionable terms in higher education act as universal and hegemonic discourses that apply to every higher education institution and every discipline across the world and neglect contextual specificities, their histories, values, languages, and knowledges. The issue arises, therefore, as to whether academics, disciplines and universities can engage in a more democratic, diverse, and respectful conversation that allows space to new knowledges and the acknowledgment of epistemic differences across universities and disciplines. Appadurai’s questions are apposite here: ‘Are we prepared to move beyond a model of internationalising academic research that is mainly concerned with improving how others practise our precepts? Is there something for us to learn from colleagues in other national and cultural settings?’ (2000: 14). Acknowledgements  This work was supported by Fondecyt project 1200633.

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Rhoades, G., Kiyama, J.  M., McCormick, R., & Quiroz, M. (2008). Local cosmopolitans and cosmopolitan locals: New models of professionals in the academy. The Review of Higher Education, 31(2), 209–235. Sabri, D. (2011). What’s wrong with “the student experience”? Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 32(5), 657–667. Santos, B. (2015). Epistemologies of the South: Justice against epistemicide. Routledge. Shin, J. C. (2011). Organizational effectiveness and university rankings. In University rankings (pp. 19–34). Springer. Shin, J. C., & Kehm, B. M. (Eds.). (2012). Institutionalization of world-class university in global competition (Vol. 6). Springer. Véliz, D., & Gardner, S. K. (2019). Generational perceptions of promotion and tenure expectations by faculty in a striving university: A quest for legitimacy? Higher Education Quarterly, 73(3), 359–373. Vessuri, H., Guédon, J. C., & Cetto, A. M. (2014). Excellence or quality? Impact of the current competition regime on science and scientific publishing in Latin America and its implications for development. Current Sociology, 62(5), 647–665. Youtie, J., & Bozeman, B. (2014). Social dynamics of research collaboration: Norms, practices, and ethical issues in determining co-authorship rights. Scientometrics, 101(2), 953–962.

Websites ARWU Ranking. http://www.shanghairanking.com/ QS ranking. (2021). https://www.topuniversities.com/qs-­world-­university-­rankings Times Higher Education Ranking. (2020). https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-­ university-­rankings/2020/world-­ranking#!/page/0/length/25/sort_by/rank/sort_order/asc/ cols/stats Carolina Guzmán-Valenzuela is a Full Professor in Higher Education at the University of Tarapacá, Chile. She is an experienced researcher having, for more than a decade, specialised in the study of higher education in a global context, drawing especially on social theory, critical sociologies and decolonial theories. She has managed and directed national and international research projects. Her current research topics include (a) global higher education, internationalisation and neoliberalism as hegemonic narratives (b) the North-South divide in knowledge production as a form of epistemic (in)justice, (c) the public/private divide in the provision of higher education and (d) social inequities and stratification processes across higher education systems. She is also active in (d) the theorization of qualitative research and its contribution in understanding education and social processes. Most of her research work reflects her interest in transforming the landscape of higher education through critical stances.  

Chapter 6

Risks in Partnerships. Navigating Through Three Unsuspected Problems Magali Hardouin

Abstract  The chapter is based on academic research that aims to understand why higher education institutions have come together in a network to build Erasmus Mundus Doctoral Partnerships (2009–2013) and, conversely, what has prevented other institutions from doing so. During this research, the constitution of Erasmus Mundus doctoral partnerships was analysed, as well as the project submission phase and their management and perpetuation. It then became apparent that there were several risks to the proper functioning of the Erasmus Mundus doctoral partnerships. The chapter consists of three parts. The first two parts present the purpose of the study and situate the research on theoretical, conceptual and methodological levels. The third part highlights three risks identified in the successful operation of Erasmus Mundus doctoral partnerships: The risk for a team to join a partnership without knowing the other partners. It turned out that the team was put aside throughout the partnership and did not benefit from the advantages of the Erasmus Mundus doctorate; The risk to set up a partnership without being able to count on the university to set up the file due to a lack of skills and knowledge of staff on European issues; The risk to set up a partnership without being able to rely on the university to manage the partnership due to a lack of skills and knowledge of staff on European issues. Keywords  Partnership · Erasmus Mundus · Higher education · Internationalisation · Europeanisation

M. Hardouin (*) INSPE de Bretagne/UMR ESO/CREAD, Rue Saint-Malo, Rennes, France e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 K. Otrel-Cass et al. (eds.), Partnerships in Education, Transdisciplinary Perspectives in Educational Research 5, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98453-3_6

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Introduction The Erasmus Mundus programme was launched in the wake of the Lisbon Strategy, which heralded the end of universities as humanist institutions. Based on that strategy, the European Union (EU) began to regard universities as key institutions for renewing European economic growth and employment. Universities were to become part of the Education-Research-Innovation knowledge triangle to contribute to Europe’s competitiveness on the international scene and unleash European potential for innovation. Nurturing intellectuals and thinkers were no longer their main goal. They were now expected to select, sometimes with the help of purpose-built EU programmes, and produce “elites” (Croché, 2009, s.p.) (note that “elite” is the term used in the Lisbon Strategy.; the expression “economic elite” is not used as it is probably too narrow a term; the economic elite are actually understood as being leaders of large companies (Massol et al., 2010)). Furthermore, the training of highly qualified individuals was now conceived from the point of view of institutional networks. The European Commission (EC) was striving to define not only the notions of a “good education” and a “good university”, but also that of “good science” within networks (Croché, 2009, s.p.). Somewhat like the Trojan horse, scientific research was introduced into universities by the EC, without meeting any real resistance. The EC attributed huge amounts of funding to a small number of research teams, thereby fuelling competitiveness, channelling research towards fields it regarded as important, and imposing the working methods promoted by it. The outcome was conclusive, because in accepting the rules of the EC, research centres became increasingly competitive and multiplied the number of partnerships that were favourable to them. Science was all about networks now: the teams that had the means to compete for EC financing were those that were already partnered up with other teams in Europe and worldwide. A team was partly evaluated for its quality and the variety of European and international partners that made it up (Croché, 2009). Launched in 2003 (effective as of 2004), the Erasmus Mundus programme illustrated the EC’s desire to tie the Education-Research-Innovation triangle in with European competitiveness, attract particularly good students from third-party countries and establish institutional networks as a cornerstone of scientific research. Erasmus Mundus also illustrated the desire of the EC to promote its higher education model throughout the world. The discourse of the European Commissioner for Education, Training, Culture and Youth at the time, Jan Figel, was quite clear on this point: the Erasmus Mundus programme must, over time, become the reference when it comes to promoting European higher education worldwide. In 2009, the speech of Benita Ferrero-Waldner, former European Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighbourhood Policy, is equally pertinent. She said Erasmus Mundus enables the best and brightest students inside and outside the EU to fulfil their potential and maximise their life chances. It ensures academic excellence and helps students build a shared vision of the world. With this programme, the EU would promote knowledge transfer and multiculturalism in action, key

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factors for progress and development for all. Thus, according to Benita Ferrero-­ Waldner, the EU is adding a crucial component to its external cooperation programmes, going beyond support for governments’ reform programmes by strengthening people-to-people contacts in this very particular area. These contacts could be useful in the future globalised world. An analysis of the decisions taken by the European Parliament and the Council (Decision no. 2317/2003/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 5 December 2003, and Decision no. 1298/2008/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2008), which set out the two phases of the Erasmus Mundus programme (2004–2008, 2009–2013), gives a good idea of the attitude of the EU in the early 2000s with regard to higher education and research. It also provides an understanding of the whys and wherefores of the programme. Erasmus Mundus was part of the EU’s drive to “become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world” (Decision no. 1298/2008/EC of the European Parliament). It was very closely linked to the globalisation process, as its objective was to “respond to the challenges” posed by globalisation (Decision no. 2317/2003/EC of the European Parliament). It was also strongly associated with the idea of needing to adapt “education and vocational training systems to the demands of the knowledge society” (Decision no. 2317/2003/EC of the European Parliament refers to the conclusions of the Lisbon European Council (23 and 24 March 2000)). Ultimately, the challenge of globalisation needed to be met by “mobilising the brainpower of Europe” (Decision no. 1298/2008/EC of the European Parliament refers to the Commission Communications of 20 April 2005 and 10 May 2006), which required a “modernisation agenda for universities” to bolster Europe’s competitiveness in a global economy (Decision no. 1298/2008/EC of the European Parliament refers to the Commission Communications of 20 April 2005 and 10 May 2006; the European Council meeting in Brussels on 15 and 16 June 2006; the Council Resolution of 23 November 2007; Regulation (EC) no. 294/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 2008). Furthermore, the European higher education system was also expected to acquire “a worldwide degree of attractiveness appropriate to Europe’s major cultural and scientific achievements” (Decision no. 2317/2003/EC of the European Parliament). It was also important to enhance “the attractiveness of European higher education to students from Europe and other parts of the world” (Decision no. 2317/2003/EC of the European Parliament refers to the conclusions of the European Ministers in charge of higher education meeting in Prague on 19 May 2001) and to “encourage and enable highly qualified graduates and scholars from all over the world, to obtain qualifications and/or experience in the European Union” (Decision no. 2317/2003/ EC of the European Parliament). To do this, the European higher education system was to become “a world quality reference” (Decision no. 1298/2008/EC of the European Parliament refers to the objective set by the European Council meeting in Barcelona on 15 and 16 March 2002) and “promote a quality offer in higher education with a distinct European added value” (Decision no. 2317/2003/EC of the European Parliament), hence the Erasmus Mundus programme. In addition, the “profile and visibility” (Ibid.) of this European higher education system needed to

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be strengthened; a diktat that also applied to institutions, research units and researchers. The term excellence appears several times in the parliament’s 2008 Decision. It is consistently used in the Preamble, without necessarily being clearly defined: “The new Erasmus Mundus programme is consistent with the objectives of excellence”; “a programme of excellence”; “the objectives of excellence”; “in line with the programme’s objectives of academic excellence” (Decision no. 1298/2008/EC of the European Parliament). The Erasmus Mundus programme should also promote “intercultural understanding through cooperation with third countries”, as clearly stated in the titles of the 2003 and 2008 Decisions. In this way, it met the EU’s objectives of laying the foundations for partnerships with third countries or priority regions in which education, higher education and research would play a leading role (Baduel, 2007). However, it was stated that this cooperation could only take place with institutions that had achieved “a level of development comparable to that of higher education institutions in the Community” (Decision no. 2317/2003/EC of the European Parliament). This pre-requisite could be interpreted as the EU’s desire to ensure “pliability” (Baduel, 2007, p.  11) and diffuse its higher education and research model above and beyond its borders, and even force non-European institutions to reorganise their education systems to fit in with the European system: only institutions that met the European standards could hope for a partnership. That is how the European higher education and research model, born of the Bologna Process and the Lisbon Strategy, which originally targeted EU countries, rapidly found a way to expand outside of Europe’s borders, to North African countries, for example, where the Bachelor-Masters-Doctorate reform was set in motion as of 2002. This reform, which was promptly put into place in North African countries, showed the desire of the governments there “to diffuse a tense situation” (Baduel, 2007, p. 11) “given the dangers faced by national systems” (Ibid.) and to shrug off responsibility at home by claiming that the external demands made, namely by Europe, left them no with no other option (Ibid.). By diffusing the European model and standardising vocational training and degrees, the EU would be able to attract the best candidates (Ibid.) third countries had to offer. The Erasmus Mundus programme was a tool used to advance this policy as it helped attract the best students from third countries due to the quality of the studies on offer, the quality of the reception arrangements and a scholarship scheme that could compete with any in the world (Decision no. 2317/2003/EC of the European Parliament). It was in the EU’s interest to choose who immigrated to Europe and carry out selective migrations (Baduel, 2007, p. 9) by offering scholarships to the most talented students (Decision no. 2317/2003/EC of the European Parliament). There are undercurrents of domination, neocolonialism and even neo-imperialism. The Erasmus Mundus programme carried the Community doxa according to which networks should be at the heart of scientific advance. The Preamble of the 2003 Decision already laid out the groundwork for this organisational set-up: “There is wide recognition of the great potential represented by the combined individual strengths of European higher education institutions, by their educational diversity and their wide experience in networking and in cooperation with third

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countries” (Decision no. 2317/2003/EC of the European Parliament). Within its networks, cooperation was key as they were called “cooperation networks” (Ibid.). They facilitated “the exchange of experience and good practice” (Ibid.), which was promoted by the Open Method of Coordination (OMC), also called “soft law”. This method was implemented by the EU to meet the objectives of the Lisbon strategy, to enable Member States to coordinate their policies in certain areas through a process of mutual exchange and learning. This cooperation was set up between the higher education institutions (“any institution providing higher education and recognised by the relevant national authority as belonging to the higher education system” according to Decision no. 1298/2008/EC of the European Parliament) in European countries (countries belonging to the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) who were members of the European Economic area (EEA)), pre-accession candidate countries, Western Balkan countries, the Swiss Confederation and third countries (a country which is not a European country according to Decision no. 1298/2008/EC of the European Parliament). The Erasmus Mundus programme had several actions and measures that relied on networks between institutions. Doctorates were only integrated during the second phase of the Erasmus Mundus programme (2009–2013). Similar to the Erasmus Mundus Masters, Erasmus Mundus doctorates involved a cooperation between higher education institutions from at least three European countries and possibly one or more institutions from third countries. Scholarships were also granted to European and non-European students who had been selected for these courses. The EC’s marketing strategy for the Erasmus Mundus doctorate programme treated doctoral students as consumers: “We detail a clear and comprehensive marketing strategy. […] Marketing is a process of matching the offer (the Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctorate) clearly to the key consumers (doctoral candidates) and promoting its wider value to other beneficiaries (associate partners, employers, sources of sustainable funding etc.)” (EC, 2012, p. 51). In marketing documents, the reader is constantly reminded of the excellence of the Erasmus Mundus programme and the doctoral courses on offer: “High-quality Programmes enable opportunities to recruit extremely high-calibre graduates and to produce internationally-skilled graduates” (Ibid., p. 11); “Because of their interdisciplinary and international nature Erasmus Mundus Programmes are not well-suited to conventional quality assurance (QA) metrics. This project has identified a rich set of particular ‘jointness’ characteristics which form the components of excellence” (Ibid., p. 48); “We will recruit the best qualified graduates. […] We have put in place a global strategy to recruit excellent doctoral candidates” (Ibid., p. 53). My research (Hardouin, 2017) analysed the processes for setting up Erasmus Mundus doctoral partnerships, along with the project submission phase, project management and the long-term perspectives of projects. I surveyed French institutions enrolled in an Erasmus Mundus doctoral programme. The analysis revealed that ensuring Erasmus Mundus doctoral partnerships worked smoothly was far from simple. Risks, in the sense of “difficulties”, arose that were potentially more or less damaging to the smooth-running of Erasmus Mundus doctoral partnerships.

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This chapter is in two parts. The first presents the purpose of the research and sets the scene in terms of theory, concepts and methods. The second highlights the three possible risks to the smooth-running of Erasmus Mundus doctoral partnerships.

Contextual, Conceptual and Methodological Approach About the Notions of Network and Partnership … The network concept was at the forefront of the research. One of the leading figures of renewed sociological interest in networks is Mark Granovetter (Bagla-Gökalp, 2000; Amblar et al., 2005). According to his approach, sociological analysis should be based on the real relationships between individuals rather than on abstract categories (economic agents, social classes) (Amblar et al., 2005). The situations and decisions of individuals can only be understood in the context of their social ties or their network of interpersonal relations, dyadic included (Bagla-Gökalp, 2000). According to Granovetter, the economic actions of individuals are embedded in concrete systems of social relations that can be analysed in terms of networks (Granovetter, 2008). To analyse these networks, he uses notions such as a “bridge” between two networks (a tie providing a single passage between two points, and which is therefore strategic), a “structural hole” (the absence of relations between certain individuals) and a central position (actors have no choice but to pass through this point) (Granovetter, 2008; Bagla-Gökalp, 2000; Amblar et  al., 2005). Mark Granovetter is not alone in exploring the “network” concept; This one also began to be used in economics from the mid-1990s onwards, in relation to the new way of structuring companies, with the expression “network organisation” (Delapierre, 1996; Baudry, 2004). As for “partnership”, this term should be viewed as “the partners combining their resources, purpose or expertise because of their differences, and thereby establishing shared authority and power, which leads to a sort of reciprocal abstention and in turn delineates the specific areas of influence for the joint project” (Merini, 1999, p. 16). The notion of partnership has been very influential in the economic sphere since the 1960s (Landry, 1994; Lorcerie, 1991; Delapierre, 1996; Lévesque, 2001). It has also been very popular in public policies, where the partnership approach is prevalent (Damon, 2002; Dhume, 2002; Schléret, 1995). Its popularity also spread throughout the field of education from the 1980s onwards. Educational institutions therefore had to keep up with society, as underlined by the French Loi d’Orientation of 1989, and be open to partners who would fulfil their role to the full in working for the public education service (Zay, 1997). For Guillaume Pelletier (1997), in terms of places of learning, partnerships are defined as “a privileged relationship based on a project shared by two or more organisations and resulting in the official exchange of staff, information or resources” (Pelletier, 1997, s.p.). He identifies four essential characteristics for such partnerships. Firstly, the partnership is generally a finalised

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project, i.e. it is scheduled over a given period with a predetermined start and end date. Secondly, it is based on privileged and non-hierarchical relations. Thirdly, it corresponds to a rationale and a purpose, i.e. the partners will not enter a partnership if it is not advantageous to them from the outset. And fourthly, it is an evolving process where expectations may change over time (Pelletier, 1997). Corinne Mérini describes a partnership as “the least amount of shared and negotiated action for resolving a shared issue or set of issues” (Mérini, 1999, quoted in Mérini & Ponté, 2009, p. 46). The notion of partnership relies on network-centric modes of operation, the network being “an unstable connection of actors that have to work together to overcome a shared issue” (Mérini & de Perreti, 2002, p. 158). Where learning partnerships are concerned, the networks are “immediate, to ensure there is a real or potential proximity between actors and stakes; complex because of the heterogeneity of actors and stakes involved, as well as the extent to which actors intervene and interactions develop as a result; and multifunctional, as several things circulate at once within the network, like information and innovation” (Bizzoni-Prévieux & Mérini, 2009, p. 38). Mérini uses four indicators (the type of openness of the school in relation to its environment, the duration of this openness, the stake the openness involves, the structural shape of the openness modelled as a network) to define three types of network under the umbrella term Réseau d’Ouverture et de Collaboration (ROC), or Open and Collaborative Network. The first type of ROC is centred around the organiser actor. The objective of this type of network is to observe and report, and the stake is to provide information. The second type of ROC ties two systems together: the school and the partner organisation, who offer their area of practice and/or skills to help implement a project in a real and authentic way. The third type of ROC is a framework in which actors from different levels, categories and statuses come together to work collectively in a research, innovation or production effort, which ties together education and/or production or research initiatives (Mérini, 2006). Not all instances of working together are necessarily a form of partnership, as Carol Landry (1994) points out. A partnership is a means for organisations to collaborate to different degrees, the lowest degree being the sharing of information, with weak ties between partners, and the highest degree being a merger, which entails complete collaboration as the organisations forsake their identity to create a new single organisation (Landry, 1994). Several other degrees of collaboration exist between the two ends of the scale: consultation, coordination, dialogue, cooperation, partnership and co-management (Landry, 1994).

 bout Doctoral Programmes Established Through a Partnership A Between Institutions from Different Countries … The research project focused on doctoral programmes jointly established by higher education institutions from different countries. It centred more specifically on the level of cooperation involved in creating and running such a programme (Tauch &

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Rauhvargers, 2002; CoE & UNESCO, 2004) than on the awarding of the degree at the end of the course (Schüle, 2006; Knight, 2008). This new type of programme made sense at a time when knowledge was fragmenting. It is now impossible for an academic unit to claim that they can cover all the aspects of a disciplinary field and offer students all the areas of micro-specialisation found within a field of study. With this in mind, setting up international programme networks, be it through reciprocal agreements or through creating joint programmes, can consolidate, if not improve, a student’s learning while also enabling the student to acquire the international and intercultural skills required for working in today’s world. Gilles Breton (2003, p. 22)

The growth and popularity of these programmes could be explained by four elements at least (Knight, 2008): a greater demand for higher education and particularly for international education; advances in information and communication technologies, which enable greater virtual mobility and collaboration between higher education institutions; the idea held by many institutions that the more international they are, the more prestigious they become; and lastly, the willingness of so-called Northern countries to better channel incoming mobility. Beyond those four elements, the advantage of these programmes varies according to the categories concerned: the students, professors, institutions and employers (Ibid.). The students are attracted by these courses as they are a way to obtain several qualifications for the same degree. Furthermore, given that these programmes draw on the expertise of several institutions and that the teaching is given in English for the most, students consider that they are of a higher quality. Lastly, this type of course can be seen by students as a way of enhancing their CV, employability and career prospects (Ibid.). With regard to the professors, despite the additional work required and the issues that inevitably arise when implementing such programmes, they are attracted by the diversity of students as well as the opportunity to innovate in their teaching, work with foreign colleagues on a joint project and extend their professional network (Ibid.). As for institutions, beyond the administrative (registration of foreign students), financial (tuition fees) and academic (evaluation, readjusting of programmes, content, teaching) challenges, they are in favour of these courses because, thanks to the foreign partner institutions, they can offer their own students a specialist field which they themselves do not offer (Ibid.). Furthermore, institutions are also sensitive to the fact that these courses give them international prestige and place them higher up in the rankings. Lastly, these programmes are regarded as a means to attract the brightest students and to better manage incoming mobility (Ibid.). However, the financial investment needed to set up these programmes can sometimes be a problem for institutions. In certain cases, institutions may decide to increase tuition fees to be able to finance the programmes, which can make the programmes elitist as only those who can afford the fees apply. Where employers are concerned, they are drawn by the prospect of employing multilingual students who have studied in at least two countries (Ibid.). The rapid growth of courses and programmes jointly developed by higher education institutions from different countries called for reflection on the labelling, awarding, recognition and professional title of the corresponding diplomas (Directive 2005/36/EC of 7 May 2005). The situation was less than straightforward

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and, as Jane Knight (2008) points out, the number of definitions in the process almost equalled the number of countries involved: “Different regions of the world, indeed each country active in this aspect of international education, have proposed definitions that relate to their policy framework and the concepts integral to their approach and native language. This has resulted in a multitude of definitions and another layer of complexity” (Knight, 2008, p. 14). For Jane Knight (2008), a joint degree programme represents one qualification which is jointly awarded by the partner institutions at the end of the degree programme. For double of multiple degree programmes, each partner institution simultaneously awards their own individual qualification. A combined degree programme essentially awards two consecutive qualifications (usually Bachelor/Master or Master/Doctorate), where each level corresponds to a programme in one institution, and both the institutions involved are located in different countries. In this case, students are mobile and complete their course for the first degree in one country, and the course for the second degree in another country (Ibid.). The term “dual degree” has two meanings. It is the same as the double degree when it is used at an international level, however, at institutional level, it can also refer to a double major, whereby two degrees in two different fields can be acquired (Ibid.). In their work, Christian Tauch and Andrejs Rauhvargers (2002) differentiate between what they call joint degrees and “real” joint degrees. “Real” joint degrees are jointly awarded by all the participating institutions, whereas joint degrees are awarded as a single national degree. The situation becomes even more complicated when some definitions place the qualification or degree as the main point of reference, whereas other definitions tend to refer to the characteristics of the programme leading to the degree awarded instead. An example of the first case is Section “II  – Elaboration des parchemins” (Awarding certificates) of the “Degree” Circular of 9 June 2011 issued by the French Ministry for Higher Education and Research, which describes the awarding of bilingual, multilingual and multi-institutional degrees. The French institution of higher education may issue a bi- or multilingual diploma as presented in the appendix to this circular, bearing for its French part all the regulatory visas and the countersignature of the rector of the academy. This parchment mentions in French the name of the French diploma and includes its visas. It also indicates the names of the diplomas delivered by the foreign partners in their language. This multilingual, multi-seal parchment enables French institutions to meet, in particular, the conditions for issuing joint diplomas of the Erasmus Mundus type, and is available according to the number of partners involved in the training course. French Ministry of Higher Education and Research, circular “Diplomas” of 9 June 2011, section “II-Elaboration of parchments”

Ulrich Schüle’s definition (2006) is another example of qualifications or degrees being the main reference point. Joint degree: a single diploma issued by two or more institutions offering an integrated study programme. The single diploma (Bachelor, Master, Doctor) is signed by the rectors of all participating universities and recognised as substitute of the national diplomas;

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Double degree: two nationally-recognised diplomas issued separately by the universities involved in the integrated study programme. Ulrich Schüle (2006, p. 3)

An example of the second case is the definition given by the Finnish Ministry of Education, which refers to the characteristics of the programme leading to the degree awarded. In principle, the term joint degree means a degree programme developed and organised by two or several HEIs [Higher Education Institutions] in collaboration which leads to one joint degree certificate. Double degree in turn means a degree programme developed and organised by two or several HEIs in collaboration which leads to two or more degree certificates, in practice to one in each partner HEI. Ministry of Education-Finland (2004, p. 1)

Another example would be the definition put forward by the Committee in charge of the Convention on the Recognition of Qualifications concerning Higher Education in the European Region (CoE & UNESCO, 2004). A joint degree should, for the purposes of this Recommendation, be understood as referring to a higher education qualification issued jointly by at least two or more higher education institutions or jointly by one or more higher education institutions and other awarding bodies, on the basis of a study programme developed and/or provided jointly by the higher education institutions, possibly also in cooperation with other institutions. A joint degree may be issued as a) A joint diploma in addition to one or more national diplomas; b) A joint diploma issued by the institutions offering the study programme in question without being accompanied by any national diploma; c) One or more national diplomas issued officially as the only attestation of the joint qualification in question. COE & UNESCO, (2004, p. 4)

 bout the Europeanisation of Higher Education A and the Concept of Transnationality … The Europeanisation process applied to higher education provided a backdrop to the research project. The concept of Europeanisation was born in the wake of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the enlargement of the EU to include Central and Eastern European countries. Several works were published at the time on the integration of these countries into the EU, and how they were forced to import and adopt a huge amount of regulatory rules and principles of public action that were often totally new to them (Delpeuch, 2011; Saurugger & Surel, 2006). To study this phenomenon and its impacts, terms such as “Europification” (Andersen & Eliassen, 1993) or “Europisation” (Grossman, 2002) were coined at first, before being replaced by the term “Europeanisation”. This “fashionable term” (Olsen, 2002, s.p.) conceals several forms of acceptance of the EU-Member States relationship, which are the outcome of the “exponential” (Saurugger, 2009, p. 256) growth in debates. Applied to higher education, the Europeanisation process could be divided into three separate phases (Mégie & Ravinet, 2007). The first phase was the development of a series of initiatives by the EC during the mid-1970s with the launch of a pilot university exchange programme that would eventually lead to the ERASMUS programme and other programmes, such as

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COMENIUS, LEONARDO and TEMPUS. The reaction of the Member States to these programmes varied. For example, the United Kingdom, which, for language reasons, welcomes far more ERASMUS students than it sends abroad, was opposed to this programme, especially as mobile students were to pay their tuition fees in their home country and not to British universities. However, Luxembourg, which has a relatively humble higher education system, was very enthusiastic about the programme. For the others, a consensus grew around the development of this mobility programme, as long as the EC did not try to intervene in the State-controlled content and structure of courses (Mégie & Ravinet, 2007). The national systems in place therefore remained relatively unchanged by these initiatives, even if direct and transnational links between higher education institutions were gradually being fostered. During this phase, some sector stakeholders, particularly presidents of universities, were not only working with their government to overcome issues faced by the national system and by their institutions (it was the decade in which universities became accessible to all in a bid for professionalisation), but also with Europe, especially through their participation in Community mobility programmes and their possible involvement in a European-level professional association. Antoine Mégie and Pauline Ravinet (2007, p. 109)

The second phase was the moment when national governments regained control of the European project for higher education in 1998, with a call to build a European higher education area (Paris Treaty) based on intergovernmental cooperation, which was followed by objectives being set in the 1999 Bologna Process: “The ministers in charge of higher education were clear about their objective to Europeanise the sector: a European area was in the process of being built, which involved harmonising aspects that had always been the remit of the States (structure of diplomas)” (Mégie & Ravinet, 2007, p. 111). The EC distanced itself from the Sorbonne’s initiative and was an outside observer at Bologna. The governments took the initiative to launch an intergovernmental process to prevent the EC from extending its reach, and also to resolve issues within their own national systems. However, the ministers in charge of education were not the only active stakeholders; the presidents of universities were also heavily involved in the process at a European level (Ibid.).Lastly, the third phase was the moment when the EC re-engaged with the process: “Although the governments were in charge, it [the EC] supplied the instruments for implementation, assessment and evaluation, and provided most of the financial resources to support the Bologna objectives” (Ibid., p. 115). This phase witnessed the institutionalisation of the role of sector stakeholders, such as university presidents (who, in 2001, merged two European organisations – the Conference of European Rectors and the Confederation of European Union Rectors’ Conferences  – to create the European University Association) and students (through the European Student International Bureau), and therefore also led to an “increasing Europeanisation of stakeholders and their organisations” (Ibid, p. 116.). With regard to higher education, Mégie and Ravinet (2007) illustrate that the relations between European and national levels did not fit into a strictly unidirectional top-down or bottom-up model: “They flowed both ways, in a kind of loop” (Ibid, p. 120.)– all the more so given that a stakeholder could be active at multiple

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levels. For the Bologna Process, for example, professional stakeholders were involved at several levels: university presidents were national stakeholders as well as European stakeholders, given that their European association enabled them to become the main point of contact for the EC.  Otherwise, the governments used “Europe” to overcome obstacles linked to bureaucracy, challenges made by the unions with regard to the proposed reforms, and university traditions (Ibid.). In the process of Europeanising higher education, three types of stakeholders could be identified: the governments of Member States, the EC (through the Directorate General for Education) and professionals from the sector, such as university presidents. As for the interactions between the EC and governments, the first phase of the process revealed a certain degree of competitiveness between the two: the EC used a system of initiatives to extend its field of action, whereas governments wanted to keep a hand on the higher education sector, particularly as education has always been of symbolic importance for nations. During the second phase, states and the EC gradually began to collaborate: States took back control of the process and the EC provided financing and expertise. The interests of each party converged: “The Commission needed governments to provide momentum in sectors where its leverage was restricted, and governments needed the Commission to provide implementation and monitoring instruments, financing for evaluation and its experience in terms of cooperation” (Mégie & Ravinet, 2007, p. 123). As for the interaction between the EC, professionals and university presidents, it was much more collaborative in nature: “Individual stakeholders were a strategically important resource for each other in terms of legitimacy, means and expertise” (Ibid.). For university presidents, the EC was a resource to promote their autonomy and independence, whereas for the EC, university presidents served as experts, enabling it to gradually extend its reach. Lastly, regarding the relationship between professionals and governments, the professionals were able to defend their interests and influence education policies, whereas for ministries, university presidents were essential for their hands-on knowledge as they had been participating in Community programmes for years (Ibid.). The idea of transnationality was also a predominant element in my research. It had been developing at a community level since the 1980s for two reasons. The first was the EC’s determination to become a household name for the citizens of Europe – a prerequisite that lay at the heart of a Europe built on friendship between peoples (Bapst, 2006). The Minister Delegate for European Affairs, Catherine Colonna, held the same discourse when she spoke about European programmes for schools in 2006: “I am convinced that such concrete initiatives involving stakeholders on the ground contribute to building a Europe of the people and a European identity” (Colonna, 2006). The second reason was the EC’s realisation that the crisis of the 1970s was structural in nature and that one of the pathways out of the quagmire was to promote innovation and experimentation, and develop new approaches to employment and education (Bapst, 2006). Whereas, “until then, the European Commission was regularly drawn by a ‘top-down’ harmonisation approach” (Bapst, 2006, p. 4), innovation suddenly became the watchword “and, of course, innovating with others, innovating in partnerships and, wherever possible, in transnational partnerships” (Ibid.). The EC therefore started to encourage a bottom-up approach based on the

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belief that “we are more intelligent as a group than alone” (Ibid.), an idea also endorsed by the Director of the DG for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, Peter Stub Jorgensen: “By encouraging the exchange of knowledge and know-how at all levels, transnational cooperation can create ideal conditions for learning and a better atmosphere for creating programmes and actions more efficiently, thereby creating a space for developing new policies and methods” (Jorgensen, 2006, p. 3). In the 1990s, action programmes and transnational Community initiatives were launched: EUROTECNET (1984), which enabled study visits to bolster technological cooperation, exchange and transfer; COMETT (1984), which strengthened cooperation between universities and companies in the field of technology training; PETRA (1987), which encouraged cooperation and the development of training partnerships; IRIS (1988), which promoted equal opportunities in vocational training; and FORCE (1990), which supported policies and activities in the field of continuous professional training. The vocational training policy shifted from financial support for national projects to funding for transnational programmes: “In the context of EUROFORM, Community funding can be allocated for actions aiming to give a Community dimension to this set of issues and promote transnational partnerships. […] By implementing transnational actions, the NOW initiative aims to get women to contribute to and benefit wholly – and to the same degree as men – from the positive effects expected to be felt from economic growth and technological developments” (RACINE, 1993, p. 20). The Network for the Support and Capitalisation of European Innovations (RACINE) played an important role in the definition and implementation of the transnational strand of European programmes. This network went bankrupt in February 2013. For the director of RACINE, Claude Bapst (2006), transnationality offered a particularly good opportunity for stepping back from a difficult situation, to analyse it: “Once you realise that you are not alone in facing difficulties and that you share with others the need to overcome the same issues, transnationality can generate new knowledge through a problem-solving approach” (Bapst, 2006, p.  5). However, although the EC insisted on the transnational dimension, what transnationality would actually consist of remained rather unclear. In the beginning, the EC gave no indication of the way in which transnationality should be put into practice, preferring to follow the adage of “you learn to walk by walking” (Bapst, 2006, p. 4). As underlined by Rosa Sanchez Salgado (2008), following interviews with transnational project carriers, the EC was never very clear about the shape, content and objectives of such partnerships: “Quite often, the Commission ‘came up with ideas’ without looking at the theory and practice for implementing them, or even following them up in any way” (Sanchez Salgado, 2008, p. 58). It is not until the end of the 1990s that the EC started to make a real effort to give more substance to transnationality, which was expected to be a vehicle for good practices. The added value of the transnational strand would be the sharing of experiences and the exchange of good practices, or benchlearning (Sanchez Salgado, 2008; Jorgensen, 2006). However, despite the feelings about the merits of the endeavour, in reality, it was difficult to provide evidence of the added value of such programmes (Sanchez Salgado, 2008).

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Methods Used and Institutions Investigated What were the reasons which led some higher education institutions to partake in the internationalisation process through the Erasmus Mundus doctoral programme, and also the reasons why other institutions decided not to? To identify the French institutions taking part in an Erasmus Mundus doctoral programme, a database was built using the Campus France list, the EACEA’s website, data obtained from the EACEA, Erasmus Mundus doctoral programme websites and the Erasmus Mundus 10 ans de masters et de doctorats conjoints en France (10 years of Joint Master’s and doctoral degrees in France) compendium (Agence 2e2f, 2013). The cross-referencing of these five data sources provided a list of 25 Erasmus Mundus doctoral programmes which included at least one French institution (30 Higher Education Institutions were part of these 25 Erasmus Mundus doctorates because an institution can be in several Eramsus Mundus doctorates). This cross-referencing step proved essential as some of the data did not add up. For the institutions not included in a Erasmus Mundus doctorate, I wanted to distinguish between those who submitted a file that was not retained by the EU and those who did not submit a file by distinguishing three categories: –– institutions “excluded” from the Erasmus Mundus doctorate program because they did not want the “label”. They did not apply for the program (voluntary exclusion; institutional policy; disinterest/indifference); –– institutions “excluded” from the Erasmus Mundus doctorate program that would have liked to apply but were unable to do so (exclusion due to lack of resources within the constraints of the program); –– institutions “excluded” from the Erasmus Mundus doctorate program because of a rejected application by the EACEA (institutions not sufficiently experienced to respond to this type of program, lack of a technical cell; exclusion due to lack of resources within the constraints of the program). With regard to institutions that were not involved in an Erasmus Mundus doctoral programme, it was impossible to discern which of them had submitted an application that had been rejected by the EU, and which had not submitted an application at all. The EACEA had neglected to forward a database. I had to adapt my methodology. I decided to undertake a survey at all charges of international relations and in charge of research in all French higher education institutions. I submitted this survey through the mailing lists of the Conference of University Presidents. However, the returns were disappointing, as only 17 questionnaires were completed in their entirety. Since this methodology by means of a questionnaire survey was not successful, I opted for another method, that of an interview. I then implemented the second method, that of the semi-structured interview (the same interview) aimed at the referents and coordinators of the Erasmus Mundus doctorates, but also at those responsible for international relations and those in

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charge of research. For the latter, as I could not interview all of them, I selected those whose institutions allowed potential group strategies to emerge. The interviews therefore targeted three types of interlocutors (Erasmus Mundus doctoral program coordinators and pedagogical advisors; international relations managers; the managers in charge of research) from three types of Higher Education Institution (12 interviews from Engineering Schools in Agronomy; 28 from Engineering Schools and 69 from Universities). The task of identifying the contacts was particularly complicated and time-consuming. For each type of contact, an interview grid was drawn up. It could be sent on request before the telephone interview. Conducting the interviews by telephone was necessary because I wanted to do as many of them as possible in a short time. It was also an efficient and inexpensive way to successfully collect information from dispersed contacts. I conducted over one hundred interviews between April and July 2015. With the respondents’ consent, I recorded the interviews. Then I transcribed them faithfully word for word (everything was transcribed with the hesitations, the syntax errors, the laughter, the repetitions…). It was a question of not betraying the words, of not committing any misunderstanding. I then analyzed the verbatim manually, without using any software. In order to better understand the institution’s strategy and to draw as complete a picture as possible, the analysis of the interviews was very often correlated with that of the AERES and HCERES reports (those are independent reports on each French higher education institution): reports on the institution, reports on the master’s programs and reports on the doctoral schools.

Findings: Three Partnership-Related Risks The research project uncovered three risks concerning the setting up and running of partnerships: not knowing the other partners beforehand; the lack of experience of departments and administrations in some institutions in setting up an Erasmus Mundus doctoral partnership; and the lack of experience of departments and administrators in some institutions in managing an Erasmus Mundus doctoral partnership.

Not Knowing Partners Beforehand The French institution AgroParisTech’s Montpellier site accepted to take part in an Erasmus Mundus doctoral partnership without even knowing the other partner universities beforehand. The Faculty of Life Sciences at the University of Copenhagen had decided to set up an Erasmus Mundus partnership, and as it wanted to add a French partner to its initial consortium, it contacted the AgroParisTech team in

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Montpellier. There had never been any scientific collaboration or academic cooperation between the two institutions before. Several issues cropped up in the running of the partnership. For example, deciding on thesis topics led to difficulties. This process requires close collaboration between research units in a consortium to jointly establish a list. However, in this particular partnership, the researchers in the unit in Montpellier were barely contacted by the other partner units to jointly draw up a list of possible topics. One point that is a little negative is the construction of thesis subjects. This construction must be done between two thesis directors. We in Montpellier have had very few proposals from partners to be in co-direction. When we were the main proposer of the subject, we were obviously going to ask for a partner in the consortium. But the reciprocal was relatively infrequent. Interview with the scientific coordinator of the Erasmus Mundus PhD, AgroParisTech, Montpellier site.

The partnership constantly suffered from the uneven distribution of doctoral students across the research units, which gave rise to significant tensions within the consortium. There is little satisfaction with the way in which the PhD has been managed by the Danes. A very competitive approach has been put in place, competitive between institutions. That is to say, there has been no consideration of balance in the volume of doctoral students between the institutions. Basically, it was a kind of scholarship where each university had the right to put a certain number of subjects in a catalogue. Students would go through the catalogue and apply for a given topic. Then there was an eligibility exam and then an admissions interview. Only the best were selected, without taking into account the balance between the universities that would be supervising these students. Interview with the scientific coordinator of the Erasmus Mundus PhD programme, AgroParisTech, Montpellier site.

It is worth stressing that in this partnership, AgroParisTech’s Montpellier site was contacted by their Danish colleagues without there being any previous collaboration between the research units, which may explain this lack of consultation on such important and sensitive questions.

 ack of Experience in Setting Up Erasmus Mundus L Doctoral Partnerships The departments and administrations in some institutions were called on to help set up the Erasmus Mundus doctoral partnership. Several of them were unable to meet the request at the time, as confirmed by the scientific coordinator for the EDEEM at the University of Paris I. Interviewer: Were you supported by Paris I during the preparation of the application? Scientific coordinator: Officially I can only answer yes. Interviewer: Yes, officially because the university signs. But was the university ready? How did it go at Paris I?

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Scientific coordinator: Can I ask for a joker? Interviewer: Was it your team that took charge of the whole project? Scientific coordinator: We set up the project, we created the structure. The colleagues who set up other projects afterwards copied what we did. This gave the university the idea to do it. We broke down doors, yes. Interview with the EDEEM coordinator for the University of Paris I-Panthéon Sorbonne

According to the coordinator, at the time, “Paris I and the other French universities were not necessarily properly equipped to understand what was required for projects like this one.” The institution needed a certain amount of time to analyse these European programmes and adapt its departments and administrations accordingly.The scientific coordinator for EUROPHOTONICS, another Erasmus Mundus partnership, came to the same conclusion: nobody at the university was able to help him at the time because “no one knew anything about these programmes”. Interviewer: Did you get support from the university to set up the project? Scientific Coordinator: I will be frank. I didn’t get any support from the university, i.e. at the time it was the Paul Cézanne University and therefore it was a smaller university. I don’t know what it would be like now, maybe it would be different. We had set up this project in 2009 and we did everything ourselves, that is, we downloaded the applications from the sites and so on. Interview with the scientific coordinator of EUROPHOTONICS for the University Paul Cézanne-Aix-Marseille III.

However, he admits that he did receive a certain amount of support, in that the university speeded up the procedures to get the application submitted to the EU on time.The observation was the same for the leader of EUDIME at the University of Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier. Although the university gave moral support, he could not rely on any help for the logistics side of things because, at the time, there were no specific facilities. Interviewer: Did you receive support from your university? Scientific Coordinator: No. No. Not for this one in particular. Let’s just say that there was no device to provide support. When I told them "We have the possibility, the opportunity to participate", they were very happy, no doubt. But there were no special incentives or special support. Interviewer: No support unit for setting up European projects? Scientific coordinator: At the time no. Now things have evolved a lot and there has been a strong increase in competence. But when we set up all these projects, no. Interview with the EUDIME referent for the University Toulouse III-Paul Sabatier.

 ack of Experience in Managing Erasmus Mundus L Doctoral Partnerships I have identified three difficulties: difficulties faced by doctoral schools in adapting to the programme; difficulties faced by research units in terms of readiness; difficulties faced by departments and administrations in managing the programme.

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Difficulties Faced by Doctoral Schools in Adapting to the Programme A question mark hung over the “Erasmus Mundus doctorate” and how to integrate it into the existing doctoral offer in institutions. Was it a European doctoral programme that could be made part of an existing doctoral school? Or did it need to be considered as a separate doctoral school with its own field of research? The website of Grenoble INP (Institute of Engineering and Management) states the following: “The IMEP-2 doctoral school is home to the IDS FUNMAT (Erasmus Mundus doctorate) European doctoral school which focuses on functional materials for energy, health and information technologies.” The doctoral schools which incorporated an Erasmus Mundus doctorate succeeded to varying degrees in adapting their school to this programme and its requirements. There are several accounts of the problems faced by doctoral schools in running this very specific doctoral programme. Some schools, which were not prepared for this demanding European doctorate, were accused of being too rigid when the programme actually required a softening of traditional rules. The elation felt on the application being accepted all too often gave way to “an administrative nightmare” (a coordinator) when it came to implementing the programme. Simply put, the nightmare is administrative. There’s an endless debate at the doctoral school level as to which title we welcome these students in. There is an agreement that was signed to say that we were totally in agreement to welcome them but then afterwards, when it comes to concrete implementation, the ED is outdated! It often amounts to an administrative nightmare. An administrative nightmare! We are seen more as a dog in a bowling alley than as a bearer of good practices. If you look at the administrative record, it’s an administrative nightmare. If we start from the scientific interest of having Erasmus Mundus, their dynamism, the fact that they come up with original ideas that we haven’t necessarily thought of, that they bring us themes, that they force us in inverted commas to get into their dynamics, it is extremely positive for research and for the dissemination of good practices. But it’s still done at the cost of an administrative nightmare that someone has to assume. Interview with an Erasmus Mundus PhD scientific coordinator

The Erasmus Mundus doctorate required doctoral schools to adapt, willingly or not, to the demands of the EU in a somewhat forced, top-down Europeanisation. Difficulties Faced by Research Units in Terms of Readiness At times, some aspects of the programme put research units in a difficult situation. The Erasmus Mundus doctorate entailed certain expenses for experimental science laboratories who welcomed doctoral students. The programme financed the student but not the equipment used. An important constraint is that the funding that accompanies these theses is relatively limited. So, in the humanities, in pure math, in law-economics management, this is not a problem. On the other hand, I’m in experimental sciences and running a lab has a cost. These are projects that, in some cases, cost us money. That is annoying. The equipment and consumables we need cost more than the money we get to follow these students. At

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some point we have to make a choice: either we don’t get them to do the work or we do it and we have to take the money from other projects. Interview with an Erasmus Mundus PhD scientific coordinator

Furthermore, although the members of research units may have shown a keen interest when the application was submitted, their enthusiasm often faded when they realised they would have to tutor students in English. For the labs, it’s complicated. They have to welcome doctoral students who are not even necessarily European and the only possible language of exchange is English. People are very interested in submitting thesis projects. But when it comes to setting up effective collaborations, it’s complicated because the students are not French-speaking and the field is not completely ripe for that. Interview with an Erasmus Mundus PhD scientific coordinator

Lastly, the joint supervision of an Erasmus Mundus doctorate involved broadening the subject field of the thesis, which disrupted the practices and points of reference of research units. “The UMRs (combined research units) stated: ‘It’s interesting to have an extra doctoral student. But you end up giving yourself a lot more work because the viva will revolve around our research issue, in our field as such, and at the same time it has to be a viva that also includes a field that is marginally different from ours, belonging to the other joint supervisor. Do we not risk spreading ourselves a little thin?’” (Interview with a scientific coordinator of an Erasmus Mundus doctorate).  ifficulties Faced by Departments and Administrations in Managing D the Programme Some higher education establishments involved in an Erasmus Mundus doctorate had difficulties in managing the programme once it had been selected by the EU. Three different cases came to the fore. The first case consisted of institutions in which the departments and administrations were sidelined when the Erasmus Mundus doctorate application files were being prepared. This was the case for the University of Strasbourg’s NEUROTIME programme, for example, where the International Relations Office was only approached by the consortium when a signature was needed before sending the application to the EACEA.  With hindsight, the consortium secretary expressed regret that departments and administrations at the University of Strasbourg, as well as those at the other participating institutions more generally, were sidelined when the Erasmus Mundus doctorate was drawn up. It subsequently led to numerous management problems which arose from lack of information or consultation. “Looking back, I think we should have taken more time to visit each university or faculty individually, to explain the challenges of the project. They would have been better prepared and have known what to expect” (consortium secretary). The above example showed the importance of including all the departments and administrations concerned when drawing up the application, to pave the way for the ensuing procedures.

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The second case comprised institutions whose departments and administrations were unable to support the coordinators in drawing up projects. This inability to help was particularly felt when it came to the management of Erasmus Mundus doctorates. Some examples of the institutions having suffered from this incapacity are the University of Savoie Mont Blanc for the IRAP programme, Paris Sud-Paris XI for the SETS programme and the University of Paris I-Panthéon Sorbonne, which was the administrating institution for the EDEEM programme but had to hand over the role to the University of Bielfeld in Germany after encountering problems in administrating the programme. The third case involved difficulties in managing an Erasmus Mundus doctorate because of an institutional merger. That was the case for EUROPHOTONICS doctorate, which was administered by the University of Paul Cézanne-Aix-Marseille III and then by the University of Aix-Marseille, and the DOCMASE programme, which was administered by Lorraine INP and then by the University of Lorraine. The leaders of the DOCMASE and EUROPHOTONICS doctorates stated that they thought the mergers led to more “red tape” when it came to managing their programme. Prior to the merger, administering the programme seemed easy: “Before, we tended to work with smaller structures, where interaction was direct. Our questions were answered quickly.” The merger undermined the existing set up in three ways. Firstly, the interaction with staff seemed to disappear: “I’m not going to mince my words. The administrative set-up suddenly expanded, with lots of new tiers and barriers to overcome. We lost the direct interaction and became an administrative unit” (a programme leader). Secondly, the merger complicated the procedures, particularly those related to the signature of official documents. Thirdly, new bureaucratic rules were laid down, sometimes in complete opposition to those set out by the EU.  he Erasmus Mundus Doctorate: Difficult Partnerships to Manage T for Coordinators Feelings about Erasmus Mundus doctorates were mixed: at times the programme was seen as attractive, and at other times burdensome to manage. Few people regarded these networks as easy to administrate. Several accounts refer to the heavy workload associated with the programme. Harsh words have sometimes been used to describe managing the programme, such as it is “the price to pay”, it is “terrible”, or even, it is a “nightmare”. The extra workload was all the more difficult to accept when there was no working time set aside for doing the extra work. The obstacles were generally posed by the administrations, as it was complicated to embed European regulation into national regulations when they were so different.

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Conclusion This chapter emerged from research on networked doctorates of postsecondary institutions from different countries, both EU and non-EU. The aim was to understand what has enabled higher education institutions to come together in an international consortium to develop a joint networked doctorate and, conversely, what has paralyzed other institutions from doing so. The Erasmus Mundus doctorate, which ran from 2009 to 2013, was chosen as a basis for the research. This contribution is part of the geography of the school and more specifically the geography of training and research. More broadly, this study questions the unequal access of higher education institutions to the process of internationalization by revealing the practices, logics and strategies of institutions that shed light on the processes of international opening at various stages. It thus questions a predominant concept in social geography, namely inequalities of access. If the research was conducted with my knowledge and know-how as a geographer, it is resolutely positioned in a social science approach. The specific objective of this chapter is to help analyze the risks and complications associated with managing these partnerships. The chapter shows that the Erasmus Mundus doctorate was the outcome of a European programme based on rules and requirements that came into conflict with those already in place at several levels, regardless of whether they were academic or administrative. These partnerships disrupted the administrative routines of academic institutions to such an extent that the requirements imposed were sometimes viewed as being part of a forced Europeanisation process. Inequalities came to the fore between: the doctoral schools, which were more or less able to adapt to the rules of the Erasmus Mundus doctorate; the research laboratories, which were more or less equipped to take on the programme and its philosophy; the departments and administrations, which had the ability, or not, to manage the programme; and the research lecturers, who were more or less used to the bureaucracy of European programmes. Finally, the chapter highlights the need, upstream, for a shared reflection between the members of the partnership on the setting up and management of European cooperation projects in order to limit the risks and difficulties. Several questions arise to which answers must first be found. With whom to set up the project? What skills does the project need to be effective? Who does what (consortium, nature of the partnership(s), sharing of tasks and responsibilities, etc.)? Which structure of the partnership can be the coordinator, both within the consortium and vis-à-vis the program secretariat and the European Commission? How to adapt the human resources to optimize the setting up and the follow-up of the project? Etc. This chapter contains elements relating to the concept of transnationality presented in the theoretical approach. Starting from the observation of shared difficulties and common problems to be solved, the teams tried to manage the situations in a problem-solving way. The EC does not consider the theoretical and practical

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means for the implementation of the programme; it does not give any solution or precision. Lastly, it would appear that certain rules are essential for running such a partnership successfully: a good mutual understanding of the other partners before setting up a project, and the involvement of ad hoc departments at the institutions from the outset to ensure a smoother management of the project.

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Pelletier, G. (1997). Le partenariat, du discours à l’action. La Revue des Échanges (AFIDES), 14(3). [dossier « Éducation et partenariat »], s.p. http://www.respire-­formation.fr/medias/files/ partenariat-­du-­discours-­a-­l-­action.pdf RACINE. (1993). Partenariats européens: les opérateurs français dans les programmes communautaires de formation professionnelle. RACINE. Sanchez Salgado, R. (2008). Les projets transnationaux européens: analyse d’une expérience européanisante. Politique européenne, 3(26), 53–74. https://doi.org/10.3917/poeu.026.0053, http:// www.cairn.info/revue-­politique-­europeenne-­2008-­3-­page-­53.htm Saurugger, S. (2009). Théories et concepts de l’intégration européenne. Presses de Sciences Po. Saurugger, S., & Surel, Y. (2006). L’européanisation comme processus de transfert de politique publique. Revue internationale de politique comparée, 2(13), 179–211. https://doi.org/10.3917/ ripc.132.0179 Schléret, Y. (1995). Le partenariat, principes et réalité? In Dans R. Ballain et F. Benguigui (dir.), Loger les personnes défavorisées (pp. 171–180). La Documentation française. Schüle, U. (2006). Joint and double degrees within the European Higher Education Area. Towards further internationalisation of business degrees. http://ecahe.eu/w/images/c/cc/Joint_and_double_degree_programmes_-­_vexing_questions_and_issues_-­_september_2008.pdf Tauch, C., & Rauhvargers, A. (2002). Survey on master degrees and joint degrees in Europe. European University Association. http://www.eua.be/eua/jsp/en/upload/Survey_Master_Joint_ degrees_fr.1068806272347.pdf Zay, D. (1997). Le partenariat en éducation et en formation: émergence d’une notion transnationale ou d’un nouveau paradigme? Éducation Permanente, 2(131), 13–28. Magali Hardouin is a Senior Lecturer in geography and land-use planning. She teaches at the Universite de Bretagne Occidentale (UBO) and is a researcher at the University of Rennes, France. Her research focuses in two areas: 1. ‘Didactic axis’: Questioning the socio-spatial dimensions of teaching-learning situations/processes/interactions; Analysis of the links between didactics and disciplines; Critical look at the tools used in teaching/learning situations. 2. ‘Socio-spatial dimensions of teaching/learning places axis’  : Places in a socio-spatial environment; Places to be designed and developed to improve inclusion, autonomy and well-being of pupils/students/learners and to perfect professional skills; Places to think about and develop in times of pandemic.  

Part II

Partnerships in Education and the Risks Emerging from Relationships of Difference

Chapter 7

Working as Co-Actors, to Reduce Inequalities and Prevent Tensions in a Partnership Françoise Maria Capacchi, Isabelle Callewaert, and Sylvie Strappazzon

Abstract  This chapter presents an action-research conducted in primary classrooms in Belgium, with organizations which united co-actors from various worlds. The contribution will illustrate what it means to work with practitioners, inspectors, and researchers, in a climate of trust and respect, that includes the sharing of competences. This chapter will also illustrate how the joint work of the actors shows evolutions and progress, despite differences in social background and status. We consider partnerships as a device in collaborative research between researchers and actors in the field when they become associated through a common project. In this chapter we will first show that risks in partnership, when identified and treated, can produce positive effects on personal and professional development and then, that working as co-actors can reduce the negative effect of risks with a good impact of partnership on the cognitive, emotional, and professional dimensions of the partners. It is also argued that risk in partnership could be a source of creative and cultural enrichment when co-actors from various worlds and status are partners. Keywords  Collaborative research · Creativity · Professional Development · Reciprocity · Self-confidence · Co-actors

F. M. Capacchi (*) University of Lille EGERHIE, Lille, France GrAC, Sint-Genesius-Rode, Belgium I. Callewaert European Social Fund, Brussels, Belgium S. Strappazzon International Voluntary Service, Brussels, Belgium © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 K. Otrel-Cass et al. (eds.), Partnerships in Education, Transdisciplinary Perspectives in Educational Research 5, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98453-3_7

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Introduction This chapter will focus on two main key issues. One is to find out whether by working together researchers and practitioners can learn to appreciate each other. If so, can the effects of partnership on their personal and professional development then contribute to the reduction and the prevention of risks due to inequalities generated by hierarchical links, diploma and cultural differences and produce positive result? The other idea is to explore whether building a relation of trust and respect, with the definition of rules for the conduct of a common project, can reduce other risks as misunderstanding, loss of autonomy, loss of members of the project and rivalry and develop positive effects on cognitive, emotional fields, and creativity. We will first present how a pedagogical project brings together a team of researchers, inspectors, principals, artists and 10-year-old students. Next, we will specify the methodology of a qualitative research conducted through interviews and a participant observation of the attitudes and relationships that the various members of this team have maintained throughout the course of the project. We will describe the instruments and tools created and used during this research before presenting the work done by the co-actors during the pedagogical project. To this end we will present a narrative of a researcher working in the project and three study cases illustrating the evolution of the behavior of participants taking risks. Then we will present our qualitative analysis and findings basing ourselves on a thematic analysis before delivering some conclusions concerning conditions to be combined to reduce tensions and inequalities in a partnership with actors from various worlds.

Context of a Project and Research for Various Co-actors The context of the project we will present here was set in primary schools in Belgium. Several school principles of the Provinces of Hainaut and Namur who had come together for a training seminar, expressed the wish to collaborate and join in the construction of activities that would respond to the requirements of a new decree that had upset the teaching of philosophical courses. This new Decree was meant to organize a course on philosophy and citizenship within primary education (Decree of 22-10-2015) during the school year 2016–2017 and was a significant change in the educational landscape in French-speaking part of Belgium. For years the philosophical courses had related to the different religions recognized by the Belgian Constitution. A separate curriculum existed for each religion and each school enjoyed the freedom to choose the pedagogical methods for its implementation. The new goal in philosophy and citizenship education introduced the development of skills and knowledge about philosophical, citizen and democratic education, according to a rigorous new methodology.

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This novelty required collaborative work from the teachers. The need to build interdisciplinary teams made up of teachers from different disciplines and external partners appeared to be a real challenge, whereas teachers were used to work individually. Our collaborative research and action group (GRaC) has been asked by a few principals to think about how to set up collaborative experiments that would meet the intentions defined in the Decree and help team member to work together. Training sessions were organized to search which human and material resources can help educational teams to implement new educational content required by the curriculum. We turned our eyes to France (Pettier, 2002; Chatain & Pettier, 2003; Tozzi, 2007), United Kingdom (Sharp, 1981, 2000) and Québec (Daniel, 1992; Q.M.E., 2001), to explore what those countries, who were engaged in a similar program, were doing in that field. We explored with the participants the hypothesis that a pedagogical partnership (Capacchi & Moreaux, 2016) between teachers, principals, artists and researchers (Ardouin, 1997; Bourdieu & Gros, 1989; Bourdieu, 2001, Quentin, 2002) contributes to the development of the ability to grow as a citizen, tolerant and capable of critical thinking. The literature thus consulted allowed us to think that working together, the various actors would discover competencies and qualities of each other, share opinions and learn to accept new points of view. At the end of the training, principals wanted to build a project in partnership with teachers and external stakeholders. A study text would be chosen jointly. Activities would be organized to verify its understanding by the students, discuss the values conveyed by the text and promote the exchange of ideas and the expression of the students' creativity. Schools in Namur and Mons have asked us to accompany them. Our group (GRaC) - which has been making participant observations since 2009, to analyze the functioning of school-based partnerships  - seized the opportunity to participate in this project. The experience would have a double objective with the need for us to adopt a double posture. With teachers and other stakeholders, we would be in the accompanying posture and in our observational work we would be in the posture of researchers. This dual posture would allow us to observe, on the field, the actions of stakeholders and risks treatment.

Questions and Hypothesis Questions Among the many questions we addressed, we selected the following. Is it possible to make a group of actors from different worlds work together? Are degree inequalities and cultural differences surmountable risks in working in partnership? What is an ideal context for co-actors to prevent or reduce risks in a partnership? Are there risks for the curriculum when various actors and new methods interfere in a pedagogical project? How do we identify tensions and risks? What is the system in place to treat them, reduce them, prevent them? What positive changes

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can lead to risk-taking in partnership? What effects can these risk-taking have on personal and professional development? What are the impacts on professional practice, on creativity, on the cognitive development of participants?

Hypothesis We mainly studied the evolution of the behaviours of adult participants to test an initial hypothesis that the partnership would produce effects on the personal and professional development of co-actors (Naville, 1956) and would reduce the risk of tension; lack of self-confidence, in front of experts, that could result from the collaboration of unequal partners in terms of hierarchical status, titles and diplomas (Mérini, 2012) and cultural affiliations. Our first hypothesis is that working in partnership can reduce the negative effects of risks and promotes personal and professional development through the combined skills of the actors. We have also explored a second hypothesis focused on the impacts of partnership with co-actors, in the field of emotions (Christophe, 1998), creativity and cognitive development, with adults and students. Our second hypothesis is that working in partnership as co-actors can reduce tensions and enhance positive effects of risk-taking on emotion, creativity, and cognitive development.

Methodology and Methods Corpus The work sample for the pedagogical project and the research gathered the opinions of 70 students and 19 adults, as shown in the Table 7.1 below. Table 7.1  Distribution of participants Participants Students: 70 Adults: 19

Erpent – Namur : 36. Mons – Jemappes : 34. Artists: 2. Education Inspectors: 2. Principals (1 principal is a member of the GRaC): 3. Education researchers (members of The GRaC): 4. Primary school teachers: 8. (1 teacher is a member of the GRaC)

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Our way of co-working in the pedagogical project is based on the steps recommended by Dr Pia Touboul of Nice (2018) and Bryman (2001): the sampling; the development of the qualitative interview guide with open questions; the development of quantitative questionnaire given at the beginning and at the end of the project to the students; protocols to note the synonyms given by the students to the concept observed; the registration of group activities, the presence of a moderator (an external teacher) and observers (a researcher and a principal; the regular debriefing between moderator and observers; the transcript of the recorded discussions; the qualitative analysis of the data and the presentation of the results of the pedagogical project to the parents of the students, the local authorities, a large external public and a research meeting.

Reference Framework To address the work of co-actors in project-based pedagogy and cooperative work, we have consulted several studies of Bordalo and Ginestet (1993); Altet (1993), for the contributions to teaching styles; Dumas and Leblond (2002) for the roles of the pedagogy teacher of the project, Lehraus & Buchs (2008) for peer interactions. Marcel et al. (2007) provided us with valuable insights into new teaching practices and the art of coordinating, collaborating, cooperating, while Larcher and Crindal (2004) helped us reflect on new knowledge-related mechanisms. The main authors selected for the field of philosophy and art practice are: Lipman (2011), Sasseville (2000) and Chirouter (2005) for the practice of philosophy with children; Cramer (2003); and Quentin (2002) for the practice of art in school. For the management and prevention of risks at work, we consulted the research of Janosz et  al. (1998) and Janosz et  al. (2004). who addressed the issue of the school climate in primary and secondary education; and Van Belleghem (2013), for issues of trust at work. For the participant observation, we relied on Goffman’s theory (1974) and improved what we observed. We used interviews, according to the methods of Kaufmann (1996) and Vermerch (1997).

Collection of Data Through Interviews Explanation Interviews with Students The technique used was the one advocated by Pierre Vermerch (1997) with the aim of facilitating students to express what they had done, their way of thinking and updating the implicit content in their responses to questionnaires distributed at the beginning and at end of the project.

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Semi-structured Interviews with Adults The semi-structured interview guide for adults during the project mainly included the following questions: 1. How did you welcome the idea of working in partnership on this educational project? 2. What were your main fears when the project was announced? 3. How do you perceive the working atmosphere during the partnership? 4. How do you feel when an observer arrives at your workplace? The semi-structured interview maintenance guide for adults at the end of the project mainly included the following questions: 5. What changes (positive or negative) has the project brought to your professional life? 6. What changes (positive or negative) did the project bring to you? 7. What did you hate during the project? 8. What did you enjoy, learned during the project? Comprehensive Interviews with Adults To complete our gathering of data we also used comprehensive interviews (Kaufmann 1996) that allow information to be collected more openly than when questions from the maintenance guide are used. This allowed us to clarify information that we had gathered overall during the research. Interviewees felt more comfortable and often brought new things that we did not expect. All the interviews carried out are included in the Table 7.2 below. The interviews with the students were conducted by a principal, a researcher and two teachers having been trained to the technique of explanation interview. The interviews with the adults were conducted by the three editors of this article. The information gathered has provided input to our database regarding the behaviour of co-actors throughout the project, the evolution of their practices, the effects of their collaborative work on the management of the difficulties associated with the Table 7.2  Distribution of interviews Interviews Explanation interviews with students Explanation interviews with teachers Comprehensive interviews with artists Comprehensive interviews with principals Comprehensive interviews with teachers Semi-directive interviews with teachers Semi-directive interviews with researchers

N 18 2 2 2 4 6 2

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risk-­taking. This has allowed us to deepen our understanding of the acting of the participants actors, who sometimes behave in different ways when they feel observed, but also to limit our intuitions and subjectivity.

Instruments To identify sources of risks and their treatment during observations of behaviours and actions, we designed a dynamic system as presented in the Fig. 7.1 below. This system included the identification of the changes that the new way of working could cause. It underlines the importance of a rigorous survey of complaints to analyze them and identify dangers, their nature and severity and what impacts those risks could have on the functioning of the team and the continuation of the educational project. The system proposes meetings as a necessary tool / means to deal with the encountered problems but also the evolution of working in partnership. With this in mind, we have organized regular meeting cycles with all adult actors. Each cycle included an information meeting, a time for discussion and a meeting to make decisions or outline the progress of the educational project and the expectations of individuals. The dynamic system described above has proven to be a valuable tool for risk detection, the evaluation, and the management of it. It was part of a real workplace welfare policy. To implement such a policy, it was also necessary to create an instrument to facilitate screening and risk prevention. This instrument was intended to provide an opportunity to draw observers' attention to areas that were likely to be the most vulnerable. Janosz's; Georges’s, and Parent’s work (1998), were invaluable in building this tool. Three of the main areas are illustrated in the Fig. 7.2 below. As other instruments, we resorted to individual questionnaires protocols and grids for observations, collection and analysis.

•Sharing tasks •Sharing workspaces •Sharing skills

Identifying changes that affect working

Complaint collection •Who's complaining? •The nature of the complaint •Risk identification •[Texte]

Fig. 7.1  Dynamic system to identify and treat risks

•Information •Discussion •decisions

Meetings

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Aeras of aenon for observer Organisaon of the work • Defining the obligaons and missions entrusted to partners • Security of people, material and intellectual objects

Relaonships of co-actors • Mutual respect • Shared trust • Mutual assistance • Complicity • Jusce

Means of work • Hardware equipment • Infrastructure for the use of digital skills • Sharing workplaces together

Fig. 7.2  Instrument to facilitate screening and risk prevention

We also used digital instruments and classic material to make the artistic production at the end of the pedagogical project: a shadow theatre, to photograph and to film the sequences. Using the instruments presented in Figs. 7.1 and 7.2, it appears that most complaints where in the fields of the missions and obligations of the partners, the difficulty in letting each member speak and listen during the meetings. There were also the continuous statements about the sharing of workspaces, some of them considered their classrooms being a "personal territory". The limit of individual autonomy was also included in the list of complaints. After two weeks of operation, it was announced that there would be evaluation moments at regular intervals, to assess the quality of the partnership itself, the functioning of the team, the benefits for the students, … with the participation of researchers and practitioners. In the early stages it became clear that working in a climate of trust and mutual respect was necessary but not obvious. To prevent situations that limited the work in anterior experiences, a clarification of the aims of the partnership was proposed. A code of conduct, inspired by the ethic of the GRaC (Capacchi & Moreaux, 2016), was presented. The main resolutions adopted are summarized in the Table 7.3 below. Partners signed a “written agreement” to provide a basis for discussion should there be problems such as a member leaving the group without any reason; damage made to the reputation of the team. It was emphasized that the code was there only to be used in case of crisis. Throughout the project, frank discussions and respectful expressions of opinion would be initiated during differences.

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Table 7.3  Code of conduct adopted by the partners Areas Examples of resolutions Obligations and missions Everyone shares risks and responsibilities. Everyone recognizes that all partners have complementary skills. Everyone provides each other support and motivation. Climate Everyone has the right to express their opinion without being interrupted in their speech. Everyone has the right to ask explanations and ask questions. Everyone has the right to express their disagreement but respecting people. The space for collaboration is associated with an area of exchange and dialogue. It is a space where every colleague has a place and a say. (Dionne, Lemyre & Savoie-Zajc, 2010). Autonomy When a common proposal is adopted, everyone tries to improve it, enrich it. Each member has the right to organize in his/her own way the task entrusted to him/her, but without disturbing the work of the team. The partners respect the common decisions. Nobody has a superior status. Personal preferences are not superior to those of the group. Security Personal criticism is avoided. Everyone accepts a co-worker in the own classroom. Everyone respects the space work of others. Everyone respects the material. Everyone leaves the room in order after an activity.

Observations of Behaviour and Work of Co-Actors We will present a selection of our observations using the narrative that a researcher wrote, and three study cases focused on the behaviour and work of co-actors along the pedagogical project.

 arrative Written by a Researcher Observing the Going-On N of the Pedagogical Project The pedagogical project that united co-actors from various worlds had two parts. It started with a philosophical workshop and ended with an artistic production. First part of the project: the philosophical workshop. The philosophical workshop (Lipman, 1988, 2006; Callewaert, 2017) would develop mental skills (Sasseville, 2008), argumentations (Barth, 2001, 2004),

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discursive, literary exchanges and writing exercises to reach the goals and aims of the new curriculum. Seventy 10-years-old students from Erpent, Namur, Mons and Jemappes received the same fable to read and express their comprehension and their opinion about values and concept contained in the text. The adults involved in the context of the implementation of a reflexive approach of a fable during a philosophy and citizenship lesson (Capacchi et al., 2018) were: the teachers and principals of the primary schools concerned, 2 artists, 2 inspectors and members of the GRaC. The fable chosen by democratic vote of the students was "The Lion and the Rat" of the French author Jean de Lafontaine. A questioning about the notion of strong and weak, powerful, and little emerged. The teacher asked the students to characterize by a word, a sentence, an example, their representations of the four concepts under study groups: dividing students into small groups, within the workshop (Bryman, 2001), more students expressed their opinions. It appeared that 'low' and 'small' were related to the notions of "helpless and less to " and attributed to the Rat, while "strong" and "'powerful" were associated to " superior to", attributed to the Lion. To offer to each student, the opportunity to express themselves and offer their understanding of the maxim of the fable: "We oftenneed a smaller one than ourselves." the researchers proposed working methods consisting of: reflections and discussions. The philosophical workshop (Lipman, 2011; Marsollier, 2003; Tozzi, 2012) was chosen to hold discussions and improve the representations. For the conduct of the philosophical workshop, Matthew Lipman’s six-step grid (2011), served as a support, as illustrated in the Table 7.4 below. The processing of the documents for gathering the elements to be compared was entrusted to the researchers who received the photos and recordings of the working sessions. The same workshop was organized in each class participating to the pedagogical project. It was followed by an artistic creation activity to allow students to reappropriate the values and maxim of the fable. In Namur and Erpent, writing workshops were set up. In Mons and Jemappes, the students chose a rewrite of the fable and a staging in the form of a shadow theatre. Members of the GRaC were present in the schools concerned with the project, at a rate of half a day, every week from September to November 2018. Part two of the project: an artistic creation, the example of the workshop “Philo-­ Art” made in Jemappes. This workshop Philo-Art (Chirouter, 2005), a workshop combining philosophy and art, was realized in partnership with an artist, two teachers and a principal expert in digital technologies. Two main moments of the workshop Philo-Art, after a new reading of the fable, were the comprehensive approach to key concepts in discursive activities and the dramatization of the fable with a shadow theatre. Phase 1: A Comprehensive Approach to Key Concepts in Discursive Activities This stage was carried out with a focus on peer work (Lehraus & Buchs, 2008). To achieve this a cooperative learning system to organize a work in small groups of learners has been set up. This device was structured by the teacher or trainer to

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Table 7.4  Use of the Matthew Lipman's grid Use of the Matthew Lipman's grid Operational Steps objectives 1. Lecture. The lecture of the text: The Lion and the Rat. 2. Write Questions.

3. Collect open questions. 5. The discussion with respectful listening.

6. The synthesis.

Actions This reading was carried out aloud, first by the teacher, in front of the class, then individually by the students. This was followed by a listening to the text recited by actors from the French Comedy in Paris. With their questions, students had the opportunity to Check the express personal thoughts or comments. They thus understanding of communicated their first representations of the concepts the text by asking attributed to the Lion and the Rat. questions. A set of questions were transcribed on the interactive Distinguishing whiteboard. closed and Some recurring reactions from the students were also open-ended added. questions Exchanging The discussion with respectful listening. opinions Students were invited to take a turn expressing themselves and exchanging opinions. Courtesy, attentive listening, the use of illustrated arguments of examples, the reformulation of opinions already expressed, with personal nuances... were observed throughout the discussion. Identification of the The students were encouraged to summarize the trajectory of the discussion in a few sentences. They were representations of encouraged to highlight the important ideas learned in the students this philosophical workshop. Oral synthesis was recorded. The written summaries made individually were collected to identify the representations of the students, after the workshop was held.

ensure a good functioning of the team (at a social level) and quality learning (at a cognitive level). The session begins with the reformulation of the fable by an outsider and groups of 5 to 6 students. It was imagined that after letting the Rat loose, the Lion falls asleep again and does not start looking for food. Based on these new versions of the narrative, students will explore hypotheses. For each hypothesis, the students will try to develop an argument, with the help of the “coach” who invites them to reflect and confront their opinions. Students will establish cause-and-effect relationships. They will observe the changes in the positions of the protagonists during the different moments of the story. They will highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the Lion and the Rat by distinguishing the physical size and manner of thinking and acting of each; so, from the point of view of size, the Rat is small, and the Lion is large. But from a posture point of view, the Rat is small, weak, vulnerable at first when he is between the lion's legs. Currently, the lion is in a position of strength and shows its moral greatness by leaving the Rat alive. In the second part of the story, the Rat is great for its generosity, its recognition and its ability to sav-e a bigger than him. Students will say that, at this moment, the

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Lion is small by his attitude of contempt when he said that the Rat was “insignificant” and could not succeed in rescuing him. In his net, captured, defenseless, the Lion has even become "ridiculous" ... All these (expressed) observations will lead to the discovery of the notion of relativity behind the concepts “small, weak, strong, powerful”. The researchers provided the other stakeholders with a grid for collecting student observations to compare student representations at different stages with the above concepts. Thanks to these instruments, and observer notes, the representations of each student, at the end of the project would be compared with their first impressions. Phase 2: The Dramatization of the Fable with a Shadow Theatre This part is about a concrete element of working in partnership. It is an activity based on the pedagogy of the project (Altet, 1993; Dumas & Leblond, 2002). It was therefore important to make the team of partners aware of the excesses that this approach can cause if we do not have in mind the need to maintain a balance between the pillars that make it up. The researchers intervened and acted as informants and trainers to other partners. The project falls under three pillars (Bordalo & Ginestet, 1993): emotional, social, and rational. If the focus is on the students' desires, the project may become unachievable. If the emphasis is on rigour and profitability (focusing on social utility, knowledge, skills...), the teacher plans everything, the student is just performing. Initially when the artist came to join the group of speakers, we had thought of illustrating the fable. But as the work of reflection on the fable progressed, it was clear that drawing was not unanimously accepted. The intervention of the researchers led the whole team to a discreet observation of what was said in the different groups formed for artistic achievement (Carasso, 2008). Drawing to create an exhibition or a comic strip were potential projects, but two difficulties were quickly pointed out during the plenary meetings. The first is that pedagogy by project has high demands when you want to take it to the end. Once the project is finished, you must think about its dissemination, its communication to the public. A comic strip / involves the printing of the book, its edition, its publication etc. The second challenge is getting everyone involved. It was therefore necessary to find a production that remains feasible in pedagogical, material and financial terms. Observers had recorded students talking about a shadow theatre, referencing to an activity carried out the previous year. After discussions and other propositions, it was the dramatization with the shadow theatre that was chosen. The literary part of the project was supported by a team of students and adults. the script writing and the writing of the dialogues were carried out by the students, teachers, the principal, and an external speaker. Tasks were distributed among participants, and necessary adjustments where planned (Marcel et al., 2007). The students produced grids for self-assessment of their diction and thus contributed to the construction of collective knowledge by developing collective intelligence (Mack, 2004). They practiced reading in groups of three to embody the characters: the narrator and the two animals of the fable.

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The visual and performing arts section involved a multidisciplinary team and media tools. An artist allowed the students to learn the art of building puppets, subjects for shadow theatre and students received training in drawing. After several meetings of work and discussion, contacts with the teachers who were accompanying the students in the literary part became more cordial and the inequalities of diploma and culture let place to complementarity of competences and improvement of partner’s dialogue. This facilitated the work in interdisciplinarity. Indeed, as Christiane Etévé and Philippe Champy (1994) point out, interdisciplinarity requires dialogue and exchanges that lead to mutual enrichment. It had been decided that there would be as many representations of the recomposed fable as there would be teams of three students. Each team of three students has therefore built its characters in the perspective of a public presentation. The artist helped students select their best productions, to reproduce on laminated media, color them and attach them with a wire extended by a rod to facilitate handling. The video capsule was created with the advice and assistance of a principal who had training in media education and audio-visual creative practices. Students were involved in all phases of literary and audio-visual artistic creation.

Three Study Cases Those three cases are focused on the behaviour of the co-actors at the beginning and during the project. Case 1: A Teacher Who Is Resistant to Partnership and the Evolution of His Teaching Style In this first case we will highlight a mitigation of the vulnerability. The teacher on whom the observations are made is a teacher with more than 25 years practice. This teacher has a long experience in the fourth grade and feels comfortable in reproducing the pedagogical procedures that have become routines. He remains attached to the way he proceeds acquired throughout his career and is very wary of the introduction of new things in his way of conducting the class. He excels in didactic transposition (Chevallard, 1985)- and is attentive to the difficulties his students may encounter. Its audience is composed mainly of children from nomadic backgrounds, currently settled in a neighborhood, close to the school. He makes a point of presenting careful preparations of his courses and programs his activities with great rigour. He hates the unexpected and according to his statements repeats that he "hates making changes or introducing tools that he has little control over in everyday work...”. When the principal presented the collaborative project with the participation of researchers, the teacher refused to participate. He made an argument to express his reluctance to participate in such a project. Finally, after several meetings and

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discussions, he agreed to participate, stating that he would not touch digital tools and wanted little outside presence in his classroom when working with his students. The principal decided to let the teacher gradually enter the project. During a meeting, researchers, explained that sometimes the logic of perfection leads us to a process of permanent control. This process can lead to dissatisfaction. Vulnerability is sometimes at the root of our difficulties in showing who we really are. As Maryline Lafleur (2013, p.13) points out, "This irrational fear of rejection confines us to a role of self-righteous automaton." Self-expression appears to be dangerous and deviant. It is interesting then to ask about human relations and about the "prevention of thinking" (Boismare, quoted by Lafleur, p.13), that can impoverish the development of thought. Researchers have pointed to these harmful effects that lurk in teaching when vulnerability induces so much fear of risk that it leads to fear of losing face (Goffman, 1974) and deprives teaching of innovative practices. Finally, throughout the project, accompanied by her colleagues, the principal and other stakeholders, the teacher whose fears we mentioned developed confidence relationships with the project partners, but also in herself. After a few months, it could be observed that he proposed new tools during research on the lexicon of the text "The Lion and the Rat", with preparatory exercises and individualized protocols to conduct research with the use of a classical dictionary. Finally, through collaborating work and tutoring, with the support of a qualified person alongside, digital media and online dictionaries on the Internet were "tamed”. As the principal states in her observation report: "... even if some are still in the early stages of using CTCs, it is already an important step that should be encouraged...”. Case 2: A Teacher Who Plays as Facilitator to Help a Principal to Permit a Change of Posture This second case illustrates a change of posture and practice. The principal of a school, associated with the project, was concerned about respecting the prescribed and legal texts and was very unsure about the idea of allowing certain classes of her establishment to participate in the formula of philosophical workshops provided in the collaborative project. She wanted to maintain her “direct teaching style”. This style corresponds to a traditional model of teaching (Sauvé, 1992), in which one proceeds by reproduction: the master has the function of transmitting the knowledge, and the discipline can be easily controlled. Student interventions are limited, reducing opportunities for the teacher to lose control of the situation; the principal's fear was twofold. She feared the misbehavior that students may cause and open questioning. Then, she apprehended digressions and deviations from teaching content, through activities that open the door to the unexpected. The teacher in charge of the philosophy and citizenship course advanced the advantages of a philosophical workshop enhancing the critical and civic trends. This new posture aims at developing critical thinking among students. To do this, teachers must abandon vertical practice, with the role of main actor for the teacher and the role of spectator for the students. The new posture (a horizontal posture) aims at a benevolent relationship with the students. Teachers are not trying to protect

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students from ideas, but simply trying to train then to critical thinking. Reflexive practice (Perrenoud, 2001) is the heart of this way of working. According to Lipman's idea (1988), the goal is to take students as far as possible, through quality learning that leads to the exercise of creative critical thinking. The teacher received the support of the researchers to find arguments to convince the principal. After consultations with the researchers and the inspectors, the principal accepted the experience of the philosophical workshop. During an internal meeting in the school, results of the philosophical workshop were exposed. Researchers and inspectors confirmed that in this workshop, students exercised the four great thinking skills suggested by the curriculum. Students “make logical reasonings, analogies; they induce; they make assumptions, compare and give examples”. They have improved their ability to structure knowledge (Larcher & Crindal, 2004). This has been possible by the mutual support of teacher, researchers and inspectors who convinced the principal to let the teacher adopt a new posture in teaching. Case 3: Intervention of an Artist to Cope with the Risk in Changing Style The third case is about the fear of taking risk in changing style and the intervention of an artist to “manage” the risk. In one team, a teacher with more than 10 years-experience in Grade 3, not directly concerned by the experience made a lot of remarks when the project was presented to the staff of the school. She would have discouraged fourth graders from enrolling in the project if the principal and inspector had not invited her to moderate her remarks. After the meeting, the inspector entered the teacher's classroom and observed the student's work that the teacher had displayed on the classroom walls. There were also summaries about the subjects studied. All the supports were perfect and certainly from the teacher's hand. When the inspector asked her why the students were not involved in the creation of the didactic panels, the teacher replied that it was for fear of errors, scratches and different spellings that could affect aesthetics. In the weeks that followed a fourth-grade teacher was ill and the teacher of Grade 3 was invited to take charge of a group of students who were studying the text "The Lion and the Rat." At first, it was a disaster because the teacher employed a "stable didactic style" (Altet, 1993) which was not sensitive to the change of situation. This limited the autonomy of the students to the point that the productions were sadly quite ordinary. When an artist came for the illustration of the text, the working atmosphere became increasingly tense. The artist restored the students' spaces of expression so that the teacher complained about the noise, the movement of students to form groups, the clutter of the room with the objects and tools that the artist made available to the students. Human relationship became difficult because everyone feared not to match the expectations of others and lose face (Goffman, 1974). There was a crippling fear of rejection. However, the students' productions improved from week to week. One day the principal, the teacher and the artist were in the classroom to accompany the students in their work, divided into groups. The principal noted with admiration the drawings that the students had made to represent the characters of the fable. She asked the students if they were happy to illustrate the fable. Only

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one student replied and said, "No!" After a long silence another student said, "Because we would prefer to make puppets." The artist reported the situation to all the project partners at the next meeting. Through exchanges between all partners, in accordance with the code of conduct, reflections have been undertaken on teaching styles.

Analysis and Findings To analyze the data collected through interviews, observations and the contains of narrative and the study cases, we adopted a thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). In order to do this, the authors of this article: three researchers who participated to all the events and developments of the research, defined themes linked with the hypothesis as recommended by Braun & Clarke (2006). Theme 1: Fears and Forces of Co-Actors from Various Status The cultural, background and status differences were the first fears of the actors. They were also afraid that skills diplomas would create a hierarchy. To the question,” How did you welcome the idea of working in partnership on this educational project?” teachers answered,” I immediately wondered who was going to lead us: the principal of the school, a researcher? A group of leaders with different requests? "; "I was divided between two sentiments. On the one hand, I thought it was great to be able to work with experts and artists; and on the other hand, I wondered whether I would have something to bring to the other participants...” To the question, ”What were your main fears when the project was announced?”, a researcher said, "I was afraid of staying too theoretical and not being able to find the words to dialogue with practitioners...; it was difficult not to reveal the content of my observations, on the teacher’s behaviour, to the practitioners; during the common work into the pedagogical project, almost at the end of the project…, ". Teachers answered, “I was not comfortable because I never worked with experts... I did not go to university..."; "I was wondering who was going to lead us... I would not have liked someone to come and tell me what I had to do in my work..."; I never liked theory..., I prefer practice.” A teacher relationship with different actors, partners or co-investigators is analyzed and revisited in terms of the impact it has on the group members. The various partners who are working on a common project highlight multiple cultural, social, and ethical skills (Dumas & Leblond, 2002; Dumas & Seguier, 2004). Different partners have a set of resources that forms a cross-web composed of social, professional, institutional, and political relations. This became visible in our experience. We have observed that the representations that the actors had of each other quickly evolved. From the first plenary sessions it became apparent that an equivalence of the status of teacher, researcher, inspector, collaborator was possible thanks to the highlighting of the hidden knowledge of each other's experience. This

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observation was an important first step for the motivation of the actors to work together. They were interested in discovering the knowledge and know-how of each other. As it happens in other cases (Capacchi & Moreaux, 2016), teachers and researchers appreciated the hidden knowledge of their partners. We will now present some of those knowledges updated by teachers and researchers. The teachers demonstrate plural capacities.– –– An ability to handle unexpected situations by regulating current operations. They can make adaptations alone: using outside aids, selecting media that combine audio-visual information and movement. They can work on intuition, without a pre-defined strategy; practice differentiation, provide for adapted tasks linked to objectives, guidelines and progress of the students; act on several fronts simultaneously or successively. During this experience, one observer noted, “... On Tuesday, in the 4B class, the teacher had to welcome students of an absent colleague. He had to provide for extra lessons due to the cancellation of sport activities. Later in the morning, the principal asked him to prepare a list of students requiring special needs. Before midday, a young colleague asked his help to report to the technical service that a neon was blinking in her classroom and needed to be replaced...” And the observer notes this comment: "... All these disturbances did not hinder the operation of the work planned in the reading workshop...” –– An ability to differentiate practices by considering operational field characteristics. In this experience, to develop self- expression, the dramatization of a text by creating a theatre of shadows constituted a project conducted in three phases. The discovery of the fable, with the contribution of philosophy-teachers, two researchers and media- supports; a work on vocabulary, with teachers and principals; group discussions, and theatre with teachers, principals, artists, and researchers. –– An ability to reinvest experience. This ability is close to that mentioned by (Perrenoud, 2001) namely an ability to "reinvest in new episodes". Let us mention the case of this principal who tests to control the good comprehension of her students in reading. When a student read: “The Lion was taken by rays" instead of "The Lion was caught in rets". The principal used an explanation interview and lead the student to identify the natural context of the fable. A special test was prepared to make sure that this word was understood by all students. The researchers and inspectors demonstrate also plural capacities and knowledge. This can be declined as follows: –– An ability to revisit an approach in a systemic way, at several points in research. –– An ability to subtly collect information by predicting its treatment and the type of analysis.

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–– An ability to adjust data collection tools, validation of assumptions. –– The ability to anticipate the magnitude of the analysis task and block "selected" variables. –– A talent in the art of distinguishing description and interpretation during observation activity. –– An ability to promote the comprehensive approach to a phenomenon (rather than being limited to a purely descriptive approach or looking for only justifications). –– An ability to draw singular facts and bring them together to discover regularities, deepen the understanding of a phenomenon, refine a field reading, highlight the relationships between the collected elements. –– An ability to focus on the observation task without being influenced by a "known" context (candid role). –– The ability of researchers and inspectors to analyze and practise "analysis error” to study students' representations, in a constructive and personalized approach. –– A capacity to interest practitioners in new aspects of the issue, practical actions, adjustment procedures. So, after weeks of hesitant contacts, cautious words and reserved attitudes, participants found out that they were complementary. The practical capacity to resolve problems, skills and knowledge acquired by experience, the capacity, the ability to transmit some knowledge, the ability to conceptualize, to communicate and disseminate results were admitted as knowledge worthy of sharing in the same way as scientific knowledge. Theme 2: Personnel and Professional Developments The case studies provided examples of resistance to the use of new tools, but also changes in posture in some participants and the adoption of new styles of practice. The interviews also provided evidence to confirm that participants evolved over the course of the project. To the question “What changes (positive or negative) has the partnership brought to your personnel life?”, the answers were varied. • An artist and two teachers expressed the idea that they appreciated having been recognized in their -work. • A teacher and a researcher replied:” Learn new techniques of work, with the help of a coach”. • Three teachers expressed the idea that they felt proud to have been chosen to work in this partnership and that this had allowed them to improve their perception of themselves. • A principal answered: “I felt motivated to work with researchers and practitioners but also with a team composed of different teachers from my school and external experts in art or digital technologies”. • Another answer was, “I dared to leave my comfort zone to go in new directions…”. The partnership established in this experiment has enabled the development of new knowledge. It has contributed to the personal development of all actors. For researchers, teachers, principals, inspectors, artists, the contributions are diverse.

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There is an enrichment in knowledge and skills. There is a desire to improve practices by fostering innovation and encouraging team creative thinking and initiative. Through the narrative proposed in this article and the case studies, it can be observed that the work of the co-actors has produced on the teachers, researchers and, associate members working in the school team a "motivational effect in all actors" (Schön, 1983). This effect proved to be important in carrying out the joint actions envisaged in the project, respecting everyone's rights to expression and proposal of initiative, in accordance with the code of conduct. The interviews confirmed and supplemented our findings, as can be seen in the following examples. • During a comprehensive interview, when we addressed the theme of professional development, a teacher said: “With the partnership I was engaged in a reflexive step back on my practices, another way of working, an openness focused on research-action. Getting out of a frame by opening up to other perspectives”; another declared: “Now I know how to use search tools, increased research skills, collaborative skills in the research group”. A researcher admitted: “The tension between the theories of the researchers and the field of practitioners led me on the path of reflection of my practices constantly”. • Regarding the answers to the question ”What did you enjoy, learn, during the project?”, here are the most common ones. –– A teacher declared, “Find other solutions to buried problems, find them with colleagues”. Another response was, "I liked the idea that my students' productions were going to come out of school." –– A principal answered, “At the beginning of the pedagogical project, I wondered about the risk of wasting time. The exchanges with researchers, the philosophical workshop and the artistic workshop would take much time and deprive students of significant learning time. But at the end of the project, I found that the students learned a lot, differently, and had flourished. Finally, the curriculum had not suffered from the new practice”. • During a meeting, adults participants said they greatly appreciated the consideration of their opinions with an equal chance of listening, regardless of their status on the team. They expressed the positive perception that “No one holds the truth but together it is possible to bring different but enriching points of view”. The step towards a reflexive approach, has been mentioned several times in the interviews. Participants expressed how they had come back to previous ideas or how they had reviewed their practices. The division of powers within the working group, recognition of individual qualities stimulated professional emulation without creating situations of friction or rivalry. We know, however, that it can be difficult for team members to work together without identity problems (Zay, 1994). Negotiation can be energy-costly, but it is a necessary evil since it will intervene in a facilitating way, to build the relationship between the identities involved. This principle of negotiation shared by Mérini (1999) has been activated in our approach and seems to be working well. The

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investigative posture adopted by the co-workers allows the teachers and all partners to make regularly the necessary adjustments to the teaching practices (Cochran-­ Smith & Lytle, 1999). Together the partners reflect and distance themselves from their approaches. They contribute to the construction of collective knowledge. Through reflection and distance, they acquire a reflex ability and an autonomy of thought. Theme 3: Working Atmosphere The various actors associated with the common task are not subject to hierarchical reports. Everyone, regardless of their position, or status, has the same weight in the responsibilities at work. To work in a real team, there must be confidence. We agree with the idea of Janosz, Geoges and Parent (1998), that the working environment is important. That idea has been reinforced by our analysis of the answers given by the adults to the question concerning the climate. In fact, this question received more item-answers than the others. To the question:” How did you enjoy the working atmosphere during the partnership?” addressed to adults in semi-direct interviews and during the comprehensive interviews, the participants discussed the following main areas: –– –– –– ––

Relationships between participants. Security. Justice. Belonging to a team.

The positive (with the sign “+”) and negative (with the sign “−”) impressions given a month after the beginning of the partnership are presented in the table below. Table 7.5  Expressions of adults concerning the climate of work AREAS discussed by interviewees EXPRESSIONS of interviewees

Security (+) My classroom is always well-ordered, and I must say that it remained so until today, because there is proper storage after the activities. (+) It is encouraging to work with people who never make personal comments. (−) I did not like the way to post a picture of the art workshop in the hallway, without asking my opinion, the photo gave the impression that we were "playing in class instead of working”. (−) I fear the disappearance of personal documents during the comings and goings of strangers in my classroom. (−) I was extremely uncomfortable at the first meetings because I was always afraid of negative criticism about myself or my practice. (−) Giving my lesson preparations to a researcher is quite dangerous for me..., you never know what someone can do with your personal items... I accept to show the documents, but stay next to the researcher... (−) I hate someone coming to watch me work in my class, I feel criticized and judged. (+, −) For now, everything is going well but I am not the only one to fear that someone will reveal our discussions on the Internet, post working papers or photos. (continued)

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Table 7.5 (continued) AREAS addressed by interviewees

Relations

EXPRESSIONS of

(+) Really it was great, I sucked in computer science. Fortunately, I am coached divinely. (−) It was a little cold at first, because we did not know the researchers. (−) The teachers were a little suspicious of me, perhaps because I come from university. (−) At the cafeteria, the teachers were sitting with the researchers, ... I felt isolated because my contribution in drawing, painting, theatre… seems to be insignificant for the curriculum…. Justice

interviewees

AERAS discussed by interviewees EXPRESSIONS of interviewees

AREAS discussed by interviewees EXPRESSIONS of interviewees

(+) We signed a code of conduct; it is a good way to remember what is forbidden or allowed for all. (−) Normally everyone has something to do, but at first some "forgot" tasks they did not like. (−) In a recent meeting we had to remind that no one could change the common decisions. (−) Some have a room to put their belongings, the work in progress…, It is not my case, I have to carry all my things each time. Belonging to a team

(+) I would never have been able to express myself if I had not felt that I was supported by the whole team. (+) It is nice to work together to achieve something that would be presented outside our school. (+) I am proud to participate in a project with experts and artists, we really are a well motivated group. (+) I feel supported by my colleagues in my statements, and it is very encouraging to put ideas forward … (−) At first, I did not like that it was considered that the artists were doing less important work than the other participants (−) I feel isolated in the middle of all these experts.

On reading the items mentioned in Table  7.5, we can observe negative comments. They could be considered as dangers or risks to the work in partnership. But the overall organization of the collaborative work implemented in the project was based on the principle of mutual trust. This trust, as Van Belleghem points out (2013, pp 2-3), implies a dual relationship. Each partner must "trust" but also "gain the trust" of the other. Loss of confidence, breakdown of reciprocity can be a major risk to effective cooperation. We observe that justice and security were also imperative needs of the group members to feel comfortable and work serenely. The researchers promised never to communicate information outside, in the press or in the school newspaper, outside the defined frameworks. Teachers have pledged not to disclose the findings made during the work on social media and not to comment

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on the Internet on work decisions or tensions. As Van Belleghem (2013, p.6) advocates, "The challenge of the organization, especially at the time of its design, is therefore to propose a framework of formal rules promoting the development of effective rules acceptable to the activity”. With our code of conduct, our organization can, as the aforementioned author points out, anticipate, among other things, the balance of trust issues within cooperative activities. Theme 4: Emotional Dimension Here we will discuss the emotional dimension for adults participating in this research. As seen in Van Belleghem's work (2013) the emotional dimension appears when you are creating an open space of trust and communication, as well as links of complicity and mutual support between the actors. This phenomenon really appears in the case of this partnership where the complicity has promoted cooperation. Each partner being chosen as the equal of the other, there was no competition between the players involved in the project. On the contrary, there were exchanges of facilitating materials to prepare the workshops; artists offered students models and drawing methods that could help them represent the characters of the shadow theatre. Teachers were interested in the materials brought by the artists and planned the reinvestment of certain techniques in their practices after the project. Researchers proposed their help for the creation and the treatment of the questionnaires used by the team in charge of the explanation interviews. This complicity, coupled with a benevolent attitude, has also proved to be a way to tame risks such as preventing an activity because it would lead participants out of their comfort zone and could expose them to personal criticism or judgments about their practices. This complicity reduced their vulnerability, the fear of not being up to the task requested. Cochram-Smith & Lytle (1999) stress the importance of investigative posture to enable partners to make regular adjustments to their usual practices. This importance has been confirmed along our research, as we will briefly illustrate. During this partnership, we heard complaints from some teachers who were reluctant or even opposed to visits by outsiders in their classrooms to observe the course of an activity. After identifying who was complaining, instead of simply asking "why this attitude?", we introduced this question in semi-direct and understanding interviews: “How do you feel when an observer visits your workplace? “The analysis of the answers obtained is illuminating. A teacher replied: “If I'm sure I've done my best, I'm still in the dynamic that I always have to learn to improve. If the observer is “benevolent” it will be easier for me. On the other hand, if the observer exhibits “malicious attitudes” with constant negative remarks, it will be more difficult for me to manage my emotions.” Other participants’ answers included the idea that “It depends on the purpose of the observation”. Several answers strengthened the idea that if the goal of the visit is “constructive” they would participate with great enthusiasm. By working on the emotional dimension, one can prevent the risks associated with fears, anxieties, jealousies, isolation, vulnerability, the fear of not being up to the task requested. The second study case exposed: “A teacher who plays as facilitator to help a principal to allow a change of posture in her school” illustrates in addition to

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complicity, mutual support. It has also been important for the progress of the partnership. The interviews completed those findings. To the question: “What did you learn during the partnership?”, teachers answered: “Most of all; I learned to carry out a research object together with other people; not all partnerships are the same. I am fortunate to be in a good group where the research coordinator has managed each person's skills with respect while knowing how to value people; we discover a common goal and not a purely individual interest; I realized in this partnership that I was in my place, my professionalism and my expertise in the field were heard and recognized; soliciting each other is important to reach the purpose of the research.; the importance of not isolating yourself when a difficulty arises...”; “daring to ask for help, there is always a person who can help, and support becomes mutual over time”. Those answers illustrate how reciprocity, complicity and mutual support has played an important role in achieving the partnership. Theme 5: Impact of the Pedagogical Project on the Cognitive Development of the Students During the pedagogical project, the students learned more than the comprehension of the maxim of the fable. After the reading of the fable and the classic work of evaluation of the comprehension of the text, the focus was on 4 concepts. The students were invited to express what the words "strong, powerful, small, weak" meant to them. After the philosophical and artistic workshops, the students were asked the same question. Eighteen student protocols were selected at random in Namur and Mons. This corpus was examined, and we were able to see the evolution of representations of students in relation to these concepts. Before the workshops, students showed little understanding of the concept. After the workshops, the palette of acceptations was greatly enriched; we chose to present in the following Fig. 7.3 the evolution of the representations of the concept "strong" as found in the analysis of this corpus of 36 participants. The philosophical and artistic workshops led students to new values. The qualitative analysis of the evolution of the representations of the 4 concepts, highlights a development of childish thinking. At the beginning the Lion presides over the hierarchy of animals, he is the king, the dominant and the powerful one who acts according, to his paternal goodwill. The Rat is at the bottom of the hierarchy, the subject, the little one. But after philosophical and artistic workshops the values of the concepts approached in the contexts of the fable, moved from values of "Former Regime" to the values of the Enlightenment, values of Equality, Liberty and Fraternity. The project enabled the approach of the concept of relativity. Discovering the impact of circumstances on the status of the protagonists of the fable, students have accessed the notion of relativity and used it to initiate debates and new discursive exchanges comparing attitudes of the protagonists of the fable with those of actors of everyday life. In the story the Lion and the Rat may be "small, strong, weak, or powerful”, depending on the circumstances. They became 'free' when they do not take advantage of the prerogatives of their privileges. They showed empathy for the

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Fig. 7.3  Comparison of the representations of the concept "strong" before and after the workshops

other. In real life, the principal needs students; the boss needs workers, and vice versa... We all need each other. Theme 6: Partnership, Creativity, and Cultural Enrichment In this collaborative experience, the combination of the skills and experiences of the actors (Cramer, 2003) has enabled the establishment of a culturally enriching partnership. To the question put in a comprehensive interview: “What risks did you take?” teachers answered: “I took the risk of daring, daring to be myself by bringing my questions and doubts”; “ the risk of not being up to the tasks requested and expected and knowing how to accept peer criticism despite the constructive goal...”; “I took the risk of daring to say: I don't know, I didn't get it." ; “The risk of growing up and getting out of my comfort zone”; “I took the risk of not having an answer but looking for the answer in my own experience. Working in this way, I have been the first surprised by the innovative dimension of my new practice.” Another said:” I took the risk to do something that I never did before, to combine a lesson of vocabulary with a lesson of history of art. I dared to do this because I benefited from the skills of a colleague who helped me to discover, with my students, paintings where the lion was represented.”

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The philo-arts workshops set up by teachers, principals, artists, and researchers were a great opening point for the school on culture. Dialogues between the fields of teaching, research and the artistic field have led to important learning and quality productions. The shadow theatre that was carried out in the final phase of the project was noticed by the authorities of the provinces of Hainaut and Namur, the parents of students but also training bodies. It should also be noted that this trail was presented at the UNESCO House in Paris, during the International Philosophy Days in November 2018. Many teachers and school principals were presents and it was a moment for all the partners of the project to enhance the work done. This partnership has shown that the school can call on speakers at complementary levels of practitioners of artists, craftsmen-creators, trainers, school leaders. It is also possible to solicit museums, libraries, museums of Fine Arts. Note the contribution of the museums in Mons to the enhancement of the achievements of the students and in particular the BAM:” Beaux-Arts “de Mons. At the collective level, the tools mobilized, the exchanges between practitioners and researchers and the achievements can serve as resources for the community: the school, the university, teacher training organizations, cultural associations. This corresponds to the construction of collective knowledge by a learning community (Bialaczyc & Collins, 1999).

Conclusions We would underline that the double objective announced in this partnership was achieved. Narrative and case studies particularly illustrated how schools in Namur and Jemappes were supported in educational innovation combining philosophy and art for the citizenship course. Observations, case studies and interviews pointed out the contributions of the participating observation to study the relationship between co-actors. Returning to our first hypothesis: “Working in partnership can reduce the negative effects of risks and promotes the personal and professional development of the actors”; and the second hypothesis: “Working in partnership as co-actors can enhance positive effects of risk-taking on emotion, creative and cognitive development”; and considering the findings, we think that our hypothesis is verified. The Fig. 7.4 below illustrates the effects of the combination of these three conditions. It highlights the results obtained because of good risk-taking management thanks to the complementarity of co-actors. The questions we asked ourselves at the beginning helped us to discover the conditions that allowed these hypotheses to be functional. We will expose three of these interdependent conditions: activate the strength of co-actors, tame risk and consider risk-taking a common challenge.

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CONDITION 2.

CONDITION 1. Acvaon of the strength, and complementarity of various co-actors.

Risk detecon, analysis and treatment.

RESULTS

Reducon and prevenon of tension. Improvement of personal, professional, emoonal development, and creavity.

CONDITION 3. Transforming risk-taking into a common challenge.

EFFECTS of the combinaon, of the 3 condions Avoiding paralysis and exing the "comfort- zone", to progress with the support of all co-actors.

Fig. 7.4  Results obtained because of good risk-taking management thanks to the complementarity of co-actors

1. Activate the strength, and competences of co-actors The environment, the working atmosphere of the co-actors seems to be a key point that allows people to put all their skills at stake and to produce benefits for people and for the institution. Security is an indispensable element to work with serenity and it is by feeling materially and humanly protected, that partners can dare to take the risk of departing from the routine, leaving their “comfort zone”, adopting new postures or other styles of practice, as has been described in the case studies. In our experience we have highlighted how much actors need to be reassured about respect for their opinions, their objects. Interviews and case studies highlighted their need for trust and reciprocity in their relationships. Some pointed out that they had been reinforced by the code of conduct which guaranteed a quality climate and the right of all to be treated fairly. Finally, expressions of pride and pleasure for being chosen to participate in a joint project, with plural actors, contribute to the consolidation of this idea that the feeling of belonging, acts as a catalyst on the motivation of co-actors, unites them and makes them a force capable of facing the risks one can encounter in a cooperative approach. 2. Tame the risks The taming of risks requires their detection before they are treated or reduced. Therefore, it is necessary to have instruments, tools but above all, a dynamic system that allows us to detect risks and to identify them. About the use of detection instruments, we would like to stress the importance of listening to complaints and

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reviewing them. Interviews help to update fears or malfunctions, but complaints can also be very revealing of things that can block an activity, generate tension, “jeopardize” the well-being of the team, the reputation of an individual or institution, if it turns out that the legal requirement is not respected. We will remember the tensions outlined in the third case study: "Intervention of an artist to cope with the risk of changing style." Through their skills and abilities, co-actors are an invaluable resource for risk management. The team can count on their many skills such as: an ability to differentiate practices by taking into account operational field characteristics; the ability to revisit an approach in a systemic way; an ability to handle unexpected situations by regulating current operations or even an ability to focus on the observation task without being influenced by a "known" context, to name but a few from the inventory we presented at the beginning of the analysis. 3. Consider risk-taking a common challenge. When they embarked on the joint pedagogical project to help teachers meet the new curriculum requirements, the co-actors expressed legitimate fears that we listed at the beginning of the analysis. However, thanks to the dynamic system put in place, the tensions that have arisen and the complaints heard, have also served as a lever for the triggering of mutual support, and of anything that can contribute to developing the feeling of belonging, with the gradual improvement of the working environment, as developed in the atmosphere theme. Fears that could have been crippling, evolved as the entire team mobilized to transform the complementary skills of the co-actors into a force that could face risk-taking as a common challenge. Although it was not always easy to leave "the comfort zone" to return to a participant's expression, even if the changes in postures were not easy to perform; if taking the risk of engaging in an activity, fearing to be isolated or losing one’s autonomy haunted some minds, the partnership worked. The risk-taking, accompanied by a constant caring and constructive look of a motivated team, the exercise of reciprocity in a climate of trust, has had positive effects on the personal and professional development of the participants whose reflexive practice has evolved. Considering risk-taking as a common challenge, co-actors overcame their vulnerability. At the end of the experience exposed in this article, it is possible to think that working with co-actors is an opportunity to avoid the overflow of emotions such as anxiety, isolation, fear, and inequalities of status. Therefore, the partners must adopt the right posture: by using the complementarity of all co-actors. They must be very attentive to complaints about changes in practices or habits related to collaborative work. It is also important to combine the working conditions set out in Fig. 7.4. Once the risk due to the differences of social, and cultural status is tamed, we will be able to observe personal, professional, and cognitive developments. In addition, with the reduction of tension and prevention of risks, participants will be able to put the contributions of their emotional development, to the service of creativity and enrich themselves culturally.

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Françoise Maria Capacchi, Dr in Sciences of Education, worked as inspector of education within the Ministry of Education and Scientific Research, Belgium (1990–2015) and as Professor, at the Higher Institute of Pedagogy of Namur (1995–2017). She is still Member of the Group Egerhie, in the University of Lille, France. She is particularly interested in school life and its actors, in reading, sciences and citizenship learning with media and digital tools (expert in the CSEM 2009–2015); and in collaborative work. Since 2010, she has led the GRaC: Collaborative Research and Action Group, which brings together co-actors, researchers, and members of the civil society. The team regularly presents its work at international Conferences and produces publications.  

Isabelle Callewaert is a teacher of philosophy and citizenship, diplomate from the Hight Institute of Pedagogy of Namur, Belgium, and a social assistant. She works as European agent within the framework of the European Social Fund, pedagogical follow-up in collaboration with 9 secondary schools in Brussels. Member of the GRaC, she observes the practice of philosophical workshop and the use of the explicit interview. She has participated in international Conferences in UNESCO during “The Days of Philosophy” and published part of her works.  

Sylvie Strappazzon was a principal of a primary school in Mons, Belgium, before becoming responsible for teaching at the International Voluntary Service. She realized study visits and training in digital practices in the context of Erasmus, European Program in Poland and France, to observe how to recognize the training needs of teachers. She obtained a qualification in learning with digital resources, in children and adult education, at the Higher Institute of Pedagogy of Namur. Member of the GRaC, she communicates her experiences during international meetings.  

Chapter 8

School–University Partnership for School Development: Risks and Realities of a National Policy Initiative in Norway Ann Elisabeth Gunnulfsen and Hilde Madsø Jacobsen

Abstract  Studies have found that school–university partnership collaboration is time-consuming and that strong institutional support is needed if this kind of work is to be adopted widely. This chapter discusses the tensions experienced by professional actors in the university- and college sector (UC-sector) during their participation in an obligatory national policy strategy for partnership in school development. These tensions are discussed by coupling theoretical perspectives from policy enactment and observation data. We focus on the risks, opportunities, and challenges the professionals experienced during their work on the 4-year initiative. The empirical data and the discussion in this chapter are grounded on generalized depictions from nine regional network seminars with participants from the universityand college sector as well as from nationally established centers of expertise in school subject areas, such as reading, writing, numeracy and school environment. The complexity and ambiguity of concepts in the 4-year initiative reveal the need for local and direct involvement in negotiations about policy-initiative content. Hence, closer collaboration between professional actors in the UC- sector and the school professionals is necessary. Keywords  School development · The UC-sector · School change · Partnership · Education policy · Governance

Introduction For more than 30 years, researchers internationally have studied practices of school and university collaboration (Bryant et al., 2001; Caena, 2013; Cordingley et al., 2003; McLaughlin & Black-Hawkins, 2007; Timperley et al., 2008). An example of A. E. Gunnulfsen (*) · H. M. Jacobsen Department of Teacher Education and School Research, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 K. Otrel-Cass et al. (eds.), Partnerships in Education, Transdisciplinary Perspectives in Educational Research 5, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98453-3_8

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such a practice is the collaboration between one university and several schools with the aim of developing school quality and teaching practices in the schools. In 1992, Professor Lieberman stated that “if the changes that are initiated can eventually be institutionalized, school/university partnerships may come to be seen as one of the important reform strategies of this era” (Lieberman, 1992, p.  147). This chapter sheds light on the tensions experienced by professional actors in the UC-sector during their participation in an obligatory national policy strategy for school development in Norwegian education, known as the Development for Lower Secondary School (DLS) (Norwegian Ministry of Education, 2012). Lower secondary schools in Norway educate students between the ages of 13–16 and range from the 8th school year to the 10th school year in Norwegian basic education. Several studies have shown that school–university collaboration strengthens the school–university partnership (Beck & Kosnik, 2002; Bosma et al., 2010; Klein & Dunlap, 1993; Clift et  al., 1992; Brookhart & Loadman, 1992). However, these studies also found that school–university collaboration and collaboration is time-­ consuming and that strong institutional support is needed if this kind of work is to be adopted widely. Dixon and Ishler (1992) claimed that “attempts to integrate functions of schools and universities is difficult to institutionalize and even have an ‘oil and water’ quality, meaning that after the initial shake-up, the mix typically returns to its original state.” (p. 28). Norwegian studies have shown that involvement from professional actors within the UC-sector represent important contributions towards the schools to strengthen and develop school teachers’ practices and understandings (Dahl, et  al., 2014; Gunnulfsen & Helstad, 2014; Helstad, 2013; Postholm & Madsen, 2012; Blossing et al., 2010). These studies have focused less on how the UC-sector’s professional actors experience politically initiated efforts and in what ways national intentions for school development are understood and dealt with at the local level of the UC-sector professional actors. Norway serves as an interesting example in this study because the aim to develop lower secondary schools was initiated nationally and intended to embrace all upper secondary schools in the country. Professional actors in the UC-sector are defined as associate professors, lecturers, and supervisors from colleges and universities. This chapter elucidates the tensions that arise among these professional actors when they interpret and negotiate the obligatory national educational policy reform. The theoretical framework is based on the idea that the ways in which political intentions are understood and interpreted depend on contextual and relational factors. Through demands for change, organizational factors such as power structures, history, culture, and reputation play a greater role than the external political expectations of change (Ball et al., 2012). The chapter addresses the following two questions: (a) What kinds of experiences do professional actors in the UC-sector express regarding the obligatory policy demand of the DLS? (b) What challenges, risks, and opportunities related to these experiences did the professional actors in the UC-sector identify after participating in the obligatory DLS?

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The evaluation of the 2006 curriculum reform in Norway highlighted that support from the external experts, such as professionals from the UC-sector, which is regarded as representing an important knowledge base, intervened modestly in changing classroom instruction and that the contact between the UC-sector and the school staff was far from frequent (Blossing et al., 2010). In a time marked by political governance through accountability, performance, and quality requirements at all levels in the education sector (Stray, 2011), schools and the UC-sector institutions are challenged to explore what supports learning and knowledge development in their workplace. The following sections describe the obligatory national strategy for partnership in Norway (DLS) and explain the theoretical perspectives relevant to our study. Furthermore, we present the method of data collection, empirical data, and findings. In the conclusion, we discuss in depth the education authorities’ complex expectations of both more practical and varied teaching for students as well as organizational learning among the various professional actors in the obligatory national strategy (Norwegian Ministry of Education, 2012), and we will highlight opportunities and challenges in the DLS in light of these expectations.

DLS and the Norwegian Education Policy Context In recent decades, extensive reforms have been implemented in the Norwegian education sector (Karlsen, 2006). Particularly after the first report of the mediocre Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) results, political authorities have placed increased focus on quality and organizational development in the education sector (Langfeldt, 2006). From a central political level, several national initiatives have been introduced with the aim of developing the school as an organization and increasing students’ learning outcomes. As part of these initiatives, so-called expertise environments, such as universities and university colleges, have been invited and even demanded to collaborate with schools and municipalities to achieve the various goals (Blossing et al., 2010). In other words, the university sector has been assigned responsibility for anchoring national policy intentions through “translations” of the initiatives that are intended to be adopted into daily practice in the local school context (Gunnulfsen & Colbjørnsen, 2015; Røvik, 2007; Stensaker, 2003). The DLS was first initiated in the Norwegian Report to the Government 22: Motivation–Mastery–Opportunities (Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research, 2010). The focus of the strategy supported by the united national parliament was to develop more practical and varied teaching practices at the lower secondary school level (Norwegian Ministry of Education, 2012). The policy model on which the strategy was built was partly motivated by concerns to reduce differences in educational outcomes across different social groups. Equality and excellence could be better achieved by working in a different way within the educational system. Hence, specific images of problems and solutions in education were

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contextualized. The established school practices were segmented into specific problems such as low test scores, high drop-out rate in upper secondary schools, and lack of discipline (Norwegian Ministry of Education, 2012). To solve these problems, the obligatory involvement of the UC-sector was demanded to determine what could be done within the educational system. The main aim of the DLS was defined through two areas: (1) to develop the school’s (teachers’) competence in work with basic skills, learning environment, and assessment and (2) to provide more practical and varied instruction practices to increase students’ motivation and mastery. An additional aim of the initiative was to improve the practical aspect of teacher education. The DLS was initiated in the autumn of 2013 and ended as planned, in December 2017. In the start-up year, more than 5000 teachers from 252 secondary schools were connected directly with 22 university colleges and universities across the nation. The institutions within the UC-sector are competitors for educational programs announced by the government. This competition exists within several fields of professional teacher and school leader development, for example, to deliver and perform in the national school principal preparation program. The DLS strategy document from the authorities stated that all employees of each school were expected to participate in the development process in which the principal, with support from the UC-sector, was responsible for staff professional development. The document also stated that there were no means within the initiative to conduct research during the period of involvement with the schools in the DLS. The initiative divided the nation into seven UC  – sector regions, all of which included institutions providing teacher education. Arenas for collaboration and the sharing of experiences and information were organized by the national authorities for regional groups of local authorities (superintendent level), school leaders (principals), resource teachers, the UC-sector, and other centers of expertise (e.g., reading center, numeracy center, and science center). As many professional actors participated in numerous arenas, superintendents were required to report to the UC-sector about the schools selected to participate in the various pools of schools and the priority area the schools had chosen to work with (e.g., subject didactics, literacy or numeracy, or leadership and organizational change). The national authorities eventually defined the focus areas in strategic background documents, which provided a description for the schools and the UC-sector professional actors to use when conducting professional development within classroom instruction in literacy, numeracy, and classroom management. The professional actors involved at all levels questioned and debated the concepts and focus areas of the DLS, and a common understanding of how the areas should be accommodated in practice was lacking. However, the reasons why basic skills in literacy and numeracy were chosen by the authorities as a focus area for the initiative was not a subject of negotiation (Gunnulfsen & Madsø Jacobsen, 2019). The university to which the authors of this chapter belong is one of the largest in the country and had five pools of schools consisting of 45 lower secondary schools over 4 years. A group of four to six professional actors in the UC-sector collaborated with the superintendents and schools to align the locally chosen and nationally demanded focus areas.

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We gained knowledge from initial studies on the piloting of the DLS about how teachers and school leaders experienced initiatives concerning collaboration between schools and universities, particularly regarding the physical and relational factors between the institutions (Normann & Postholm, 2015). An evaluation report from the DLS that assessed use of the instruments in the Norwegian initiative found great variation in the implementation and weak anchoring among the teachers, but also that many professional actors at both the university and local school levels were positive about the resources offered to the local schools through the initiative. Such instruments could be instruction videos and written standards about teaching instruction. However, the students of lower secondary schools in Norway seem to have experienced little variation and little practical teaching, despite these being the main target group of the political initiative (Markussen et al., 2015). This chapter emphasizes the perspective of the professional actors in the UC-sector and investigates the tensions in their experiences, interpretation, and translation of the obligatory national educational policy intentions in the DLS.

Theoretical Framework The theoretical framework of this chapter rests on the core of policy enactment from Ball et al. (2012), which is based on the argument that political intentions are understood and interpreted within contextual and relational factors. Policy enactment is hence defined as the interpretation and negotiation of political initiatives, as well as something ongoing in local organizational contexts (Ball et al., 2012). Studies have increasingly pointed out that central political governance and reforms affect the school leaders’ and teachers’ work with professional development and organizational learning in schools (Gunnulfsen, 2017 Ball et al., 2012), and several researchers have pointed to the importance of the leadership role in determining how the organization responds to external political demands for change (Coburn, 2004; Spillane et al., 2004; Spillane & Burch, 2006). Meyer and Rowan (1977) and Weick (1976) highlighted for decades the weak links between policy demands and practice in schools, claiming that a weak link can be illustrated by teachers’ lack of awareness that the school where they work is involved in a national reform initiative. Correspondingly, in this study, the same notion of weak links includes the links between the policy level and the UC-sector actor levels. A distinction of the understanding of either weak or strong links between national policy demands and practice was further developed by Coburn (2004), who described five different coupling mechanisms related to policy demands and professional development in local school organizations: rejection, decoupling (symbolic responses with no effect), parallel structures (to balance different priorities), assimilation (make a fit with a pre-­ existing understanding), and accommodation (make substantial changes to the preexisting understanding). Decoupling refers to when professional actors in the UC-sector are involved with only a few teachers in a particular school and exclude all other colleagues. The school is still part of the initiative but not as a whole

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school-based project; this could be called a symbolic response, with no effect. Accommodation refers to the effect of substantial changes understood as the time when all teachers are changing their instruction practice, which may be because the changes are likely to be accounted for in the externally initiated policy demand. In this study, focusing on the experiences of professional actors in the UC-sector with the DLS and the associated policy demands within a Norwegian policy context, we combine Coburn’s (2004) five coupling mechanisms as analytical tools with the distinction between external and internal accountability (Elmore, 2005). External accountability involves performance-based accountability where central authorities evaluate, reward, and sanction organizations based on measurable results. In contrast to external accountability, internal accountability is guided by individual responsibility and/or collective expectations within the organization. According to Elmore (2005), internal accountability depends on internal, normative structures in an organization, which may be relatively immune to external influence. Examples of external accountability would be students’ results in national tests, final exams, and student surveys, while in the UC-sector this would be measured by the production of scientific articles and the degree of completion of the study programs, through what Finne and Hetland (2005) referred to as a “merit system,” where specific criteria and assessments give researchers and teaching staff access to positions and promotions in research and teaching institutions. As neither schools nor the UC-sector are measured by efforts related primarily to work on organizational development as such, this can have an impact on the collective internal effort for coupling external policy demands with regard to the authority’s expectation of localized work on quality development. Hence, this study links the perspectives of coupling mechanisms and accountability perspectives to the ways in which professional actors in the UC-sector deal with the national policy intentions of developing schools (Ball et al., 2012).

Method and Data Material This study is a case study (Yin, 2014), where we investigate a selection of professional actors in the UC-sector and their experiences with their participation in the DLS in one selected Norwegian region. The case is the professional actors in the UC-sector which were defined as expertise groups. In connection with the start-up of the DLS, the UC-sector in Norway was divided into six different regions on a national basis. As these regions changed during the process, we alter the name of the chosen region to meet the ethics and requirements of informants’ anonymity. The discussion in this chapter is grounded on generalized depictions from nine regional network seminars with groups in the UC-sector and the national centers of expertise. The regional network seminars were arranged by the Norwegian Directorate Education and Training and took place approximately every semester during the period of the DLS (2013–2017). The two authors of this chapter were participating professional actors in the UC-sector in the DLS and attended all the seminars in focus. A content analysis (Brinkmann & Kvale, 2009; Stemler, 2001) of reports,

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PowerPoint presentations, and oral experience-sharing from the collaboration with schools and national and regional taking place at the seminars made it possible to find delimited thematic categories for coding (Stemler, 2001; for details, see Table 8.2). Notes were taken while listening to the inputs. As in other qualitative research, such data as participant observation data require that researchers seek to understand the culture and participants in the actual context in the best possible way (Postholm, 2010). This does not mean that we, as researchers, cannot meet the field with anticipated issues, but that the issues are focused and clarified in interaction with the participants (Postholm, 2010). The statements are generalized to maintain the anonymity of the informants. The assemblies outlined in Table 8.1 were carried out at all-day seminars, where the representatives from the competence centers, the UC-sector, and the chosen Table 8.1  Overview of Universities and University Colleges Participating in National and Regional DLS Network Seminars Seminar no./year 1. Network seminar for expertise groups from universities—Region 1, September 23, 2013 40–50 participants

2. Network seminar for expertise groups from universities and national centers of expertise, November 6, 2013 50–60 participants

3. Network seminar for expertise groups from universities—Region 1, March 12, 2014 40–50 participants

Empirical data from seminars Presentations of state of the initiative by the directorate—with feedback from participants. Theoretical contributions from scholars. Examples of practices within DLS from participants of the UC-sector and school sectors were prepared in advance. Exchange of experience and discussions. Presentations of state of the initiative by the directorate—with feedback from participants. Theoretical contributions from scholars. Examples of practices within DLS from participants of the UC-sector and school sectors were prepared in advance. Exchange of experience and discussions. Presentations of state of the initiative by the directorate—with feedback from participants. Theoretical contributions from scholars. Examples of practices within DLS from participants of the UC-sector and school sectors were prepared in advance. Exchange of experience and discussions. (continued)

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Table 8.1 (continued) Seminar no./year 4. Network seminar for expertise groups from universities and national centers of expertise—Region 1 and Region 2 alliance, March 23, 2015 50–60 participants

5. Joint network seminar for local educational authorities, school leaders, specialist teachersa, mentors for school developmenta, and expertise groups from universities and national centers of expertise, March 24 and 25, 2015 Approx. 200–300 participants

6. Joint kick-start for local educational authorities, school leaders, specialist teachersa, mentors for school developmenta, and expertise groups from universities and national resource centers, DLS 3rd pool of schools, April 23 and 24, 2015 Approx. 200–300 particpants

Empirical data from seminars Presentations of state of the initiative by the directorate—with feedback from participants. Theoretical contributions from scholars. Examples of practices within DLS from participants of the UC-sector and school sectors were prepared in advance. Exchange of experience and discussions. Presentations of state of the initiative by the directorate—with feedback from participants. Exchange between different professional actors within the initiative on how to collaborate. Contributions concerning the different foci of the initiative (basic skills, classroom management, etc.) Examples of practice within DLS from participants of the UC-sector and school sectors. Exchange of experience and discussions. Presentations of state of the initiative by the directorate—with feedback from participants. Exchange between different professional actors within the initiative on how to collaborate. Contributions concerning the different foci of the initiative (basic skills, classroom management, etc.) Examples of practice within DLS from participants of the UC-sector and school sectors. Exchange of experience and discussions. (continued)

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Table 8.1 (continued) Seminar no./year 7. Joint kick start (for the 4th pool of schools) for local educational authorities, school leaders, specialist teachersa, mentors for school developmenta, and expertise groups from universities and national centers of expertise, April 28, 2016. Approx. 200–300 participants

8. Network seminar for exchange of experiences for expertise groups from universities and national centers of expertise, September 21, 2016 50–60 participants

9. National closing conference for universities, national centers of expertise and the Norwegian Directorate Education and Training, Spring 2017 Approx. 150 participants

Empirical data from seminars Presentations of state of the initiative by the directorate—with feedback from participants. Exchange between different professional actors within the initiative on how to collaborate. Contributions concerning the different foci of the initiative (basic skills, classroom management, etc.) Examples of practice within DLS from participants of the UC-sector and school sectors. Exchange of experience and discussions. Presentations of state of the initiative by the directorate—with feedback from participants. Theoretical contributions from scholars. Examples of practices within DLS from participants of the UC-sector and school sectors were prepared in advance. Exchange of experience and discussions. Launching of book based on research within the initiative. Speeches from the UC-sector professional actors, Norwegian Directorate, etc. Seminar and debate about learning outcomes in the institutions— What will the experiences from this initiative lead to? Exchange of experience and discussions.

Roles designated to help carry out the national policy initiative For a more detailed description of the network assemblies, see the latest report in Norwegian from the NTNU coordinating group: http://www.udir.no/globalassets/filer/ungdomstrinn-­i-­utvikling/ prosjektrapporter/uiu_prosjektrapport_nettverk_for_kompetansemiljoer_041116.pdf

a

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region (Region 1) were commissioned to prepare presentations on selected issues given from the coordinating academic group before each seminar. Three to six participants attended from each the UC-sector institution, totaling 40–60 participants in each group, and varied depending on the amount of participating institutions. The all-day seminars were conducted with professional input from the coordinating academic group, plenary discussions, and oral and digital presentations from the participating actors in the UC-sector. Collaboration with teachers in schools and discussions with fellow participants from the UC-sector and other researchers helped us to obtain a more distanced look at the findings. In November 2016, the last of four status reports was published by the coordinating academic community for the DLS represented by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). The status report from 2016 was based on the same assemblies from which our observation material originates and is used as background material in this chapter.1

Data Analysis Once we collected the data and each assembly was complete, we performed separate, individual readings of the presentations and notes from the seminars. We used the individual readings to identify how the participants expressed their understanding and experiences of the external policy demand. We used open coding of statements to determine the categories for an analysis of the UC-sector actors’ presentations, experiences, arguments, and interpretations (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). Examples of the codes are risks, opportunities, limitations, clear, unclear, linking, discussing, and realizing. Our work on coding was inspired by narrative analysis, which uses an autobiographic memory framework (Cortazzi, 1993). The separate readings were used to identify tensions with regard to work with the initiative in the local schools. Tensions were identified in phrases such as “this is difficult to understand...,” “how are we supposed to...,” “we do not have this competence area...,” and “we are happy to work with our chosen schools, because....” This framework contributed to a systematic analysis of individual and repeated statements related to how the participants remembered and reflected on their experiences with the initiative. The two authors analyzed the presentations and notes from the groups separately and arrived at a collective selection of categories. We conducted the second reading together to investigate the similarities and differences in the data with regard to the opportunities, risks, and realities with the external policy demand. Table 8.2 presents the steps of analysis as part of the coding. The coding and analysis of the observations and collected data material can be characterized as data-driven because the codes were developed through two 1  Link to status report from The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) from 2016; https://www.udir.no/tall-og-forskning/finn-forskning/rapporter/rapportering-fra-nettverk-forkompetansemiljoer%2D%2D-ungdomstrinn-i-utvikling/

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Table 8.2  Steps of analysis Reading Aim 1st Identify challenges, risks, reading and opportunities in experiences with the obligatory policy demand. 2nd Identify tensions related reading to the experiences with the obligatory policy demand.

Tools of analysis Looking for risks, opportunities, and tensions.

Empirical research questions How were the experiences expressed with regard to opportunities, risks, tensions, and realities?

Internal versus external accountability. Coupling mechanisms.

How did the statements express any type of coupling to the initiative and how were they connected to internal vs. external accountability?

readings of the material in addition to an analysis of the participant observations. The emerging analysis process focused on examining the experiences and presentations done by the participating actors in the UC-sector and interpreting how they talked about their work with schools in the DLS. We conducted the next step in a more deductive manner, combining the distinction between external and internal accountability (Elmore, 2005) with the five coupling mechanisms, which Coburn (2004) identified as analytical tools.

Findings The following sections present the findings related to the UC-sector actors’ experiences with the obligatory policy demand of the DLS and the challenges, risks, and opportunities related to these experiences.

 ensions in Multiple Terms and Roles in the External T Policy Demands The first finding relates to the plurality of concepts and terms that have been introduced or used by the authorities in the DLS initiative and the various actors’ understanding of these. One such concept is the designation used to describe the role of the UC-sector in the approach to schools. The term “provider,” which was first introduced in 2013 by the Education Directorate,2 contributes to the understanding that the university institutions are “market players” in the initiative and that the schools could expect “deliverances” from them in terms of competencies. The following statement from a representative from the UC-sector in one of the seminar groups illustrates that this understanding  https://www.udir.no/kvalitet-og-kompetanse/nasjonale-satsinger/ungdomstrinn-i-utvikling/

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has created challenges: “It is important to clarify the role of all actors. Especially with regard to ownership and grounding, and that we (in the UC-sector) should rather move from being ‘providing’ to be an ‘active development partner.’” Midway through the initiative, the term “development partners” was introduced by the authorities as a substitute for “providers” to describe the representatives from the competence centers and the UC-sector as well as the schools involved to signal the equality between all actors in the intended partnership.3 The change in terms, which represented an important signal effect towards the role of the UC-sector, has been consistently used in the latest reports from the coordinating competence environment. The new term was embraced by actors from both the school system and the UC-sector. The term was partly changed to overcome tensions between the professional actors involved in the UC-sector and the local schools because it was unclear what mandate and power were assigned to the various roles.

Concerns for Sustainability in the Initiative The professional actors in the UC-sector expressed concern about the models for organizing meetings with the schools and the general role of the UC-sector in the initiative. They also expressed concern about how to maintain collaboration after completing the assigned period of collaboration, as the following statement illustrates: “The UC-sector is only involved with the schools a year and a half, and when we leave, what then? Will this mean that we lose awareness of the collaboration and the positive effects of a close collaboration with schools?” A representative from one of the major the UC-sector institutions also stated that the mandate was unclear and that being a single actor from the sector in collaboration processes with schools posed challenges with regard to continuity: Our group [actors in the UC-sector] has an unclear mandate and there is only one person (in the institution) selected to supervise “our” school. [This] allows few opportunities for processing supervisions with colleagues in the UC-sector. It is also difficult to link the supervision to the overall objective of the (DLS) project.

The above statement indicates uncertainty and tensions related to the obligatory policy demand and the aim of the national policy initiative, where the UC-sector actors experienced a lack of opportunity to deal with development or change processes with colleagues in their institution after the meetings with the schools. During the assemblies between the UC-sector actors and competence centers-actors, support was expressed for the national demand to gather actors with different backgrounds, such as school teachers and the UC-sector lecturers, to work as a team. The oral presentations at the seminar groups highlighted collaboration across professional actors that had been established in connection with the initiative. However, it  https://www.udir.no/tall-og-forskning/finn-forskning/rapporter/sluttrapportungdomstrinn-iutvikling/

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also emerged that, for some, it was difficult to establish collaboration across the academic communities within the university institutions, particularly in terms of how the work on the initiative was organized at the local the UC-sector institution. Hence, tensions were identified both within the UC-sector and between the UC-sector and the local schools. Representatives from two of the universities stated that it had been challenging to work across established research groups to link subject areas internally within their respective institutions. Such research groups could be related to subject-specific topics, such as reading or numeracy, or linked to systematic work with policy, curriculum studies, leadership, and organizational development.

Unified Understanding a Prerequisite The challenges were linked to the diversity of concepts and different understandings among the local schools’, local authorities’, or competence centers’ choices of subject areas for school development, as well as the uncertainty related to a common understanding of the links between the intention and content of the national initiative. Challenges in linking subject areas internally in the UC-sector, with the area of leadership and organizational change on the one hand and the area subject didactics on the other, illustrate an aspect that is linked to the focus on a double understanding of how actors in the UC-sector were expected to meet the policy demand of enhancing school quality. All schools in the initiative were requested to choose between subject areas in reading, writing, numeracy, or class management. Sometimes the area the school had chosen did not match the competence of the UC-sector supervisor, or inconsistencies arose between the school’s preferred focus area and what the local education authorities seemed to think on the school’s behalf. As one of the UC-sector actors expressed in her presentation, “Schools would preferably ask for workshops for teachers in writing, reading, and numeracy. It is difficult to get into position to work with development processes when our expertise is linked to organizational learning with a focus on leadership and management.” It was expressed by several participants from the UC-sector that it could be perceived as tough to be “the woman against the stream” (a Norwegian saying about a person being alone with an action or intention, when everybody else is against it) with regard to putting the focus on school development if the school actors wanted to have a “quick fix for teachers,” implying that the supervisor should bring along a lot of “tips for teachers.” It was also stated that supervision as a principle became a challenge and the fact that some actors in the UC-sector offered supervision for leaders and leadership teams only and not “tips for teachers” was a subject of tension. This is an important finding with regard to roles and legitimacy in the obligatory national education policy initiative, as shown in the following excerpt; the statement identifies the challenge without having a unified understanding and knowledge of the policy demand:

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Another limitation we want to highlight as extra important is that we [the UC-sector actors] do not have enough knowledge of the individual school and do not have enough knowledge of basic skills, which would also have been desirable with more competence in group coaching.

This last statement related to the UC-sector actors usually working as lecturers in the field of natural science and their lack of knowledge about group coaching and basic skills.

Tensions When Not Part of the Planning An important finding is that the UC-sector actors found it hard to follow up on the intention of the national policy demand, especially if the authorities offered a pre-­ design of the processes without giving central actors the opportunity to be part of the planning. It was not always possible for an UC-sector institution to enact national policy intentions without being an active part in the initial national policy planning. In addition, disagreements arose among the UC-sector representatives about what would be a good methodology for the individual schools to enact the national policy demand for a more practical and motivating lower secondary school: “It would be great to be able to discuss with the schools how they perceived the mandate to create a more motivational and practical lower secondary school.” The findings also showed that tensions related to the time perspective. The good intentions for collective interaction and school-based competence development were challenged by the time limits of the professional actors in the UC-sector and the schools. Accordingly, an input was linked to the UC-sector actors’ suggestion regarding Lesson Study methods (Cerbin & Kopp, 2006) to develop the teachers’ and leaders’ analytical competence and learning: There’s too little time out in the schools. It takes time to work on new methods, such as Lesson Study. The schools that have started with the Lesson Study do not, as we see it, automate the method yet so that it can easily be continued in other initiatives that come [from the local education authorities].

The tension here lies in the schools’ aspiration to make use of the method called Lesson Study in a locally adjusted manner because they did not have enough time to fully implement the method. The professional actors in the UC-sector, as experts on Lesson Study method principles, expressed that this would not benefit organizational learning or lead to real change in teachers’ instructional practices.

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Discussion In this chapter, we asked the following questions: (a) What kinds of experiences do actors in the UC-sector express regarding the obligatory policy demand of the DLS? (b) What challenges, risks, and opportunities related to these experiences did actors in the UC-sector identify after participating in the obligatory policy initiative DLS? Next, we discuss the two research questions collectively.

 isks and Tensions with Regard to Being the “Suppliers” R of Knowledge The problem in the DLS lies in whether the professional actors in the UC-sector are experienced as suppliers of knowledge (Havnes, 2008) or as collaborative actors, where the challenge is to create consensual intentions jointly. Replacing the terms “provider” and/or “competence environment” with “development partner” may have been a first step towards creating collective intentions between the professional actors. Creating collective, locally defined intentions may also be crucial for establishing a sustainable partnership in the future and beyond the allocated national obligatory project period. The term “development partner” implies that, as partners, the professional actors in the UC-sector should be able to develop and change practices. However, there is an unmet need to justify the involvement of the UC-sector. As Ball et al. (2012) pointed out, history, culture, and reputation may play a major role in external policy change expectations. Some the UC-sector actors have been directly linked to teacher education for primary schools, while others also offer associate professorships and master’s programs in education leadership and management. Some focus more on the natural sciences, while others have environmental and biophysics as subjects. In addition, a lack of justification for the parties’ involvement can affect collective learning with an individual sense of responsibility within the organizations (Elmore, 2005). Among other things, the statements pointing to the need for knowledge of the individual school’s context showed that the way each individual university institution chooses to organize the work and in which internal academic field it should be anchored becomes crucial. A lack of justification for the parties’ involvement may also connect to the notion that actors in the UC-sector were not supposed to conduct research during their involvement with the schools in the DLS. The main aim in the DLS is defined through two areas: (1) to develop the school’s competence in its basic skills, learning environment, and assessment, and (2) to contribute with more practical and varied teaching that gives the students increased motivation and mastery. The risks here can be linked to the extent to which the

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university sector and the schools’ representatives have discussed collectively what it is that constitutes and contributes to the instructional practices becoming more practical and varied. Additionally, a risk lies in the power structures in that some actors are regarded as experts while others regard themselves as the receiver of expertise. These findings might imply that the UC-sector actors need to become more aware of the conceptual use and intentions in transformation processes that challenge ways of thinking (Stålsett, 2006). It is therefore crucial to know something about how the UC-sector actors, teachers and school leaders understand the intentions of national policy demand and how they can be transformed between current contexts. One could even imagine that conversations about different understandings of the intentions could have taken place on several levels, between the university and central authorities, between the university and the superintendent level, and between the university and the individual school. In this way, one could avoid unnecessary time spent on tensions arising from misinterpretations and misunderstandings, and one could approach a collective learning work and what Coburn (2004) referred to as “accommodation” (basic changes to the existing understanding). Our findings suggest that the success of the initiative might depend on deliberation between the UC-sector actors and the local school actors regarding what it means to work with basic skills as a contribution to a more practical and varied instruction practice in schools. Schools may be able to score better on national tests, thus meeting external accountability (Elmore, 2005). The UC-sector, on the other hand, may not be able to report any achieved institutional learning because resources for funding research was not available within the DLS. Moreover, it was not easy to identify whether the students found the teaching to be more practical and varied after the involvement of the professional actors in the UC-sector and at the end of the DLS (Postholm et al., 2018). Equally important, therefore, would be a critical reflection on the authorities’ intentions relating to improving existing practices and a collective interpretation of and negotiations on understanding the political initiative (Ball et al., 2012).

Opportunities in Defining and Delimiting Roles Defining schools, and thus teachers and school leaders, as recipients of supervision, advice, and support from the UC-sector actors can create an experience of asymmetry with undefined definitions of responsibility and power. A challenge may arise when a development partner does not have the legitimacy of the staff or where school leaders and teachers find that the experts do not understand how things really happen in practice. The findings show that the UC-sector actors may have linked the terms “competence environment” and “providing” because the university colleges and universities were responsible for coming up with the solution, good advice, tips, and supervision. Nevertheless, the policy demand might also be perceived in a way that the professional actors in the UC-sector were regarded as part of the external

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accountability demands (Elmore, 2005) with a responsibility to enhance school quality and instructional practices local schools. At a time marked by accountability and performance requirements at all levels of the education sector (Elmore, 2005; Skedsmo & Møller, 2016), school and the UC-sector institutes are challenged to explore what supports organizational learning in their workplace. These challenges can be identified with what Gunnulfsen (2017) defined as micro policymaking in the different institutions and structures of coupling mechanisms where partnerships might develop as parallel structures (to balance different priorities) and assimilation (make a fit with pre-existing understanding; Coburn, 2004). Micro policymaking can thus be understood as the core of organizational learning, which involves being able to share experiences and to translate and negotiate collectively in a language that clearly explains the different understandings of processes, purpose, and values of the aims (Robinson, 2014; Jensen & Lund, 2014). Within the obligatory national policy intention underlying the DLS initiative, the UC-sector is partly responsible for anchoring national policy demands through decent and motivating “translations” adapted to the school’s context (Røvik, 2007). This responsibility can be perceived as a risk if the UC-sector does not find that the translations of policy demands are in accordance with their own or the schools’ perceptions and where the result might end up as counterproductive. The risk hence lies in the tensions that may lead to disagreements about how to approach the aim in the policy demand and eventual conflicts with regard to the tensions. However, the risks and tension might also lead to opportunities that strengthen and develop both the UC-sector actors’ and school teachers’ practices and understandings (Gunnulfsen, & Helstad, 2014; Helstad, 2013; Postholm & Madsen, 2012). The institutional practices of the UC-sector actors involve different requirements for learning processes and instructional practices from those of schools, and the purpose of a collective organizational learning project is also different. The intention to work with basic skills therefore takes a different shape for teaching in teacher education. The question arises whether a focus on enhancing students’ competencies in basic skills in the DLS is intended to convey knowledge to future teachers or increased competencies by students in lower secondary school. Challenges may arise in the contexts where some actors find that they “give more than they get,” and these challenges have consequences related to internal accountability, where internal, normative structures in an organization have proved to be relatively immune to external influence (Elmore, 2005). Major reform efforts can contribute to external accountability affecting the internal structures of the organization through the challenges that arise internally. This could mean that the mission of actors in the UC-sector is extended beyond scientific production, research, and teaching and that the inner institutional structures contribute to tensions with regard to goal ambiguity and technical uncertainty concerning how and why the partnership with local school is fruitful (DiMaggio & Powell, 2000). However, the initiative has contributed to an opportunity to strengthen the awareness of actors in the UC-sector of the connection between subject areas in their profession. Although some actors in the UC-sector have been critical of the strong focus on subject didactics and basic skills in the initiative, this focus has led to, for

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example, the teacher education having to select professionals across disciplines to act as “development partners” with schools. The purpose of the obligatory national policy demand must therefore be defined and redefined during a collaboration for collective organizational learning (Helstad, 2013). The professional actors in the UC-sector tended to face the schools with a certain predefined interpretation of the intention, which often differed from that of the schools. The different concepts in the strategy documents were meant to give the impression that the professional actors were on the same level, but in reality, they were not. Defining and delimiting roles and concepts early in an obligatory national policy initiative may capture the policy intention. It is important who defines the roles, the power, and the number and variety of competencies by the professional actors as part of a national policy demand for school development. The results depend on the possession of a common “project” and especially the role of school leadership in this work (Coburn, 2004; Spillane et al., 2004; Spillane & Burch, 2006). The different experiences can be seen in light of what is theoretically referred to as weak links between policy design and classroom/teaching instruction practice (Weick, 1976). The weak links are characterized by the different experiences that appear in the data. Correspondingly, what is theoretically referred to as “parallel structures” (to balance different priorities against new expectations) is evident (Coburn, 2004) because the UC-sector actors explained their efforts to adapt their existing practices to the new expectations in the obligatory DLS.

Concluding Remarks This chapter has illustrated the challenges, risks, and opportunities that lie in the obligatory national policy demand for collaboration between school teachers and school leaders and professionals in the UC-sector. The challenges, risks, and opportunities have been discussed with a focus on experiences including translations and negotiations on the understanding of political initiatives related to the development of school and instructional practices (Ball et al., 2012). Opportunities emerge when the intention and content of the work for development in the school is unified and collectively understood. At the same time, the chapter has shown how a collaboration “across” education sector/levels can present both risks and challenges when the professional actors involved do not see the value of the work or commonly understand what is to be “developed.” The findings highlight the need to involve the UC-sector actors as active equal leveled participants in the work of communicating, negotiating, and creating a mutual understanding of both political and educational intentions. In the DLS, the concepts and language associated with the policy intention have been changed along the way. The altered language associated with the intention and the complex actor diversity has further contributed to challenges and tensions with the dissemination and debate on understanding the policy formulation, which in turn may have contributed to a twist in the original intention of more practical and varied training

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for students at the lower secondary school level. We believe collaborating actors in the schools and in the UC-sector should have direct involvement in the negotiations and renegotiations of the central obligatory policy demands on school development. This chapter highlights the need for future research on how coherence between actors’ perceived needs and opportunities is enacted in major policy school reform efforts involving universities and university colleges. Future studies should also examine how professional actors in universities and university colleges deal with policy intentions and how such intentions are processed and understood at several levels in the UC-sector institutional system.

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Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research. (2010). Meld. St. 22 (2010 – 2011). Motivasjon – Mestring  – Muligheter. Ungdomstrinnet. [White paper nr 22 (2010–2011). Motivation  – Mastery – Posibilities. Lower secondary school]. Oslo: regjeringen.no (Downloaded April 8th, 2021). https://www.regjeringen.no/no/dokumenter/meld-­st-­22-­2010%2D%2D2011/id641251/ Norwegian Ministry of Education. (2012). Strategi for ungdomstrinnet. [Strategy for lower secondary schools]. Retrieved July 7, 2020, from https://www.regjeringen.no/no/dokumenter/ strategi-­for-­ungdomstrinnet/id682495/ Ministry of Education. Postholm, M. B. (2010). Kvalitativ metode. En innføring med fokus på fenomenologi, etnografi og kasusstudier [Qualitative method. An introduction focusing on phenomenology, ethnography and casus studies]. Universitetsforlaget. Postholm, M. B., & Madsen, J. (2012). Lærerutdannere i forsknings- og utviklingsarbeid i skolen: Deres opplevelse av arbeidets betydning for rollen i lærerutdanningen [Teacher educators in research- and development work in school: Their experiences of the significance for the role of teacher education]. Norsk pedagogisk tidsskrift, 96(04), 269–281. Postholm, M. B., Normann, A., Dahl, T., Dahlin, E., Engvik, G., & Irgens, E. (Eds) (2018). Skole og utdanningssektoren i utvikling [School and education sector in development]. Fagbokforlaget. Robinson, V. M. J. (2014). Single and double loop learning. In Encyclopedia of educational theory and philosophy (pp. 754–775). Sage. Røvik, K. A. (2007). Trender og translasjoner: ideer som former det 21. århundrets organisasjon [Trends and Traditions; Ideas that Forms the 21th Century’s Organization]. Universitetsforlaget. Skedsmo, G., & Møller, J. (2016). Governing by new performance expectations in Norwegian schools. In H. M. Gunter, E. Grimaldi, D. Hall, & R. Serpieri (Eds.), New public management and the reform of education (pp. 71–83). Routledge. Spillane, J., Diamond, J. B., Sherer, J., & Coldren, A. F. (2004). Distributing leadership. Developing leadership: Creating the schools of tomorrow. Open University Press. Spillane, J., & Burch, P. (2006). The institutional environment and instructional practice: Changing patterns of guidance and control in public education. The New Institutionalism in Education, 6, 87–102. Stemler, S. (2001). An overview of content analysis. Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 17(7), 137–146. Stensaker, B. R. (2003). Trance, transparency and transformation: The impact of external quality monitoring on the UC-sector. Quality in The UC-sector, 9(2), 151–159. Strauss, A. L., & Corbin, J. M. (1998). Basics qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory. Sage. Stray, J. H. (2011). Fra samfunnsmandat til samfunnsoppdrag. En språklig dreining i utdanningsretorikken? [From society mandate to society mission. A turn in the language in the education policy rethoric?]. Norsk pedagogisk tidsskrift, 95(01), 18–29. Stålsett, U. E. (2006). Veiledning i en lærende organisasjon [Coaching in a learning organization]. Universitetsforlaget. Timperley, H., Wilson, A., Barrar, H., & Fung, I. (2008). Teacher professional learning and development (Vol. 18). International Academy of Education. http://www.ibe.unesco.org/fileadmin/ user_upload/Publications/Educational_Practices/EdPractices_18.pdf Weick, K. E. (1976). Educational organizations as loosely coupled systems. Administrative Science Quarterly, 21(1), 1–19. Yin, R. K. (2014). Case study research: Design and methods. Sage. Ann Elisabeth Gunnulfsen is an Associate Professor at the Department of Teacher Education and School Research, University of Oslo, Norway. Gunnulfsen is the program leader for the national principal preparation program in at the University of Oslo, and she is teaching a Master’s program in educational leadership. Her main research interests are within the perspectives of educational leadership, partnership in education, educational policy and change, governance and accountability, and curriculum studies. She currently leads the evaluation of the current curriculum reform in  

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Norway. Gunnulfsen is a member of the research group CLEG (Curriculum Studies, Leadership and Educational Governance). She is also involved in a series of national and international research-projects and collaborative leadership developing programs with schools. Hilde Madsø Jacobsen is a PhD candidate at the Department of Teacher Education and School Research, University of Oslo, Norway. Hilde teaches at the National School Headship Training program and the MA for Educational Leadership at the Dep. of Teacher Education and School Research (UiO). Her research project examines how school leaders organize support and mentoring for newly qualified teachers and how mentors and teachers experience the organizational support for mentoring. This to provide further insight to the field of school leadership, professional development and governance. Jacobsen is also member of the research group CLEG (Curriculum, Leadership and Education Governance) at the Faculty of Educational Sciences, UiO.  

Chapter 9

Student-Researcher Partnerships – Uneven Realities Kathrin Otrel-Cass

and Julia Mayr

Abstract  Empowering students to play an active role in their own learning process has become a fundamental goal in education. Consequently, educational researchers seek means to make students’ voices heard when working together, which ultimately leads to a special form of partnership between the students and the researcher. Contrary to romantic beliefs that all partnerships are based on equality, we argue here that student-researcher partnerships are never even. This chapter gives insight into student-researcher relationships and provides illustrative examples of our own research experiences. If researchers want to be able to form meaningful partnerships, it is vital to empower students, but also to acknowledge mutual limitations. Keywords  Student voice · Classroom research · Ethnography · Lineology · Collaboration · Co-creation · Inequality

Introduction Educational research frequently involves that researchers enter classrooms and observe or directly engage with young people as part of their research activities. Researchers work with questions that puzzle them and try to unpack learning experiences, and frequently want to hear from those who are supposed to benefit from educational activities, namely students. This is done in varying formats, including surveys or interviews where the researcher and the researched are clearly differently positioned. This positioning should also ensure that children and young people are protected as outlined in the United Nations’ (1989) Convention on the Rights of the

K. Otrel-Cass (*) · J. Mayr University of Graz, Graz, Austria e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 K. Otrel-Cass et al. (eds.), Partnerships in Education, Transdisciplinary Perspectives in Educational Research 5, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98453-3_9

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Child (UNCRC), Article 3. The convention points out the ambiguities of minors through their limited social power and legal status (Thompson, 1992). This protective status has also contributed to children in research being perceived or treated as participants with little voice based on their vulnerability and need to be protected by adults. By contrast, “The right to be heard,” in the 2009 UNCRC General Comment Nr 12 describes children’s participation as the “ongoing processes which include information sharing and dialogue between children and adults based on mutual respect, and in which children can learn how their views and those of adults are taken into account and shape the outcome of such processes” (p. 5). This right to participate means that students and researchers should form a particular kind of research partnership in which they can work together. Yet, we have to ask ourselves what the term ‘partnership’ actually means when working with students. Ideally, partnerships are based on “equal relationship[s] between two or more bodies working together towards a common purpose” (Williamson, 2013, p.  8). With regard to partnerships between researchers and students, however, partnerships are inherently unequal due to various power-related factors, such as age and position. Working in partnership with students to bring forward and integrate their voice is a research ambition not without challenges and has received increased attention in recent years. Fielding (2004, p. 306) writes that “the potential for transformation is more likely to reside in arrangements which require the active engagement of students and teachers working in partnership than in those which either exclude teachers or treat student voice as an instrument” and that working with “students as co-researchers cannot succeed without the engagement of students as … makers of meaning”. Ken Tobin (2007a, p.  29) describes his experience with a student he worked with and who became his student researcher, and points out that the student “made it clear they did not want the research experience to be too much like schoolwork” since he “found the autonomy that was denied him at school where adults’ endeavors to exert control over him”. Students experience school and the role of adults typically as one where adults hold power and control over them. This means that schools represent institutionalized set ups which frame research partnerships between researchers, teachers and students within existing power differences. Even ambitious research is challenged not to reproduce the social and cultural inequalities that can be found in schools (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1964). Elmesky (2007, p. 98) describes her early research experience as rather challenging due to the fact that students considered some of her science experiments to be too similar to school tasks, which consequently “communicated a sense of disempowerment and truncation of agency” to her student co-researchers. She emphasizes the importance of inviting students to share their “perspectives, dispositions and opinions (i.e. cultural capital)” in order to foster collaboration, mutual respect and solidarity. Ultimately, this collaborative research process triggered “shifts in [students’] individual identities,” since young people who previously felt “silenced or disempowered” became “valuable member[s]” of the research group (Elmesky 2007, p. 101).

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In many research scenarios the existing imbalances become visible when we ask some key questions, such as who is identified as a competent participant, what defines a collaborator or a co-researcher or who determines what is being discussed. In research settings, teachers often pre-define the selection of possible participant students since they understandably wish to reduce the potential disruptions in the normal schoolwork and know their students well enough to pick out those who they may deem representative, eloquent and unafraid enough to engage with researchers at school. Fielding (2004) points out that it is equally important to consider the implications and dangers of speaking about others, and when ‘representatives’ are chosen in place of others, the consequences my include unintended disempowerment. Letting adults decide who can or should speak up may also reinforce existing stereotypes concerning who may be able to represent the class. During a research project at a New Zealand high school one of the researchers was waiting outside a locked classroom when a student came up and asked why the researcher was interested in working with their class, when everyone knew that they were the low achievers (‘we are the dumb ones’). Upon reflection, the comment highlighted the asymmetry between the researcher and the student. The frank comments were friendly taunts, but the brief exchange showcased a serious observation by the student. The student in this case did not seem to be constrained to a particular role but made it clear to the researcher that she had developed an understanding in which she considered herself a member of a particular community. The scene describes an unfolding that juxtaposes students, their teacher and the researcher-observer, each reflecting on their own account of reality, but each one holding different levels of power, capitals and ways to deal with consequences (Siraj-Blatchford & Siraj-Blatchford, 1997). These levels of power also forge solidarities between members of groups (Elmesky, 2007). This scenario presents two kinds of challenges: The first is concerned with justice or injustice that is enacted in research partnerships involving young people at school. The second is concerned with the kind of evidence that can be produced in such research arrangements in order to provide adequate accounts and interpretations of events. In this chapter we will start with reflections on ethnographic work in the classroom. We will draw on the ideas of Tim Ingold (2015) to structure our thoughts. We will then present three different examples from research projects and attempt to share the emergent stories from working in different ways with young people. The first example is from a project that utilized a combination of storytelling, meditation and drawing to hear about young people’s fears and hopes, the next example gives insight into co-creating with young people and respecting boundaries and the third example is about the responsibility of giving back when meaningful relationships are formed (video cameras/science talks). We continue with the theoretical ideas by Tim Ingold.

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Researching Classroom Practices – Becoming a Lineologist In order to think about the nature of relationships that can be formed between researchers and young people at school, we want to introduce the thinking of anthropologist Tim Ingold, in particular his ideas from his book The Life of Lines (2015). Ingold’s work is a reflection on ethnographic work, the practices, processes and understandings. He likens social life with that of lines which may become entangled at times and may form knots, to draw attention to the dynamics of social life and to the fact that things are steadily in movement. He explains that being human is an emergent, ongoing and productive phenomenon that is also signified by the continuous work people invest in it. He writes: “Humans are quite literally the fabricators of themselves; they are auto-fabricators” (p. 188). To understand what the lines mean you ought to become a lineologist, so to be able to understand the centrality of “the entwining of lines” (p. 4) to the formation of social fabric. To be working ethnographically also means to ‘weave’ in order to produce concepts from the fieldwork we do. The lines and meshworks people produce and pursue over time are interdisciplinary and this implies that there is a need to produce knowledge responding to people’s needs. This work is a meshwork rather than a network because it affords taking note of what happens in-between. Ingold calls this “humaning” and refers to the in-between, the things that are not fixed and are emergent. He reminds his reader: “…if we enter into a relationship, does that not bring into existence something new that is neither you nor I, but into which we have both yielded something of our respective selves?” (pp.  15–16). Analogously, Ingold defines the term “sympathy” as “a living with” rather than a mere “looking at” (p. 24), an expression of solidarity (Elmesky, 2007), with the people in their contexts that are focus of our studies. In this chapter we want to take a closer look at the ‘emergent’, the ‘in-between’, which qualifies these investigations to be called meshworks. Ingold reminds us that ethnographic work can be likened to the movement through a labyrinth, where walking through shapes the ‘paths of observation’ (Fig. 9.1). Ethnographic work, he postulates, is about deciphering the in-between which exists as a tension between the “induction (drawing in) on rules and representations, or the ‘intentional worlds’ of a culture” and the ex-duction (drawing out) of the learner into the world itself, through direct experiences with the world (Ingold, 2015, pp. 134–135). It is about how to turn the world we observe into something real. Next, we will draw attention to the partnerships that are a necessary condition to find the ‘in-between’.

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Fig. 9.1 Labyrinth

Drawing in and Drawing Out – Researching in the Classroom Practice-oriented educational research often takes place in classrooms. However, even before those spaces are entered the conditions for the ethnographic investigations are being forged. Before entering the classroom – One of the first times educational researchers think about how to engage with their participants is when they consider the ethical implications of their investigation. As we have discussed elsewhere (Otrel-Cass, 2020) one significant consideration is that when doing research with people it is important to keep in mind that people can change their minds about their involvement and have the right to do so. Focusing on predetermining all research details ‘a priori’ is important for the planning but researchers, as has been our experience, need to prepare their work and think in such ways that things can be adjusted along the way in response to how participants experience their interactions in order to allow them to grow and feel comfortable in their roles. In the classroom – Conducting research at school comes with a mundane yet significant challenge – the institutionalized space, where children and young people spend considerable amounts of time, carries authority which is not just produced through the engagement among humans, but also through engagements between humans and non-human elements (James et al., 1998). Seating arrangements very quickly designate who is in power and who is not (teacher’s desk versus students’ tables, students who are seated either closest or farthest away from the teacher, students who are allowed or not to sit together). This means that students are controlled, not only by virtue of their age (Fendler, 2001) but also by the educational mechanisms which are being applied. Yet, as Gallagher notes, children at school

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also “manage to carry out effective exercises of power over adults in schools, despite the obvious disparity in their formal positions within institutional hierarchies” (Gallagher, 2011, p. 49). Noting this, it is still important to consider for instance how materials or objects that are produced by outside authorities or produced by students or their teachers shape particular messages that typically instruct students or celebrate their achievements. For the researcher it is important to consider how the space where data are being collected impacts on the research process and research data, since the classroom space is shaped by a particular order (Reh, et al., 2011). It means that people and objects in classrooms are arranged, and this arrangement shapes the nature of ‘doings and sayings’ (Schatzki, 1996, p.  89). This relatedness positions and produces power arrangements (Foucault, 2007; Popkewitz & Brennan, 1997), since relationships occur in a kind of ‘spacing in doing’ (Reh et al., 2011, p. 85). Issues of control may arise even from within as educational researchers interested in understanding situations that unfold in classrooms can find themselves challenged by their own position of authority. Especially as skilled observers we see things by way of our own reflexivity and interpret the reasons and/or implications of the observed. In doing so and while being well intentioned, young people can be unintentionally disempowered especially when adults talk about them and not with them (Fielding, 2004). In interviews, even very skilled researchers inadvertently set up situations where the interviewees try to guess what the interviewer would like to hear from their dialogue partner (Sullivan, 2012). In an effort to reduce the distortions that are created in this way, ethnographic approaches focus on their participants to such a degree that ideally all details are captured and recorded, where the expressed focus is on the actors’ point of view. Yet, the rules within which educational researchers are typically operating create dualities and research that means to give young people a voice may impede this very intention. The authority an adult researcher visiting a school has may “in some cases actually reinforce the very structures of domination that the research project is concerned to eradicate” (Siraj-Blatchford & Siraj-Blatchford, 1997, p.  240). The authors suggest that it may be particularly helpful in such circumstances if the students who we work with are those with authority since “respondents are unlikely to feel threatened, although they may need to be especially reassured regarding confidentiality“. Ken Tobin (2007a) described an educational research project that included a student who became part of his research team. This positioned the student as a person with status and Tobin observed that sometimes his presence was established through aggressive tones – he became a young person with authority, who was more able to enter into a partnership with adult researchers. In another study, carried out in an urban American high school classroom, Tobin (2007b, p. 49) experienced students in their role as coaches of educators in their first year of teaching. Each new teacher was assigned two or three students as coaches who shared their ideas for improvement. One of the conditions was that these co-researchers were as diverse as possible, including “some of the most challenging students,” in order to include different perspectives. In their new roles, students had the empowering opportunity to share

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their opinions and suggestions. Tobin found that giving those students a voice had “a vast untapped potential” for teacher training and the researchers were surprised by the “wisdom” that students conveyed. Notwithstanding, the research team also noticed certain constraints. For example, students’ suggestions were frequently traditionalistic, and thereby in favor of “teachers controlling their students with an iron fist.” While Tobin (ibid.) considers students’ opinions as valuable instruments for quality improvement, he also acknowledges that students’ voices differ from each other and that they are often based on unfounded assumptions. He thus concludes that “critical examination of all voices, including those of the researchers, teachers and students emerged as central components of a critical pedagogy” (Tobin 2007b, p. 49). In other studies where students were asked to collaborate with teachers and researchers for quality improvement, it became crucial to ensure that the roles of the students were “expanded to be symmetrical with the adults’ roles” in order to give all voices the opportunity to be heard equally (Tobin 2007b, p. 53). As the collaboration process progressed, students’ roles were steadily growing, culminating in them becoming ‘equal partners’ when identifying and resolving school-related problems. While involving students as co-researchers can be highly beneficial, there is also some ethical concern due to the difference in power relations between the teachers and the students inside the classroom (Tobin 2007b, p. 54). Tobin worked with students and teachers using a cogenerative dialogue format which supported equality; however, this was not so much the case in the classroom, where teachers frequently have an unwillingness to grant students equal power. Thus, the classroom space asserts certain power structures that are hard to break. Olitsky and Weathers also observed that the fact that teachers have the power to grade students fosters this unequal relationship inside the classroom (2007, p. 82). Another factor which is frequently underestimated or not taken into consideration when it comes to power differentials between researchers and the researched, is language. In a collaborative ethnographic study on science education conducted with young urban African-Americans, Olitsky and Weathers (2007) found that students perceived academic language as exclusive. More specifically, students reported that they felt as if science teachers were “just trying to make it confusing with all those big words” and that they had the feeling that scientists “don’t want people to understand it” (Olitsky & Weathers, 2007, p. 83). While exclusion due to subject-specific terminology is regarded as “prevalent in science education” (ibid, p. 82), the language issue is also present on a more subtle sociolinguistic level. In fact, the African-American students in Olitsky and Weathers’ study reported to be very insecure when giving presentations in front of researchers. Since the students are used to speaking their sociolect in their daily lives, i.e. African-American Vernacular English, they felt a threat of negative stereotyping when speaking to their predominantly White academic audience. It can thus be concluded that language can indeed serve as a means of showing who is in power and who is not. In order to ensure that research participants collaborate with solidarity for each other,

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it is crucial to create environments and modes of ‘shared understandings’, which help minimize differences in power instead of highlighting them. Focusing on the format of cogenerative dialogues, Olitsky and Weathers (2007) note: While ideally cogenerative dialogues can serve as a forum for reflection, if the interactions during these dialogues highlight rather than de-emphasize power differences, if they are perceived by youth as too risky, or if they are characterized by misunderstandings rather than the building of shared understandings, they will be ineffective at producing solidarity among participants. Without the development of solidarity, control over the research will not become shared, and the desired ethical and political goals of the research will not be achieved. (Olitsky & Weathers, 2007, p. 82)

It can be said that this observation is in line with Ingold’s idea of sympathy being “a living with” instead of a “looking at” (2015, p. 24). As Elmesky (2007, p. 102) puts forth, “the bonds of solidarity [can be] strengthened” when humans build and exchange “cultural and social capital with each other.” Consequently, this leads to a gradual (re)formation of the group’s “identities as co-researchers.” Similarly, Ritchie (2007, p. 231) draws the following conclusion: When collaborative researchers practice solidarity they demonstrate trustworthiness, and this strengthens the bonds between them and deepens their trust further. Without trust, researchers cannot predict reliably the actions of their collaborators; they do not experience facticity nor do they feel included in the key transactions of the research team. (Ritchie, 2007, p. 231)

Next we will present three ‘lineologies’ where we provide illustrative examples of how the meshwork-building of solidarity has been part of our own research practices.

First Lineology – Draw and Tell Me What You Hope for The first example is from a project that utilized a combination of storytelling, meditation and drawing to hear about young people’s hopes and fears when thinking about the future in 20  years from then. The future hopes and fears project (Unterbruner & Otrel-Cass, 2010) investigated future scenarios by first telling a fantasy story to students in New Zealand while they were keeping their eyes closed. At the end of this story, students were asked to imagine themselves leaving the classroom and opening a gate. Once they had opened the gate, they were told that they realized that they were now looking into the future. The researchers asked them to look around and to take in everything that they could see. Then they were told to return and leave the vision behind by closing the gate again before re-entering the classroom. After this meditation, the researchers asked the students to make a drawing of what they had seen. Many of their scenarios were quite concrete: while some students were drawing happy scenes, e.g., house, garden, animals and people, others imagined a polluted and overpopulated unhappy and unhealthy world (Fig. 9.2).

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Fig. 9.2  Student drawings 1 and 2 from the Future Hopes and Fears study

These drawings served as prompts for the classroom discussion that followed. Students were asked to tell the researchers what they had seen during the meditation. The student stories were very unique and based on the drawings, students gave us their own interpretations. The student producing drawing 1 wrote: I saw water everywhere, islands scattered all over the place. Pathways leading to many different places. Heaps of big, tall buildings. Flying cars, helicopters going around. In the middle of the island heaps of houses and people, floating rafts. Yes, I’d really like to live in that, sounds pretty cool, seems normal. (male, 14 years)

While the student who produced the second drawing wrote: I have seen gang affiliated people, because these days little kids getting into gangs – it is affecting our streets. An area of havoc with so much gang related stuff. Graffiti everywhere, the whole gang thing. I dreamed that there is going to be lots of deaths, kids in gangs. (female, 16 years)

What is important here is that the method used by the researchers was intended to allow the students to share their stories, instead of researchers interpreting the drawings from the adults’ point of view. This was also crucial in the communication with the students that it was about their concerns and ideas, not those of adults. The intention was also to show students that their voices can be heard without interference, since the intention in the project was to use their concerns and ideas as a point of departure for teachers and researchers to respond to their ideas, hopes and worries.

Second Lineology – How We Collaborate As already mentioned above, it is our intention as researchers to give students a voice since they are experts of learning. However, while some students do not shy away from playing an active role in co-creation partnerships, others may be more

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reluctant to speak up. As researchers, we also need to respect the boundaries they set for us. Recently, we have had the opportunity to collaborate with students on the topic of digital competencies. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, schools had to be closed for several weeks, which forced teachers and students to teach and learn remotely. As part of our project on cybersecurity (Digital? Sicher!), we asked students for their feedback and input and conducted a virtual co-creation workshop. This took place in their virtual classroom space during their computer-science classes. The students had by that stage experience participating in synchronous video sessions. For the co-creation workshops we divided the students into groups and asked each group to give us their opinions on a specific aspect about an app we were developing. One of the groups, we worked with, consisted of three students who were between 13 and 14 years. Despite not being able to actually see our co-researchers (the cameras were turned off), we felt that the interaction was very dialogic. At the beginning, the researcher showed the students various drafts of potential dashboards for the learning app we were developing and the students shared their ideas and gave valuable feedback without giving the impression that they were intimidated by the adult-young person setting. The following excerpt of our discussion about the app design illustrates this openness: R: Would you find something like that better than the one from before where the cards are just lined up next to each other or do you find that a bit confusing? S1: Well, I think that’s always a personal opinion, so I think that’s, that’s just, so that’s more of a game system and the other is stricter. For example, I personally would take the first one, I think it’s a question of one’s own opinion. R: Yes, what do the others say? S1: Well yes, the last two designs are much more gamer-like, or game-like, but I personally like the first design better, too. R: Really? Okay, I’m almost a little surprised by that. Don’t you find it kind of too school-related, so that you feel like you have to learn something now, that you have to research something? S2: Well, I think it looks more organized and yes. I personally like that more. R: Yeah. Who’s still missing now? S3: Yes, I think the first one is more nicely structured, so I like the first one better, too. R: Okay, good, so that means in principle we should keep the colors, also the structure, and we will try to incorporate that a bit. […] Exactly. Okay, yes great, thank you for that, so now we have got a bit of an idea here.

Two days later, we conducted another workshop with a different class from the same school, this time the students were 14 and 15 years old. While the first workshop worked very well, students from this second round seemed more reluctant to respond verbally or ask questions. Instead, they preferred to respond by writing short statements into the chat. One student even raised her virtual hand and waited until the researcher allowed her to speak. The subsequent extract from the breakout room with the researcher and the three students during the second workshop should show the students’ preference for written communication with the researcher. After having shown them different drafts of

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game dashboards, the researcher asked which of them the students considered most appealing and received the students’ answers exclusively via chat messages: R: Do you find the layout clearer, do you like it better, or would you say no, you like it better the way it is now, that it’s listed on top of each other? What do you think about it? [pause] Are you still there? … [researcher sees a chat message] Oh, you are writing in the chat, okay. [Researcher reads chat message aloud] “I like the second one a bit better” Ehm, why? Could you maybe briefly explain why, (name of student 1)? … Student 2 writes, “yes I do”, that means you like the second one better, too? [pause] What does (name of student 3) think? [pause] Are you still there? [pause] [Researcher reads chat message aloud] “Yes, me too” Okay, can you maybe explain very briefly – you can also say it, if you don’t want to write everything down – very briefly, why you like this one better, because of the juxtaposition, or the colors or what do you mean there exactly? I can show it again maybe, you can also say it [pause] Could (name of student 2) maybe briefly explain why he thinks this is beautiful, why he likes it better, please? [pause] Or (name of student 3)? [pause] Okay, ah now I can see it again. [Researcher reads chat message aloud] “The second one is more colorful” “The *design is more modern” says (name of student 1). Okay, good. Thank you, if you want, you can also just talk, then you’ll have less typing to do, but I’ll show you more examples anyway (Fig. 9.3).

This example highlights the students’ aforementioned balancing act between the researcher’s expectations of being open and sharing all ideas and a response we interpret being more passive and not to interrupt when adults are talking and quietly

Fig. 9.3  Students’ chat messages

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completing their tasks. In this context, it is also important to take into account that it was their teacher who moderated the whole group introduction at the beginning and at the end of each workshop and that the researchers were invited into the virtual classroom space, which also may have reinforced this balancing act.

Third Lineology – Research Means Also Giving Back As educational researchers, doing research in schools means that we work with young people and ask them to share their thoughts with us with the objective of obtaining new data for our projects. In return, we usually thank students for their participation and hope that they have enjoyed working with us. Yet, apart from expressing gratitude for their involvement in the research projects, researchers also have a certain responsibility of giving something in return when meaningful relationships are formed. This idea of taking and giving back can be regarded as analogous to Ingold’s idea of “drawing in” and “drawing out,” which we have discussed earlier (2015, pp. 134–135). In this third lineology, we provide an example where the researcher has been invited to “draw out,” i.e. to give something back to the participants. Building meaningful relationships also involves showing appreciation for the participants’ time and effort. However, for all researchers it is important that participation is voluntary and not based on expecting gifts or other tokens of appreciation. Since we often work in our research with visual data collection, that includes taking photos and/or video we were frequently asked by parents, teachers and/or the children if we could share photos. However, since data material is collected for the sole purpose of research, we were under an obligation not to share this material, especially since images reveal people’s identities. However, since we would often follow an entire teaching unit dedicated to a theme, we would bring a separate camera where we would take photos that were solely used to document the teaching and learning but not used for research. At the end of the teaching sequence, we would then produce a physical photobook that was given to the class and the teacher, for teachers, students and their parents to look through and keep. Since schools these days often ask for permission from their students to collect photos, this dedicated activity was covered by such permissions and since we did not distribute electronic copies, we could prevent also that visual material was not shared widely (Fig. 9.4). The children, their parents and the teachers were always very appreciative since the books showcased their achievements and was our way to celebrate their activities. We were able to show that we cared about the children and the time they had given to us. It is also possible to give something back to students by spending more time with them if they wish to do so. After completing one of our research projects with a New Zealand primary school, one of the students asked his teacher if he could meet the researcher again for a chat. Since this boy was very interested in science, he was keen to talk about scientific topics with the researcher. The teacher later told the

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Fig. 9.4 Photobooks

researcher that this meant a lot to the child and for the researcher it was a rare opportunity to demonstrate her gratitude for being allowed into the classroom space.

Conclusion – The Caring Researcher-Student Partnerships School is a very special environment that is shaped by rules, norms and expectations where students have learned how to operate within and manage the realities of these partnerships. Max Weber (1968, p. 15) describes power as ‘the probability that one actor within a social relationship will be in a position to carry out his own will despite resistance, regardless of the basis on which this probability rests’. In educational research projects that seek to reveal the realities of teaching and learning scenarios it would be very undesirable to ignore resistances, since this would actively undermine the intentions set in a partnership. However, there are ‘natural’ demarcations that exist when adults and children and young people come together. An adult’s duty of care includes also that decisions on behalf of the child are being made and it is natural that children will expect this to be done in the best of their interest. So, power imbalances are there for good reasons. Nel Noddings’ (2012) describes the conception of care ethics as an interaction that is relational. This means that when we think about the researcher-student partnership we focus first on the relationship and not on the individuals who make up the relationship. The partnership thus plays out in the interaction between the two (the number here refers to the duality of carer and cared-for). A caring partnership unfolds when one detects an expressed need and puts aside the initial motive (temporarily) to respond to the need of the other. This idea explains how children and young people can become radical agents (Fielding, 2012), when they detect the motive of the adult researcher and try to support the need of those adults to find answers to their questions. At the same time, it explains when adult researchers will put aside their motives to engage in certain ways with students. For instance, in the example when students decided to engage through chat and not talk.

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Based on Fielding (2004) we note also that when we interact in research partnerships it is vital to engage with students in ways where they are treated as co-­ researchers and makers of meaning, if our intention as researchers is to achieve transformations of our own thinking. It is precisely because of the power imbalance that exists in school environments that research that seeks children’s voices needs to reassure them that adults are listening to their ideas and reflections but also to their hesitations. However, this requires that researchers interrogate their own approaches and consider carefully their partnerships with young people and the forces that are compromising the relationship such as the adult-child imbalance and the school setting that overlays additional rules of engagement. Researcher-student partnerships are expressed through specific kinds of interactions that are embedded within a very specific context. Since relationships are carriers for communication they need to be understood by each partner based on the background of their relationship (Ostrosky et al., 2006). These differences need to be talked about if we do not want that these relationships are compromised by their existing power imbalances (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1964). Since the (educational) researcher’s general intention when working with people is to represent their participants truthfully, we found this can be achieved through the direct engagement with participants (Aluwihare-Samaranayake, 2012) and being reflective about the existing conditions that impact on the power relationships. We also need to consider how some of the seemingly mundane conditions such as the spaces where these interactions take place (for instance in digital spaces, classrooms etc.) may impact and emphasize the adult-child positionings and asymmetries. When we, adult researchers are reflective of the conditions of such partnerships, children and young people may engage in ways that can be defined as forms of ‘radical collegiality’ and where they too take responsibility for the outcomes of educational research (Fielding, 2001). Researcher-student partnerships are shaped by the means of their interactions, that is for researchers the method chosen to give students the possibility to voice their ideas and thoughts. The example of using student drawings and their explanation meant that the adults did not interfere with the presentation of individuals’ thoughts. However, we were able to share with other adults, young people’s very powerful thoughts to make us and other adults think. The children in this project demonstrated very aptly how they have learned to adapt to the adults’ world, but also how they cared for us. Their productions echoed the culturally situated and institutionalized frameworks within which they have learned to operate and consider adults’ agendas. By adopting a caring stance to researcher-student partnerships in educational research we might be able to cultivate a community approach that preempts problems that arise from the uneven realities of such partnerships. By taking a closer look at what happens ‘in-between’ when researchers and students work together, we can focus on the natural tensions that develop and through that form partnerships that allow us develop understandings about our experiences with the world (Ingold, 2015).

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Acknowledgement  The researchers would like to thank the funding agencies that have supported the different projects presented here. The Digital? Sicher! project was kindly funded through the Land Steiermark. The examples of the photobooks were part of a project funded through the New Zealand Teaching and Learning Initiative (TLRI), the project was called: Culturally responsive pedagogy and assessment in primary science classrooms: Whakamana tamariki.

Appendix Original transcripts in German. First Co-Creation workshop: R: Würdet ihr sowas irgendwie besser finden als das von vorher wo die Karten einfach so nebeneinander angereiht sind oder findet ihr das jetzt irgendwie ein bisschen verwirrend? S1: Also ich glaub das ist immer eine persönliche Meinung, also ich find das ist mal, das ist halt so, also das ist so eher Spielsystem und das andere ist eher strikt. Ich würd zum Beispiel, ich persönlich würd das erste nehmen, ich glaub das ist eben eine Frage der eigenen Meinung. R: Ja, was sagen die anderen beiden? S1: Also ja, die letzten zwei Designs sind viel mehr Spieler-ähnlich, also spiel-­ ähnlich, aber mir persönlich gefällt mir auch das Erstdesign mehr. R: Wirklich? Okay, das wundert mich fast ein bisschen. Findet ihr das nicht irgendwie zu schulisch, also dass man das Gefühl hat, man muss jetzt etwas lernen, man muss etwas aufdecken? S2: Also, ich find es sieht organisierter aus und ja. Das gefällt mir persönlich mehr. R: Ja. Ich glaub, wer fehlt jetzt noch? NAME S oder NAME S? S3: Ja, ich find das erste auch schöner strukturiert, also das erste gefällt mir auch besser. R: Okay, gut, also das heißt im Prinzip sollen wir die Farben beibehalten, auch die Struktur, und das werden wir eben versuchen, dass wir das ein bisschen einbauen. […] Genau. Okay, ja sehr cool, Dankeschön einmal dafür, dann haben wir da ein bisschen eine Idee. Kxxx 1/2. Video (5:40–7:20). [02.12.2020]. Second Co-Creation Workshop: Researcher: Findet ihr das Layout übersichtlicher, gefällt euch das besser oder würdet ihr sagen nein, euch gefällt es besser wie es jetzt ist, also dass es so übereinander aufgelistet ist. Was meint ihr denn dazu? […] Seid ihr noch da? [.] [researcher sees chat message]Oh, im Chat, okay. [Researcher reads chat message aloud] „Das zweite gefällt mir etwas besser” Ehm, wieso? Könntest du vielleicht kurz erklären warum, NAME S1? [.] NAME S2 sagt, „ja schon“, das heißt dir gefällt auch das zweite besser? […]

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Was meint NAME S3? […] Seid ihr noch da? [.] [Researcher reads chat message aloud] “Ja, mir auch”. Okay, könnt ihr vielleicht ganz kurz euch – ihr könnt es auch sagen, wenn ihr nicht alles schreiben wollt – ganz kurz erklären, wieso euch das besser gefällt, jetzt von der Aneinanderreihung, oder Farben oder was meint ihr da genau? Ich kann’s vielleicht noch mal vorzeigen, ihr könnt es auch gerne sagen, genau, das war jetzt die Seite. Mag vielleicht der NAME S2 kurz erklären warum er das schön findet, wieso ihm das besser gefällt, bitte? […] Oder der NAME S3? [.] Okay, ah jetzt seh ich’s wieder. [Researcher reads chat message aloud] “Das zweite ist bunter” “Das *Desing ist moderner” sagt der NAME S1. Okay, gut. Dankeschön schon mal, wenn ihr wollt, ihr könnt auch gerne sprechen, dann habt ihr weniger Schreibarbeit, aber ich werde euch eh noch mehr zeigen.

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Otrel-Cass, K. (2020). The performativity of ethics in visual science education research: Using a material ethics approach. In Examining ethics in contemporary science education research (pp. 191–207). Springer. Popkewitz, T.  S., & Brennan, M.  T. (1997). Foucault’s challenge: Discourse, knowledge, and power in education. Teachers College Press. Reh, S., Rabenstein, K., & Fritzsche, B. (2011). Learning spaces without boundaries? Territories, power and how schools regulate learning. Social & Cultural Geography, 12(01), 83–98. Ritchie, S. M. (2007). Success in research collaborations. In Research collaboration (pp. 225–235). Brill Sense. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789087903138_017 Schatzki, T. R. (1996). Social practices: A Wittgensteinian approach to human activity and the social. Cambridge University Press. Siraj-Blatchford, I., & Siraj-Blatchford, J. (1997). Reflexivity, social justice and educational research. Cambridge Journal of Education, 27(2), 235–248. Sullivan, P. (2012). Qualitative data analysis using a dialogical approach. Sage. Thompson, R. A. (1992). Developmental changes in research risk and benefit: A changing calculus of concerns. In B. Stanley & J. Sieber (Eds.), Social research on children and adolescents (pp. 31–64). Sage. Tobin, K. (2007a). Tell me what your life like…: Your life is dis-your life is dat-mine’s real. In Science, learning, identity (pp. 15–40). Brill Sense. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789087901264_004 Tobin, K. (2007b). Creating and sustaining productive research squads. In Research collaboration (pp. 43–58). Brill Sense. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789087903138_005 United Nations. (1989). Convention on the rights of the child. United Nations, Treaty Series, 1577(3), 1–23. United Nations. (2009). Convention on the rights of the child. “General comment No. 12: The right of the child to be heard”. Available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/4ae562c52.html. Accessed 15 June 2021. Unterbruner, U., & Otrel-Cass, K. (2010). Wie sich Jugendliche Technik und neue Medien in einer Welt in 20 Jahren vorstellen: Ergebnisse der Studie Jugend-Zukunft-2009 mit Jugendlichen aus Österreich, Deutschland und Neuseeland. In Aktuelle Entwicklungen in der Didaktik der Naturwissenschaften. Ansätze aus der Biologie und Informatik (pp. 37–53). StudienVerlag. Weber, M. (1968). On charisma and institution building. University of Chicago Press. Williamson, M. (2013). Guidance on the development and implementation of a Student Partnership Agreement in universities. Sparqs. Available at: https://www.sparqs.ac.uk/upfiles/Student%20 Partnership%20Agreement%20Guidance%20-­%20final%20version.pdf. Accessed 15 July 2021. Kathrin Otrel-Cass, Ph.D., is Professor in teaching, learning and digital transformation at the University of Graz, Austria. Her research interests are often of interdisciplinary in nature, she uses in her work digital visual anthropology and a variety of qualitative, ethnographic methodologies. She works with various practitioners and experts in learning environments where people are working with science/technology/engineering practices or their knowledge products. Her research is often set in schools but is not exclusive to those environments. Her research interest in visual ethnography has led to the establishment of a video research laboratory in Graz with a focus on the organized analysis of video recorded data. Kathrin is a member of Network 15, partnerships in education of the European Education Research Association (EERA).  

Julia Mayr is a project assistant at the Institute of Education Research and Teacher Education at the University of Graz, Austria. She is also a secondary school teacher of English, French and Spanish and currently involved in the project “Digital? Sicher!” as well as in the Erasmus+ project “Change the Story”. Key research interests include education and digital transformation as well as climate change education through digital storytelling in secondary schools.  

Chapter 10

If You Are My ‘Development Partner’, Am I Also Yours? – A Study of the Risks of Partnership Between Teacher Education and School Gila Hammer Furnes, Herner Saeverot, and Glenn-Egil Torgersen

Abstract  Norwegian authorities promote samhandling between teacher education institutions and schools for several purposes: to decrease the gap between theory and practice, gain new insights and develop their pedagogical practices to encounter unforeseen future challenges. According to Torgersen and Steiro (Ledelse, samhandling og opplæring i fleksible organisasjoner : en menneskeliggjøring av styringssystemer. Læringsforl, Stjørdal, 2009a, Utvikling av tillit, trygghet, tilhørighet og trivsel. In: Torgersen GE, Steiro TI (eds) Ledelse, samhandling og opplæring i fleksible organisasjoner – en menneskeliggjøring av styringssystemer. 1. utgave, 1. opplag. Læringsforlaget, Stjørdal, pp 120–166, 2019b, Defining the term Samhandling. In: Torgersen GE (ed) Interaction: ‘Samhandling’ under risk. A step ahead of the unforeseen. Cappelen Damm Akademiske, pp 39–54, 2018), samhandling connotes interaction, collaboration, cooperation, and coordination in a single word. They argue that cross-professional samhandling by equal and complemental partners can lead to new insights for the unforeseen future. This chapter investigates perceptions of, and experiences with, samhandling concerning joint school-based Research-Practice Partnership (RPP). We draw on a Norwegian 5-year national initiative, “Lower-secondary schools in development” (UiU) (Utdanningsdirektoratet, 2012–2017), and examine how samhandling is promoted in relevant policy papers and how teachers and researchers who have participated in this project perceive samhandling concerning RPP. Partners’ perceptions of samhandling can affect their practices and praxis (Torgersen GE, Steiro T, Ledelse, G. H. Furnes (*) NLA University College, Bergen, Norway e-mail: [email protected] H. Saeverot Department of Education, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Bergen, Norway G.-E. Torgersen University of South-Eastern Norway, Horten, Norway © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 K. Otrel-Cass et al. (eds.), Partnerships in Education, Transdisciplinary Perspectives in Educational Research 5, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98453-3_10

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samhandling og opplæring i fleksible organisasjoner : en menneskeliggjøring av styringssystemer. Læringsforl, Stjørdal, 2009a, Defining the term Samhandling. In: Torgersen GE (ed) Interaction: ‘Samhandling’ under risk. A step ahead of the unforeseen. Cappelen Damm Akademiske, pp 39–54, 2018). Our study shows that policy papers present a vague and somewhat conflicting understanding of what samhandling entails concerning RPP.  Moreover, researchers and teachers in our study do not seem to have a mutual understanding of what samhandling entails. They also seem to have various perceptions of roles concerning processes of samhandling. We argue that partnerships under such terms might lead to tension and risk, which may widen the gap between stakeholders rather than decreasing it. Furthermore, there is a risk of missing opportunities to gain new insights and develop pedagogical practices to encounter unforeseen future challenges. Keywords  Samhandling · Joint school-based research-practice partnership (RPP) · Risk · The unforeseeable future

Introduction We live today in what the German sociologist Ulrich Beck describes as “a risk society,” a postmodern reality when knowledge and technology are more accessible than ever before, which he believes is paradoxical since technology makes the world more unpredictable and people more vulnerable to risk (Beck, 2003, 2004, p. 92; cited in Heier, 2015). Unpredictability challenges the education field because it has to prepare students for a reality we do not yet know and skills that do not exist (Kunnskapsdepartementet, 2015; Torgersen & Sæverot, 2015). How can education develop knowledge for an unpredictable future? Should we “look into the glass ball” as Torgersen and Saeverot wonder in the anthology Pedagogikk for det uforutsette (Pedagogy for the unforeseen) (Torgersen, 2015, p. 5; Torgersen & Sæverot, 2015), or is it possible to plan, learn and train for an unpredictable future? The idea of future unforeseen challenges occupies Norwegian authorities, and they promote samhandling between teacher education institutions and schools to encounter such challenges (e.g., Kunnskapsdepartementet, 2015; NOKUT, 2017 the Norwegian Agency for Quality Assurance in Education). Samhandling between these stakeholders is meant to decrease the gap between theory and practice and develop new insights and pedagogical practices. NOKUT (ibid.) has proposed new regulations on higher education quality supervision that require that higher education institutions develop systematical samhandling with social and working life. Samhandling is a complex Norwegian concept that denotes in professional contexts, among other things, interaction, collaboration, cooperation, and coordination in a single word (Torgersen & Steiro, 2009a, 2018). As a result of the policy that promotes cross-institutional samhandling, several nationwide joint school-based Research-Practice Partnerships (RPP) programs are implemented in the last decade locally at the schools (e.g., Utdanningsdirektoratet, 2013–2017, 2013–2018, 2017).

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Coburn et  al. (2013) describe RPP as long-term collaborations organized to investigate practice problems and generate solutions for improving district outcomes (p. 1). The primary intention with RPP is to expand the role of research and improve educational practice (Coburn & Penuel, 2016). RPP is becoming more common internationally, and there is a broad understanding that it can contribute to solving future challenges and providing more coherence in education (e.g., Callahan & Martin, 2007; Coburn & Penuel, 2016; Cooper et  al., 2020; Tiller, 1999; Utdanningsdirektoratet, 2017, 2018b; Wentworth et al., 2017). The idea of RPP is in line with research literature that shows that interdisciplinary organizational partnerships (cross-professional partnerships) can lead to new insights for a rapidly changing, technological, environmental, digital, and multicultural society (e.g., Argyris & Schön, 1997; Fauske & Raybould, 2005; Torgersen & Steiro, 2009a; Weick, 1987; Weick & Sutcliffe, 2001). Joint school-based RPP signifies that the partnerships occur locally (e.g., Utdanningsdirektoratet, 2012a, b, 2013–2018, 2017, 2018a). The idea of local RPP is based on the assumption that partnerships that occur locally at the schools can provide more relevant, practical, and motivational practices and greater coherence between the research and practice fields. However, although there is evidence of the success of the interventions developed through RPP in other fields, research on the impact of RPP in education is sparse and focused on a narrow range of outcomes (Coburn & Penuel, 2016, p. 48). In the Norwegian context, we have found several evaluations of a nationwide joint school-based RPP initiative, “Secondary School in Development” (UiU-­ project) (Utdanningsdirektoratet, 2013–2017). The UiU-project was implemented due to Meld. St. 22 (2010–2011)1 that shows the following: although Norwegian secondary school students enjoy being at school, only a few students graduate with high writing and numeracy skills (Utdanningsdirektoratet, 2013–2017). The UiU was a pilot project of joint school-based RPP that included over 1000 secondary schools nationwide, teacher education institutions, and other partners.2 This project lasted for 5 years, and each school participated in a period of three semesters. The overarching goals in the UiU initiative were to develop the schools’ educational practices in the following areas: classroom management, math, reading, and writing and provide a more challenging, relevant, practical, and varied education (Utdanningsdirektoratet, 2013–2017). Three key features were available in the UiU initiative: (1) School-based competence development, (2) online educational resources, and (3) learning networks. Although there are many positive learning outcomes from evaluations of the UiU initiative, several evaluations discovered challenges that require more research. For example, challenges concerning stakeholders’ samhandling with each other (e.g., 1  Policy paper Meld. St. 22 (2010-2011) Motivation – Mastery – Opportunities – The secondary school [our translation] 2  (e.g., The Ministry of Education, The Directorate of Education, Norwegian counties, the municipalities/school owners, various national competence centers, parents, and teacher education institutions).

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Faugstad, 2017; Irgens, 2018; Markussen et al., 2015; Postholm et al., 2017), teachers’ lack of commitment to the UiU-project (e.g., Dahl et al., 2013, pp. 270–273; Markussen et al., 2015, p. 104; Postholm, 2017, pp. 178, 200–201), and various role perceptions among stakeholders (e.g., Markussen et al., 2015, pp. 50–58; Normann & Postholm, 2014, p.  25; NTNU/PLU, 2016; Postholm et  al., 2017, p.  14; 248; Utdanningsdirektoratet, 2015–2018, p. 1). Both Faugstad (ibid.) and Irgens (ibid.) have called for more research on samhandling concerning joint school-based RPP. The UiU-project was completed in 2017–2018, and as a result, a new model for competence development in education has been permanently implemented in Norway  – called Decentralised Competence Development (DeKomp) (Utdanningsdirektoratet, 2017). DeKomp is in line with the UiU initiative rooted in joint school-based RPP. This study draws on the UiU pilot initiative mentioned above (Utdanningsdirektoratet, 2013–2017) and investigates schoolteachers’ and researchers’ perceptions of and experiences with samhandling and discusses possible implications for their role perceptions and practices. Our research question is: How do schoolteachers and researchers who have participated in the UiU-project describe their perceptions of and experiences with samhandling concerning joint school-­ based RPP? Although we assume that the UiU-project’s intricate architecture can have affected perceptions of and experiences with samhandling, we have narrowed the study’s focus to teachers and researchers. The purpose of the study is to generate more knowledge on samhandling concerning joint school-based RPP, as this has been pointed as a knowledge gap (e.g., Faugstad, 2017; Irgens, 2018). This chapter initially presents theory and ideas regarding samhandling and education partnerships concerning joint school-based RPP before shedding light on the study’s research approaches, results, and findings. Finally, we discuss our findings and their possible implications for education partnership programs that promote joint school-­ based RPP.

Samhandling, Participation, and Trust In recent years there has been an increasing interest in Norway in exploring how professional samhandling between organizations that hold different or complemental expertise can facilitate gaining new insights that can contribute to solving yet unknown challenges (Torgersen & Steiro, 2009a, 2018). Various branches and sectors investigate premises for samhandling in their contexts and learn how samhandling can become an approach to collective learning. There are examples of such research of partnerships in the health sector (e.g., Forskningsrådet, 2016 The Research Council of Norway; Grimsmo et  al., 2015; Helse og omsorgsdepartementet, 2008–2009 The Departement of Health), military sector (e.g., Bergh & Boe, 2018; Torgersen, 2018; Torgersen & Steiro, 2009a), The Police (e.g., Bjørkelo, 2018) and in education (e.g., Furnes et al., 2018; Werler, 2018). There is also an

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increased interest in how samhandling between universities and organizations in the private and public sectors can develop knowledge and gain new insights. Such initiatives are the Programs Centre for Better Working Life, Business Development 2000, Value Creation 2010, and Instruments for Regional Innovation and R&D (VRI) (Finsrud, 2009, p.  64). These programs promote the Nordic working life model, which has a flat architecture, although it is interpreted differently in various projects (Finsrud, 2009). There has been a long tradition of tri-party collaboration between the authorities in Norway, with representatives of both employers and employees working in close cooperation to develop organizations (Torgersen & Steiro, 2018, p. 42). This tradition has resulted in The Norwegian Labor Act of 1978 that places a great deal of emphasis on stakeholders’ medvirkning, the Norwegian term for “participation”. Participation has a value of itself in the Nordic model of cooperation. The Nordic model can be traced back to the early 1900s, and it has gained international interest due to high productivity in the Norwegian welfare state that is linked to this model (Børve & Kvande, 2018). Cooperation and participation at various levels are emphasized as competitive advantages, and significant consequences are high levels of trust, employee inclusion in important decisions, and moderating the hierarchical relations at the workplace (Finsrud, 2009; Finsrud & Moen, 2012; Levin et  al., 2012). According to Irgens (2018), the Nordic model has contributed to democratic practices, and it is now rooted in labor law and political regulations. This way, trust and mutual respect have grown gradually and have laid the foundation for collaborative experiments that improve working life and productivity. As a result, the Nordic model has evolved from a working life model to a cooperation model. Increasing interest in samhandling in a professional context has led to more research on samhandling as a phenomenon (Torgersen & Steiro, 2009a). Professional samhandling entails valuing interaction and trust to develop organizations and efforts in the community (Torgersen & Steiro, 2018, p. 42). This way, samhandling can be understood as an intricate cultural term that indicates that several processes are in progress, and it can also have various meanings. Torgersen and Steiro (2009a) argue that the concept of samhandling in various professional contexts should be furtherly investigated and clarified. Samhandling is contextual. Consequently, professional partners should develop a mutual understanding of what samhandling means for them in the relevant context concerning interaction, collaboration, cooperation, and coordination. Torgersen and Steiro (2009b) argue that failing to conceptualize and provide relevant content for samhandling in the proper context might result in misunderstandings, unfulfilled expectations, and tension. Torgersen and Steiro (2009b) have found that samhandling has many nuances and theoretical meanings, which distinguish it from terms such as “collaboration”, “interaction“, “coordination,” and “teamwork”. Samhandling is a complex concept. Thus, Torgersen and Steiro promote developing a mutual understanding in partnerships of how samhandling can be a fruitful collective learning approach. Based on a meta-study, they have developed the following definition of samhandling that they argue can be a starting point for such a process:

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G. H. Furnes et al. Samhandling is an open and mutual communication and development between participants, who develop skills and complement each other in terms of expertise, either directly, face-­ to-­face, or mediated by technology or by hand power. It involves working towards common goals. The relationship between participants at any given time relies on trust, involvement, rationality, and industry knowledge (Torgersen & Steiro, 2009a, p. 130; 2018, p. 44).

In their study, Torgersen and Steiro (2009a) have found fifteen indicators of samhandling, which they argue can affect how stakeholders interact and to which extent they participate and contribute to the development of new insights. They argue that these are essential underlying processes for effective samhandling, based on the experiences of a variety of disciplines and theoretical approaches (Torgersen & Steiro, 2009a, b:157, 2018:47). Critical elements in professional samhandling are trust, inclusion, and active participation (Norwegian: medvirkning). According to this idea of samhandling, partners should experience mutual trust and feel included in decisions relevant to them and can be empowered to participate actively. Studies show that interaction based on a resource-oriented perspective can be fruitful, especially concerning gaining new insights and managing unexpected events (e.g., Torgersen & Steiro, 2009b; Weick & Sutcliffe, 2001). A resource-oriented perspective entails valuing other peoples’ expertise and contribution. A resource-oriented perspective is also ethical (Antonovsky, 1996). Being considered a resource is, for Antonovsky, a promoting factor for health and well-being (salutogenesis). The theory of salutogenesis shows that trusting and enabling people to cope with challenges can empower them and promote good health. Antonovsky has argued that people can perceive themselves as valuable and be empowered to contribute with their perspectives by perceiving themselves as resources. The ideas of trust, inclusion and active participation in samhandling processes are in line with several studies (e.g., Bjørkelo, 2018; Huxham et al., 2000; Wadel, 2008). Trust and inclusion are vital when partners in cross-organizational projects are seeking new insights, especially in fields that expect uncertainty about the future (e.g., Steiro & Torgersen, 2018; Weick & Sutcliffe, 2001). Trust and inclusion are often discussed as motivational and coping factors that can empower individuals and provide them with the confidence that they can act, participate, and contribute actively (self-efficacy) (Bandura, 1997). Both trust and inclusion are old and widely accepted concepts of different types of interaction. Trust is an essential principle in the idea of samhandling (Torgersen & Steiro, 2009a, 2018). Bergh and Boe (2018, p. 321) refer to Sztompka (1999, p. 25), who defines trust as “a bet about the future contingent actions of others”. This way, trust plays a significant role in facilitating samhandling in uncertain environments and situations where strangers meet. Trust is risky because we do not know if we will be disappointed when we trust other people. That is what makes trusting other people so difficult and risky. According to Elinor Ostrom, trust and interaction are as old as humanity itself. However, they are essential for human existence (cited in Bergh & Boe, 2018, p.  321). An absence of trust would have left every human being alone without defense from weather elements and enemies. Human beings need each other and must, therefore, dare to trust each other to survive. Inclusion is also an essential

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principle in the idea of samhandling (Torgersen & Steiro, 2009a). Inclusion derives from Latin includere, and the lexical meaning is to make part of a whole. Including others can be interpreted as letting them into something closed, a culture, or a community, and it requires that they are trusted. Trust, inclusion, and participation seem to be linked together to courage and daring to take a chance on other human beings. If we trust others, we take risks, but we can only empower others and contribute by taking risks. In summary, professional samhandling is contextual and should therefore be conceptualized in various partnerships. When the primary goal is gaining new insights, stakeholders should include and trust each others’ expertise and facilitate mutual contribution (Norwegian: medvirkning). The following section illuminates education partnerships and discusses how partnership models can affect their outcomes.

Partnership Models in Education Ideas of partnerships between teacher education and the schools have spread internationally, and countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and Israel have introduced mandatory partnerships between these stakeholders (Halvorsen & Smith, 2012). Maandag et al. (2007) claim that other countries have tried to develop partnerships voluntarily, such as the Netherlands, Germany, France, and Sweden (cited in Halvorsen & Smith, 2012). However, England differs in the European context by introducing partnerships as a mandatory part as early as 1992. In their study of a partnership from an ecological perspective, Halvorsen and Smith discuss partnership ideas by Furlong (1996) that have formed the basis for at least three partnership models: (1) The separatist model gives teacher education, and the schools separate responsibilities, (2) the Higher Education Institution (HEI) led model gives teacher education the primary responsibility, and (3) the Collaboration Model gives partners a shared responsibility across the traditional institutional boundaries. This model is characterized by equal relationships and is based on the integration of theory and practice. In Norway, the government justifies mandatory research-practice partnerships (RPP) in education by arguing that samhandling between research and practice can increase educational practices’ quality and enable solving future challenges (e.g., Kunnskapsdepartementet, 2008–2009, 2016–2017 Departement of Education; NOKUT, 2017 the Norwegian Agency for Quality Assurance in Education). However, so far, there is not enough research that can show how because research on the impact of RPP in education is still sparse and focused on a narrow range of outcomes (Coburn & Penuel, 2016, p. 48). There is, however, a significant amount of research on cross-professional samhandling in the Norwegian health sector that has formed the basis for a reform called Samhandlingsreformen (The reform of samhandling) (Helse og omsorgsdepartementet, 2008–2009 The Health Departement). The Norwegian government refers to Samhandlingsreformen also

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for education purposes (e.g., Kunnskapsdepartementet, 2016–2017). Samhandling is, however, as discussed earlier, a contextual term with various meanings in different disciplines, so it is not unproblematic when samhandling in healthcare is equated with samhandling in education. There are good arguments for believing that samhandling between health personnel and samhandling between researchers and practitioners in education would be more dissimilar than similar. Therefore, in our opinion, samhandling in education should be supported in relevant research. Moreover, the education field should have its own samhandling reform that considers possibilities, challenges, and risks of samhandling concerning RPP in education. We will now illuminate on the case in this study.

 ase: Partnerships in “Secondary School in Development” C (UiU-Project) “Secondary School in Development” (UiU-project) (Utdanningsdirektoratet, 2013–2017) has been a national pilot initiative that has facilitated joints school-­ based partnerships between secondary schools and several other partners (e.g., Ministry of Education, The Education Directorate, counties and municipalities/ school owners, various national competence centers, parents, and teacher education institutions) (Utdanningsdirektoratet, 2013–2017). In policy papers concerning the UiU-project, participating teacher education institutions were initially designated as providers, later changed to development partners (Markussen et al., 2015; Postholm et al., 2017; Seland, 2017). The argument for the change was to signalize that no partner in the initiative was to provide knowledge. Gaining new insights was to be a collective effort. However, only researchers from teacher education were designated as development partners and not any of the other partners. The UiU-project has been subjected to several evaluations (e.g., Faugstad, 2017; Irgens, 2018; Markussen et al., 2015; Normann & Postholm, 2014; Postholm et al., 2013; Postholm et  al., 2017; Seland, 2017; Utdanningsdirektoratet, 2015–2018). Faugstad (2017) and Irgens (2018) have examined samhandling in the UiU-project in different ways. Faugstad has examined the samhandling between school owners and school administrators during the project. As a result, she proposes to establish better structures for research of samhandling. Irgens (ibid.) is, in his article Historical Amnesia: On Improving Nordic Schools from the Outside and Forgetting What We Know, critical of the partnership model that is applied during the UiU-project, which he believes has been instrumental. He calls for more inclusion of teachers in future projects and is surprised that the UiU-project has not adopted the Nordic cooperation model that has been given considerable attention internationally. Both Faugstad and Irgens call for more research on samhandling concerning joint school-­ based RPP. The UiU-project was completed in 2017–2018, and many key principles were maintained in a new and more durable national model for competence development  – called “Decentralized Competence Development” (DeKomp)

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(Utdanningsdirektoratet, 2017 The Directory of Education). Our study of the UiU-­ project has taken place after it was completed and DeKomp was being applied. We wished to study the relations between randomly chosen researchers and practitioners from various schools and geographical locations that have participated in the UiU-project and investigated how they perceive and have experienced samhandling in this context. Our focus has been on the possibilities, challenges, and risks within samhandling in joint school-based RPP. In the following section, we shed light on the methods we have used in our study and reflect on possible strengths and weaknesses.

Method Data Collection We have conducted a “mixed methods” (Creswell, 2012) digital survey designed as a quantitative and qualitative questionnaire. This chapter presents mainly qualitative data from the survey. The survey investigated how teachers and researchers described their perceptions of and experiences with samhandling in the UiU-project. The survey was distributed in 2018 to about a thousand schools and four teacher education institutions that were coordinators and forwarded the survey to researchers in various institutions that have participated in the initiative. However, in 2018 many researchers and research institutes evaluated the UiU-project and approached teachers who participated. As a result, it was difficult for us to obtain as many responses among teachers as we wished. One hundred thirty-nine schoolteachers from 18 Norwegian counties3 and twenty-five researchers from various teacher education institutions chose to answer the whole survey.4 Thus, even though teachers’ response rate is relatively low, the teachers who have responded are spread in 18 counties in Norway. This demographical aspect provides data that are less influenced by local cultural practices.

Analysis Method: A Dialogical Perspective This chapter studies qualitative data from the survey from a dialogic perspective (Bakhtin & Holquist, 1981). A dialogic perspective focuses on the words used in utterances and the discourses (voices) between them. We chose this perspective 3  At the time of the survey there were 19 counties in Norway (autum 2018). In January 2020, the Norwegian government merged some of counties and formed larger ones. This way the amount of counties in Norway is noe reduced from 19 to 11. https://www.regjeringen.no/no/tema/kommunerog-regioner/regionreform/regionreform/nye-fylker/id2548426/ 4  The total amount of respondents was n = 188

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because we wished to acquire in-depth knowledge of teachers’ and researchers’ perceptions of samhandling in joint school-based RPP. In-depth knowledge about samhandling in this context can be helpful in similar projects in education. Mikhail Bakhtin’s (1895–1975) utterances can be human communication in any way, written, oral, or other linguistic distribution (Bakhtin & Slaattelid, 1998). Dialogic thinking is based on the idea that human utterances are generated due to previous utterances. Bakhtin believes that there are often multiple voices in human utterances that can affect people’s perceptions and responses. Multiple voices can have both explicit and implicit meanings. This way, interaction can be interpreted on different levels. Bakhtin calls such levels voices, and he believes that such voices exist in utterances and the intersections between them. In this study, teachers’ and researchers’ utterances are analyzed from such a perspective. The voices can shed light on respondents’ perceptions of and experiences with samhandling in the UiU initiative (previous utterances) and their perceptions of samhandling post-initiative. The purpose of our approach is to gain an understanding of how respondents explain their assumptions about samhandling concerning samhandling in joint school-based RPP. By studying the utterances, we aim to learn whether teachers and researchers that have participated in the UiU-project seem to have a mutual understanding of samhandling in this context. We are especially interested in how respondents describe samhandling, how they support their utterances (voices), and whether they seem to respond as groups even though they are from different institutions and geographical locations. This knowledge can provide a base for the discussion in the chapter concerning teachers’ and researchers’ perceptions of samhandling and joint school-based RPP.

Results and Analysis  heoretical Results: Samhandling Promoted in the Partnership T Model of the UiU-Project We have investigated what signifies the partnership in the UiU-project and how the authorities promote samhandling. The UiU model partnership has the following title: Who are the involved stakeholders in the UiU initiative, and how should they communicate? (Utdanningsdirektoratet, 2012a, b) [our translation] (see Fig. 10.1). As shown in the figure, the schools are placed in the lowest blue ring, and the universities and colleges are in the highest yellow ring. There are stakeholders from various competence centers, public authorities at different levels, and school owners on the schools’ sides. All arrows that connote communication and information point down at the schools, and no arrows point up from the schools to the other stakeholders in the partnership. Naturally, partnership models can be interpreted and perceived differently, depends on who is interpreting. We understand the model as a “top-down” model (e.g., Fullan, 1994) that implements a strategy where the schools

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Universities and colleges

Gnist* national

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Gnist regional* project leaders

KD UDIR FM School owners

Development supervisors Resource teachers

Schools Parents

Fig. 10.1  “Who are the involved stakeholders in the UiU initiative, and how should they communicate?» Plan for joint school-based competence development secondary school (Utdanningsdirektoratet,  2012a) [our translation]  (Explanations of the abbreviations in the UiU partnership model: GNIST means a spark. The idea for this national initiative is that a good teacher can ignite a spark for knowledge. Kunnskapsdepartementet (KD)  (Ministry of Education). Utdanningsdirektoratet (Udir)  (the Directorate of Education) Fylkesmenn (FM)  (County governors))

seem to be receivers of knowledge and not providers. If the model is seen in light of Torgersen and Steiro (2009b), we can argue that the schools’ expertise does not seem to be equal and complemental in this model. Fullan (1994) has argued that neither top-down nor bottom-up strategies for educational reform work. What is required is a more sophisticated blend of the two in order to have an effect on the practice. We shall now shed light on the empirical results of our study.

 mpirical Results: Perceptions of and Experiences E with Samhandling This section presents the results and analysis of how teachers and researchers report that they perceive and have experienced samhandling concerning joint school-based RPP. We have asked teachers and researchers which factors might have affected the samhandling between them and extracted responses that describe perceptions of and experiences with samhandling in this context.

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Our study shows that implementing joint school-based RPP as an approach to school development was most intense the first time after the plan for the UiU-project came out in the autumn of 2012. Schools and teacher education institutions made efforts to read, understand, process and translate the project’s plans into their organizations and practices. Simultaneously, both teachers and researchers note that implementing new practices is a long-term process that they are working on continuously. In the data, we found a wide variation of how teachers and researchers relate to samhandling concerning joint school-based RPP. When asked the degree to which teachers and researchers were contented with the samhandling between them, the respondents answered the following: approximately 43% reported that they were content with the samhandling between teachers and researchers, while 37% were neither content nor discontent. Almost 15% were discontent or highly discontent with the samhandling, and only 4,7% were highly content. Researchers report a higher degree of contentment than teachers. Various factors seem to have affected how teachers and researchers perceive and experience the partnership and their roles in the UiU-project.5 Two factors stand out, and these are the following: (1) Whether teachers and researchers have experienced direct or indirect samhandling with each other concerning conducting joint school-­ based RPP, (2) and whether they have discussed and conceptualized samhandling as a term (reach a mutual understanding). In the following sections, we will present data that support these main conclusions. Direct and Indirect Samhandling In our study, several teachers and researchers express that they have had fruitful samhandling in the UiU-project, while others report other perceptions and experiences of samhandling. Both teachers and researchers point to school leadership’s responsibility for facilitating actual and direct samhandling between them. It was interesting to find that several teachers and researchers have reported that they have not met directly at the schools. Researchers report that they have mainly had contact with school leaders. Some teachers also express surprise that our study investigates samhandling in joint school-based RPP. One teacher utters the following: It is unexpected that Samhandling was of interest in this study. […] We were not aware that Samhandling [with researchers] was a goal. I find that there has not been a dialogue between the groups [teachers and researchers]. We, teachers, have worked together and developed our Samhandling. It was good. (respondent No. 38) [our translation]

The teacher we cite above expresses surprise that samhandling has been a goal in the UiU initiative. In this utterance, we find multiple voices (Bakhtin & Slaattelid,

5  E.g., teacher involving, information flow, expectations of cooperation, role clarification, perceptions of ownership concerning the UiU-project, researchers’ experience with the joint schoolbased RPP.

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1998) coveting that teachers at this school are critical of not being informed of this goal. One can assume that the finger points up at school owners, school leaders, and/ or policy documents, traditionally information sources for teachers. As this teacher also does, several teachers in our study express that although they did not interact with researchers directly during the UiU initiative, teachers’ samhandling among themselves has contributed to developing pedagogical practices. Notably, the respondent above shows awareness of the importance of developing samhandling, which is in line with Torgersen and Steiro (2009a), who argue that stakeholders in development projects might have different perceptions of samhandling and suggest conceptualizing samhandling by developing a mutual understanding of what it entails in the relevant context. The respondent above finalizes the statement, implying that teachers can develop pedagogical practices without researchers’ help. This utterance suggests that the authorities’ intentions of bringing researchers and practitioners closer together (e.g., Kunnskapsdepartementet, 2015) have not yet succeeded. The utterance above is in line with several teacher utterances in our study, and it should concern policymakers, school owners, and school leaders. Some teachers in our study report that they were prevented from meeting with researchers while participating in the UiU-project. We can view an example of such an utterance in the following citation: Good question, since we were not allowed to talk to them [the researchers]. Only the management and the project managers did, as far as I know. (respondent No. 65) [our translation].

The teacher we cite above claims that samhandling with researchers was not an option for the teachers. In this utterance, we find multiple voicedness in the utterance “Good question” that seems to criticize the system (school management?) for missing opportunities for samhandling. This utterance implies a power relation between teachers and school leaders that hinders teachers from contributing (Norwegian: medvirkning) with their expertise as the before mentioned Nordic model of cooperation is promoting (e.g., Irgens, 2018; Torgersen & Steiro, 2018). Researchers in our study confirm that they have mainly met with school leaders and that direct contact with teachers was scarce. One researcher utters the following: The survey asks a lot about samhandling between teachers and researchers. My experience is that our interaction was mainly with school management, resource teachers, and leaders from the municipality. The content of the gatherings and ways of working was planned in cooperation with management and resource teachers. The contact with teachers was thus limited to dialogue and discussions at the gatherings + guidance of groups by group work. There was good samhandling with teacher groups that asked for guidance in the classroom, but there was little of this in the first phases of UiU. The questions in the survey thus do not fully present possible forms of interaction in UiU. (Respondent No. 96) [our translation]

The researcher we cite above claims that the survey on samhandling was not relevant for the UiU, considering that the researchers’ primary contact has been with school management, resource teachers, and leaders from the municipality and not teachers. We find on the contrary that the lack of direct contact between researchers and teachers in the UiU-project is an interesting finding that can explain some of the difficulties in the initiative that we have mentioned earlier in the chapter: difficulties

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concerning stakeholders’ samhandling with each other (e.g., Faugstad, 2017; Irgens, 2018; Markussen et al., 2015; Postholm et al., 2017), teachers’ lack of commitment to the UiU-project (e.g., Dahl et  al., 2013, pp.  270–273; Markussen et  al., 2015, p.  104; Postholm, 2017, pp.  178, 200–201), and various role perceptions among stakeholders (e.g., Markussen et al., 2015, pp. 50–58; Normann & Postholm, 2014, p. 25; NTNU/PLU, 2016; Postholm et al., 2017, p. 14; 248; Utdanningsdirektoratet, 2015–2018, p.  1). The researcher above also utters that when physical meetings with teachers occurred in the gatherings, samhandling between the groups was good and fruitful. Interestingly, the researcher above (respondent No. 96) uses the term guidance concerning samhandling with teachers in the classrooms, implying that teachers have learner roles in the context of joint school-based RPP and researchers are educators or supervisors. Perceiving researchers as supervisors in the UiU-project seems to align with the partnership model in Fig. 10.1 presented earlier in the chapter, where the schools are placed at the bottom and universities at the top of the knowledge hierarchy. This partnership model can explain the researchers’ role perception as supervisors. Another possible explanation is that teacher education institutions were actually initially designated as providers and later as development partners (e.g., Markussen et  al., 2015; Postholm et  al., 2017; Seland, 2017). As mentioned before, none of the other partners in the UiU-project were given such a designation. Researchers’ multiple roles imply that the authorities were not certain of their roles in the partnership. Conceptualizing of Terms Torgersen and Steiro (2009a) have argued that discussing and conceptualizing terms in partnerships can facilitate mutual understanding. We have found that in our study, only researchers explicitly promote discussions about the meanings of terms. Several researchers promote discussions of the term samhandling as a concept, and others promote discussion of development partners. However, both researchers and teachers promote discussions and reflection in general concerning joint school-­ based RPP. One researcher utters the following about samhandling: Samhandling requires that a practice architecture has been established for developing knowledge. Static knowledge perspectives can hinder development. Awareness of ­knowledge perspectives can be useful in the interaction. [...] Good discussions about samhandling can contribute to a mutual understanding. (Respondent No. 24) [our translation]

The researcher we cite above expresses that there should be discussions about samhandling to gain a mutual understanding. According to this researcher, knowledge views can be a factor that can affect teacher-researcher samhandling in joint school-­ based RPP. Knowledge views deal traditionally with questions as ‘what is knowledge?’ ‘who can determine what knowledge is?’ and ‘how can knowledge be

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obtained?’ Knowledge views can have implications for learning processes (e.g., Sæverot, 2017). Consequently, the focus is on how learners obtain knowledge and on power relations in learning situations. Awareness of knowledge views in the citation above can open for the possibility that this researcher would like to discuss teachers’ and researchers’ roles in the partnership. However, this researcher does not report that such discussions have taken place. Possibly, this statement’s voicedness shows that for this researcher, it is not clear what researchers are precisely supposed to do in the said partnership – are they supposed to be educators, supervisors, learners, or have other roles? Some researchers have promoted mutual reflections on the term development partners. When asked which factor can promote good samhandling concerning joint school-based RPP, one researcher utters the following: Thorough work with commitment (anchoring) and mutual reflections on the term development partners will promote good samhandling. (respondent No. 81) [our translation and our italics]

The researcher above promotes working on teachers’ commitment to the project (anchoring). Moreover, the utterance above implies that the term development partners is unclear and needs clarification through mutual reflection. In this utterance, we find an invitation to teachers to reflect and clarify both stakeholders’ roles. Not all researchers in our study do so. Some seem to use researcher, provider, and development partners as synonyms without problematizing the multiple roles. We can see an example of that in the following utterance: As a researcher and provider/development partner, we from our competence environment were in close dialogue with the principal and management teams at the schools – where teachers were represented. (respondent No. 122) [our translation]

The citation above shows that there have been multiple terms in use concerning researchers’ roles in the UiU-project. Since role perception is an essential factor for good samhandling (e.g., Huxham et al., 2000; Torgersen & Steiro, 2009a), not being certain of the researchers’ roles can have been challenging both for researchers and teachers. Notably, although the researcher above uses several terms to describe researchers’ roles in the UiU, there is no discussion on clarifying the terms. The various manners of promoting the terms researcher and provider/development partner among researchers imply that there has not been a mutual understanding of researchers’ role. It is also worth mentioning that none of the teachers in our study used the terms provider or development partner. They only used the term researchers. That can mean that these terms were not shared with the teachers and that only researchers were aware of these terms’ part and content in the initiative. However, it seems that teachers were thinking of researchers in the initiative in terms of providers, as several teachers report that they wish to learn more about booking the right researchers with the most relevant knowledge; implying that researchers provide a service and that teachers can place an order to get hold of their knowledge.

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Summary of the Results In summary, this study’s findings show that there are in policy, research, and practice fields various perceptions of what samhandling in joint school-based RPP entails. We have found that policy papers concerning joint school-based RPP present a vague and somewhat conflicting understanding of teachers’ and researchers roles. On the one hand, the partnership model of the UiU-project (see Fig. 10.1) signifies that the authorities’ intentions for teachers were to learn from researchers how to develop new pedagogical practices, as the model signifies a one-way communication of knowledge. On the other hand, initially designating the researchers as providers and later as development partners might have been confusing for stakeholders in the partnership resulting in various perceptions of researchers’ roles; consequently, teachers’ roles were also unclear. When it comes to the study’s empirical findings, we have found that teachers and researchers do not seem to have a mutual understanding concerning samhandling and joint school-based RPP. While teachers report that they wish for more direct contact with researchers to discuss and reflect together on pedagogical practices, researchers report that their job was mainly to meet with school leaders – meeting teachers under school gatherings. Teachers in our study signify that they feel untrusted and powerless, and they blame the school management for not facilitating closer samhandling with researchers where teachers’ expertise can be appreciated and valued for the development of new insights on pedagogical practices.

Discussion We have found several potential factors that might affect teachers’ and researchers’ perceptions of and experiences with samhandling in the context of joint school-­ based Research-Practice Partnerships (RPP). Firstly, policy papers present a vague and somewhat conflicting understanding of teachers’ and researchers’ roles in such partnerships. Secondly, the terms samhandling and development partners are not conceptualized. Thirdly, teachers and researchers report various schools’ practices concerning whether teachers and researchers meet and interact directly in the classroom or mainly in school gatherings. When policy papers present a vague understanding of teachers’ and researchers’ roles concerning joint school-based RPP, the guidelines might be interpreted differently in various schools and teacher education institutions. Policy papers have an essential role in disseminating the authorities’ intentions, and by being vague about which roles teachers and researchers can have in such partnerships, they risk creating room for speculations and misunderstandings. Evaluations of the UiU initiative have also shown that role perception has been one of the initiative’s obstacles (e.g., Markussen et al., 2015, pp. 50–58; Normann & Postholm, 2014, p. 25; NTNU/PLU, 2016; Postholm et al., 2017, p. 14; 248; Utdanningsdirektoratet, 2015–2018, p. 1).

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We argue that policy papers that describe teachers’ and researchers’ roles concerning joint school-based RPP should make a choice; either be more explicit about the authorities’ intentions concerning roles or open up for local adjustments. They should not do both, as they might open up for speculations and unfulfilled expectations instead of facilitating the innovation of pedagogical practices. When it comes to conceptualizing terms, we have found that the terms samhandling and development partners were not conceptualized, not by the authorities nor teachers and researchers. Several researchers mentioned the term development partners, and they did not seem quite sure what it entails. Researchers have uttered that this term should be discussed more and reflected on. No teachers have mentioned the term development partners. They only related to the term samhandling that the survey had asked them about. The term development partners seems to be a part of the researchers’ vocabulary and not the teachers’. By not having a mutual understanding of essential terms concerning joint school-based RPP, there is always a risk that stakeholders in partnerships do not understand their roles and the others partners’ roles. Since role perception is essential in partnerships that attempt to innovate their practice through samhandling (Torgersen & Steiro, 2009a, 2018), failing to perceive stakeholders’ roles can lead to misunderstandings, frustration, and tension instead of innovation of pedagogical practices.

Conclusions The study shows that teachers and researchers report that they have mainly interacted indirectly in the UiU-project, as the primary contact has been between researchers and school leaders. Moreover, there seems to be dissent in how researchers and teachers have perceived and experienced samhandling in the UiU-project. While researchers have viewed themselves as development partners or supervisors, teachers were uncertain of how they fitted in and whether their expertise and professional contributions were valued for developing their pedagogical practices. Given these findings, it is valid to ask what does the designation development partners mean? Does this role signify a one-sided partnership where only the researchers are partners who develop pedagogical practices? If so, what is then the teachers’ role in this partnership? Our main conclusions are that partnerships in education that seek to gain new insights through joint school-based RPP should facilitate the development of samhandling as a concept through mutual reflections on teachers’ and researchers’ roles. We argue that since the concept of joint school-based RPP is relatively new for many teachers and researchers, they should be able to negotiate their roles, find out how they fit and apply their expertise to innovate pedagogical practices. In this process, they can develop and reach mutual understandings of main terms (e.g., samhandling and development partners) and determine how they can promote equality and compatibility to gain new insights. Such processes entail that teachers and researchers are trusted to do this work and that both parties are included in

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important decisions. Teachers and researchers should be able to interact directly to develop and innovate pedagogical practices. Moreover, policymakers should refrain from equipping education with traditional top-down samhandling models for developing new insights. Top-down models can be counterproductive in this context and present risks for reproducing knowledge rather than gaining new insights. By publishing conflicting views in policy papers on how stakeholders in education partnerships should interact, samhandling becomes a useless power term rather than a term that promotes learning and gaining new insights. This way, education risks widening the gap between research and practice rather than reducing it. Consequently, developing new models of partnerships that attempt to predict future education needs may not be the right approach. Perhaps future partnership models should facilitate equal and complemental cross-professional samhandling between teachers and researchers. Maybe future joint school-based RPP can become an arena where teachers and researchers can ask more questions, reflect, explore and develop further the concept of samhandling in education to gain new insights? Therefore, in our opinion, samhandling in education should be supported in relevant research and theory. Moreover, the education field should have its own samhandling reform that considers possibilities, challenges, and risks of samhandling and partnerships i various contexts.

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Utdanningsdirektoratet. (2012a). Plan for skolebasert kompetanseutvikling. Skolebasert kompetanseutvikling på ungdomstrinnet 2013–2017. Retrieved from https://www.udir.no/ globalassets/upload/ungdomstrinnet/plan_for_skolebasert_kompetanseutvikling_pa_ungdomstrinnet_2013_2017_mal.pdf Utdanningsdirektoratet. (2012b). Rammeverk for skolebasert kompetanseutvikling på ungdomstrinnet 2013–2017. Retrieved from https://www.udir.no/laring-­og-­trivsel/rammeverk/ Rammeverk-­skolebasert-­komputv-­utrinnet2012-­2017/ Utdanningsdirektoratet. (2013–2017). Ungdomstrinn i utvikling. Retrieved from https://www.udir. no/kvalitet-­og-­kompetanse/nasjonale-­satsinger/ungdomstrinn-­i-­utvikling/ Utdanningsdirektoratet. (2013–2018). Kompetanse for mangfold. Retrieved from https://www. udir.no/laring-­og-­trivsel/kompetanse-­for-­mangfold/ Utdanningsdirektoratet. (2015–2018). Rapportering etter pulje 2 Ungdomstid i utvikling fra skoleeiere og Fylkesmannen. Vedlegg del D til årlig indikatorrapport for Ungdomstrinn i utvikling. Retrieved from https://www.udir.no/tall-­og-­forskning/finn-­forskning/rapporter/ indikatorrapporter%2D%2D-­ungdomstrinn-­i-­utvikling/ Utdanningsdirektoratet. (2017). Ny modell for kompetanseutvikling. Retrieved from https://www. udir.no/kvalitet-­og-­kompetanse/nasjonale-­satsinger/ny-­modell-­for-­kompetanseutvikling-­i-­sk ole/ Utdanningsdirektoratet. (2018a). Desentralisert ordning  – lokal kompetanseutvikling. Retrieved from https://www.udir.no/kvalitet-­og-­kompetanse/lokal-­kompetanseutvikling/ desentralisert-­ordning/desentralisert-­ordning/ Utdanningsdirektoratet. (2018b). Regional ordning for kompetanseutvikling i barnehage. Retrieved from https://www.udir.no/kvalitet-­og-­kompetanse/ kompetanseutvikling-­i-­barnehage-­og-­regional-­ordning/ Wadel, C. (2008). Innlemmelser i sosiale fellesskap. Sosiologisk tidsskrift, 16(03), 237–253. Weick, K. E. (1987). Organizational culture as a source of high reliability. California Management Review, 29(2), 112–127. Weick, K. E., & Sutcliffe, K. M. (2001). Managing the unexpected (Vol. 9). Jossey-Bass. Wentworth, L., Mazzeo, C., & Connolly, F. (2017). Research practice partnerships: A strategy for promoting evidence-based decision-making in education. Educational Research, 59(2), 241–255. Werler, T. (2018). Workshop-didaktik for cooperation in a contingent world. In Interaction:'Samhandling'Under Risk. Cappelen Damm Akademisk/NOASP (Nordic Open Access Scholarly Publishing). Gila Hammer Furnes is Assistant Professor at NLA University College and Ph.D.  Research Fellow at Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Norway. Her work is related to digital samhandling [interaction] in education, teacher education, and samhandling between the areas of research and practice in education. Her PhD project aims to develop empirically-based knowledge about samhandling with regard to research and development projects in educational practice. Specifically, it examines how school researchers and teachers in joint school research and development projects perceive samhandling.  

Herner Saeverot is Professor of Education at the Department of Education, Western Norway University in Bergen, Norway. He is also Professor II at NLA University College in Oslo, Norway, and appointed member of The Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters.  His primary areas of scholarship are general education (Allgemeine Pädagogik), philosophy of education and curriculum theory. His research interests include existential education (a concept he introduced in a paper in 2011), sustainability, unforeseeable events and forms of communication (including directness and indirectness). He has recently published three books with Routledge: Education and the Limits of Reason (2018), Meeting the Challenges of Existential Threats through Educational Innovation (2021), and Indirectness in Education (forthcoming, 2021).  

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Glenn-Egil Torgersen is Professor of Education at the University of South-Eastern Norway and professor II at NLA University College, Norway. He holds a PhD in Psychology and a Master’s Degree in Educational Science. Key research interests are pedagogical theory construction and practical implications for learning and training design, specifically aimed at professional education in general and emergency-­preparedness organizations in particular, in the context of risk, the unforeseen, inter-professional and cross-organizational interaction. He is appointed member of the Academy of the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters and has been responsible for several research projects and scientific publications, including the anthologies Pedagogy for the Unforeseen (Fagbokforlaget, 2015) and Interaction: ‘Samhandling’ Under Risk: A Step Ahead of the Unforeseen (Cappelen Academics, 2018).  

Part III

Enacting Social Justice in Partnerships Between Educators and Others

Chapter 11

Partnership or Rivalry? Facing the Pandemic in Hungarian Education Katalin R. Forray and Tamas Kozma

Abstract  In this study, we examine the partnership between the government of Hungary and the schools in the Covid-19 pandemic. The first wave of the pandemic (March–May 2020) was taken as a challenge that resulted in cooperation between the two main educational policy actors. Their cooperation, however, proved to be temporary. The educational policy actors began to compete in responding to the challenge (government’s administrative solutions vs teachers’ grassroots innovations). This emerging competition turned into power struggles between the government and the teachers and schools. Our research method was participatory observation, by which we revealed the story-tellers’ opinions and attitudes towards the pandemic threat. The main lesson to learn is the dynamically changing character of the educational partnerships of government and schools. The authors suggest that, instead of a power struggle, a power balance between the actors had to be created. A partnership based on the partners’ demands and interests would more successfully meet the pandemic challenge in Hungarian education policy. Keywords  CoVID-19 · Hungary · Educational policy · Partnership

Introduction This chapter describes the opportunities and pitfalls of cooperation between government and civil society during the first wave of the pandemic in Hungary (13 March – 28 May 2020). It consists of four sections. First, it summarises a theory of partnership and competition. Second, it presents the typical attitudes and behaviours of the actors in educational policy during the first wave of epidemic. Third, the chapter K. R. Forray University of Pecs, Pécs, Hungary T. Kozma (*) University of Debrecen, Debrecen, Hungary © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 K. Otrel-Cass et al. (eds.), Partnerships in Education, Transdisciplinary Perspectives in Educational Research 5, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98453-3_11

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reviews the first wave of the epidemic in Hungarian education and the schools. And fourth, it shows how and why the initial partnership between government and civilians turned into rivalry during the pandemic.

Facing the Challenge in Partnership The following section briefly summarises the theory of partnership and competition, as a framework of analysis. We came across recently a growing number of papers – both from the academic world and elsewhere in the media – that interpreted the pandemic as a social challenge (e.g. Khan et al., 2020; Rajna, 2020). As the threat progressed during the first wave of the epidemic – in the first part of the year 2020 – these interpretations multiplied. Our present chapter belongs to the ‘societal challenged’ interpretations. Within this interpretation, we had a special interest. We aimed to observe the cooperation vs rivalry between government and various civic groups as they faced the pandemic. Meeting the challenge – in our case, the pandemic threat – needs mutual partnership between actors. The crisis cannot be solved individually, only in cooperation. It presupposes social partnership (Battisti & Guarini, 2017; Forray & Kozma, 2020). The term ‘partnership’ began to be used in the organisational science literature in the 1990s (Jamali et al., 2011). Partnership in that literature usually meant ‘cooperation’ (Hospes et al., 2012; Jamali et al., 2011). However, partnership is more than a simple cooperation. Partners develop sophisticated connections from the simple cooperation to connections that go beyond time-limited cooperation, to permanent collaborations, and to organisational coexistence. Partnership is not just acting together, but existing and living together (Le Ber & Branzei, 2009). We use ‘partnership‘as an umbrella concept here, which primarily means cooperation, but it also refers to other relations as follows. • Partnership might mean the relationship between employers and employees. In the ‘social market economy’ employers and employees are not confronting but consider each other as ‘social partners’ (cf. Ozaki ed., 1999; Nicholls, 2000). • In Public Private Partnership, ‘public’ indicates government resources and ‘private’ refers to private capital. The government seeks to involve private capital in some investments, and private capital seeks government assurances to ensure that its investments are secured. • The cooperation of governments and NGOs (Brinkerhoff, 2002) are not primarily economic but rather political partnership. The government can manage a crisis successfully only if it involves NGOs in the crisis management. These cooperations are also commonly referred to as partnerships (Hospes, 2012). According to the conflict theory of Van den Berg and Janoski (2005), partners would only temporarily cooperate (for the conflict theory see Morrow & Brown, 1994). Partnership is, therefore, not a permanent, but rather a temporary relationship. When

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facing a threat, different groups in the community are not only cooperating but also begin to compete (see Svensson & Nilsson, 2008; LeBer & Branzei, 2009; Brinkerhoff, ibid). The functionalist theory (De Zurko, 1957) seeks for cooperation rather than confrontation. Consequently, functionalist theory mostly lacks the possibility of conflict between partners. According to the functionalist theory, conflicts would be resolved within the frame of the existing partnership. Conflicts, therefore, ultimately strengthen the partnership rather than weaken them. We illustrate this dichotomy between partnership and competition by telling the story of the first wave of pandemic in Hungary. The leading actors of this story were the government on the one hand and the civilians on the other. While the government cooperated with the civic forces (teachers, experts, researchers and educators) in the beginning of the epidemic, their cooperation turned into competition later. Partnership proved to be an unstable relationship between the two actors.

Research Methods We found ourselves in a unique situation. We were in ‘voluntary quarantine’ during the first wave of the epidemic. We took advantage of this situation, as we collected information in our environment. • We monitored the behaviours and reactions of those we were able to reach within ten weeks, partly around our place of residence (a total of 53 semi-structured reviews plus personal observations partly in the Buda part of Budapest, and partly in Mezőtúr and its vicinity (the county of Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok). Also, we conducted 12 interviews with people living outside of Hungary (interviews by phone and IT communications) to know their situations, opinions and attitudes in different cultures. All these created the first source of information. • The second source was the Hungarian electronic press pieces, which we read regularly, and considered moderate. We followed the daily issues of those where we knew their political orientations and the reliability of their journalists. The electronic sources mentioned were: Azonnali.hu, Válasz Online, EduBox.hu, Index.hu, Mandiner.hu. (All in Hungarian, with or without page numbers.) • The third source was the data collection (information, documents, observations, comments) of a colleague, who regularly responded to our questions, and took diary notes of his observations. (See the ‘epidemic diary’ of István Baczur, 2020). • All the information was collected and immediately logged. We created a ‘research diary’, served as a source for statements and references (Forray & Kozma, 2020). It allowed us to track the events later and follow the behaviour changes of those involved in the first epidemic wave. Our basic method was participatory observation. As for ‘participatory observation’ we followed the tradition of social innovation research (Moulaert & MacCallum, 2019). We also used the ‘story-telling’ method (Frank, 2014; Hyvaerinen, 2012), one of our favourite research tools. According to our earlier research experiences,

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good questions might initiate long stories, even life-stories. Stories about the first epidemic threat reflected the actors’ behaviours and attitudes as well as their relations to other stories and narratives. Listening again and again to those stories we found ourselves in the situations of the characters, discovered and understood their ways of acting before they told us. It is ‘research empathy’ (Cuff et al., 2016), essential as we analysed the narratives (the stories). The result of the whole process was the reconstruction and interpretation of the history of the pandemic threat in Hungary. We primarily used those parts of these rich, though diverse materials which proved to be relevant to education and schooling.

The Pandemic as a Challenge In this section, we present the story of the pandemic in Hungary, and the typical attitudes of the Hungarians as they met the epidemic threat. The Beginning  In January 2020, the pandemic left China (Wuhan Province) and appeared in Europe. It was first registered in Southern Europe, followed by the United Kingdom and Ireland. The pandemic then spread to Central Europe and through the Middle East to Eastern Europe. Hungary was roughly in the middle. In March 2020, the number of infected people in Hungary had already increased to the order of a hundred, and the activities of the ‘national epidemiological headquarter’ quickly shifted from counselling to mandatory government decisions (shop closures, official quarantine, ban on entry and exit, and the like). Predictions published at the time, expected the pandemic to erupt in the coming weeks infecting hundreds of thousands of people. I thought that if the weather turned out to be good, the epidemic would subside – but I can already see it will not be so. (A.S., Facebook, March 16, 2020)

The E.U. was helpless facing the pandemic. Its member states retreated to their nation-state borders in days, to slow down the spread of the pandemic. Southern European countries tried to curb the pandemic with central government decrees (with more or less success). Germany built its defence on traditional German discipline. The so-called ‘Swedish model’ – no special procedures right in the beginning to safeguard the population – was an exception. It was relatively easy to introduce central government decisions in some East-Central European countries, because their populations had learned loyalty during the time of Soviet occupation. In contrast, alternative policies – referred to as ‘herd immunity’– were implemented in the UK and the US. They were built not so much on the central (federal) government, but rather on local governments and the discretion of individuals. A few weeks later, however, the British Prime Minister, having fortunately recovered from virus infection, himself took on the role of a leader.

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Events  In our diary, the course of events in Hungary between March and May 2020 was recorded as follows (see the diary here: Forray & Kozma, 2020). (These and all quotations have been translated from Hungarian). March 11: Universities close. Soldiers appear at the University of Debrecen, circling uncertainly in the corridors. March 13: Viktor Orbán announces: it is not merely an epidemic, but a pandemic. March 15: The government stops one of Hungary’s most important national-political holidays. March 16: The shops are emptying. Empty shelves are gaping in our usual shopping places, evoking the days of World War II or the 1956 revolution. Based on the recommendation of the Hungarian Medical Chamber, private practices are closed. March 17: Stores are restricted to business hours (usually from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.), and shoppers can enter the grocery store according to age. “I haven’t seen such a looted business yet; people are shot, quarrelling on toilet paper, etc.” (H.I. Munich. Facebook, March 17) March 24:The press is full of it, and our personal experience confirms it: a severe shortage of masks, disinfectant, test, and ventilator has developed. March 25: Media news: Gasoline prices fall; they bought all the gold from the pawnshops; there will be enough smoked ham at Easter; the monthly fee for renting an apartment will be cheaper. April 1: The number of people infected is already over 500. Finally, the statistics were also published by regions. It turns out that Budapest is the most infected. April 10: Prime Minister Viktor Orbán announces that if the epidemic develops, there will not be enough ventilators. Therefore, it may also be necessary to select among patients (and refer to military practice). April 13: The Ministry of Human Resources orders that 30,000 hospital beds be released within eight days. Referring to this unexpected campaign, the minister replaced two prominent hospital leaders because they did not act immediately. April 16: It turns out that the infection accumulates in nursing homes. Political accusations were made between the Prime Minister and the opposition Lord Mayor of Budapest over the epidemic in one of the nursing homes. April 20: The Ministry of Human Resources finally decides to hold the matriculation exams (high school final exam). For now, however, it is still questionable how. April 24:The government plans to cut restrictions, referring to a slowdown in the spread of the infection. The rate of spread of the virus should not be higher than 1.2 (the pass on 10 to 12 infected.).

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May 3: A new phase in the fight against the epidemic: restrictions are being reduced across the country, except in Budapest and Pest County. The government emphasizes that it is trying to follow the Austrian example in this: “Austria is our laboratory,” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban declares. May 28: The Budapest restriction was lifted. Now it appears that people are used to the bike. Not only on forest trips but also the streets there are more and more cyclists, lonely people, couples, families with children. May 28: Many restaurants and cafes put up tables, chairs on the street, in gardens. They are all full of guests.

Actors and Behaviours  In the first few days of the pandemic threat, the government became uncertain and took contradictory measures (Borbás, 2020; Ferenci, 2020). Later, the government tried to hide its initial uncertainty. Step by step, the government regained confidence and became dominant in the political scene, while non-governmental actors became increasingly marginalized. According to the official narrative, at the time of writing, immediate government actions saved Hungary from the epidemic. The government acted fast enough to prevent or suppress the outbreak of the epidemic. Furthermore, those directly threatened – mostly the senior citizens – were especially disciplined. They followed the central decisions loyally, suspicious of each other, watching and controlling their neighbours. In the history of competition between government and citizens, we observed the following civic attitudes in our analysis, and categorised them as Loyalty, Aggressiveness, Activism, and Innovativeness. We describe the features of each as follows. Attitude A: Loyalty. ‘Loyalists’ became more and more identifiable. Here we listed those who accepted, approved and followed the government measures, observing them with others (a normal development of this is that young people, e. g. children, grandchildren, took care of their parents and grandparents). As voters, they have been more satisfied than ever with the way the government has treated the epidemic threat as a challenge, increasingly attributing success to the Prime Minister personally. Furthermore, the Hungarian government acknowledged them in return by attributing the success of suppressing the epidemic to the ‘discipline of the population’. In the town of M, people are more afraid than in Budapest. Service providers do not accept due to the epidemic (except hairdressers, beauticians); do not even look for service providers; they won’t accept it either. I don’t work in the travel agency if someone is looking by phone, maybe going in. (Forray & Kozma, 2020: March 19)

Attitude B: Aggressiveness. Compared to the ‘loyalists’, the ‘aggressives’ were a smaller but more pronounced group. The main attitude of this group was rejection. (This is why they differ from the group of innovators who always turned to the future.) The aggressives began to put pressure on others in certain circles (e.g., those coming home from abroad, international university students, young people partying, shoppers outside of authorized times in public places or the

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like), robustly demanding that they should leave the country or stay at home. They, too, were influenced by government actions. The number of new coronavirus infections identified in Hungary: 103 people. Of these, ten are Iranian, two British, one Kazakh, one Vietnamese and 89 Hungarian. (Forray & Kozma, 2020: March 21)

Attitude C: Activism. The ‘activists’ in many places offered their help to those in need (e.g. shopping, patient care, other assistance) spontaneously or in an organized way. I., instead of staying in her office, is now looking for an NGO to help. Civilians are now starting to fundraising for hospital equipment, more specifically a ventilator. (Forray & Kozma, 2020: March 21)

‘Loyalists’ and ‘activists’ are similar with their positive attitudes – but there is a fundamental difference between them. ‘Loyalists’ approve of government action, while ‘activists’ take the initiative. In this respect, activists are closer to another group, the ‘innovators’. The activists included health professionals, food and pharmaceutical workers, or social workers. However, these key workers did not initiate on their own. Instead, they just did what they should do in the situation of disease. Attitude D: Innovativeness. Among the activists, the ‘innovators’ quickly emerged. During the period under review, the most obvious were those engaged in education: teachers, parents, and students. The threat of the epidemic directly activated them. Their innovative solutions became more and more exciting during the early days (e.g. distance learning, online classes, courses). Later, the government administration gradually occupied and regulated these initiatives making some of them mandatory, while suppressing others. In just one week, more than 4,500 university students, 170,000-page visits in one and a half days, 50,000 active users in four days – all the fruit of a single selfless but gap-filling idea. What is the success of a college-led, coercive idea? What can bring thousands of students together to help them digitize public education without wasting time?. Interview with Janka Sara Molnár, head of the NGO ‘Students for Online Public Education’ in a newspaper edited in Budapest (Jereb, 2020).

Education Under Danger The initial cooperation between government and civilians in Hungary turned into rivalry in the period of 12 March – 3 May 2020. International comparisons of government policies and civilian responses to government policies clashed across Europe in April and May 2020. In the following section, we present this turn in respect of Hungarian education. From March 12, due to the risk of infection, the government ordered that access to the schools was not allowed, except with a separate license only. Any activities other than education should not be organized in school buildings. Such a widespread ban has never occurred before. Heating breaks and similarly organized

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winter breaks in Hungary during the Second World War or the 1956 revolution did not contain such a strict ban. Besides, those breaks were periods of a definite duration. However, the current provision was fundamentally different from the previous ones. After all, it was not a ‘holiday’, but a different, though not precisely defined, way of formal education. It was a situation that has so far only been talked about by experts (e. g. digital teaching-learning opportunities). Each educational institution had to decide independently in what form and by what means (platforms) teaching and learning takes place. Before the threat of an epidemic, education policy forums were full of discussions on educational policy issues. When the epidemic threat arose, they disappeared overnight. The threat of an epidemic has intensified, and the educational guidance from the government is still delayed. As a result, schools, universities, teachers and students have begun developing distance learning in cyberspace on their own. Higher Education  All this meant an unexpected upheaval in higher education. Due to the declaration of a state of emergency, universities formed their operational headquarters. University campuses were occupied by soldiers to monitor the application of decisions of the National Operational Headquarters. These institutional ‘headquarters’ hastily decided to evacuate the dormitories and introduce distance learning. However, no one thought through what the introduction of distance learning meant right in the middle of the university year. The details only later began to unfold. University examinations and graduations according to our somewhat formal traditions go on in front of a public and need an audience. Those traditions could not be followed in a digital teaching-learning situation. It quickly became apparent that many students – especially international students or those living off-campus – have difficulty accessing the internet. The functions of the operative headquarters and the soldiers in the academic hierarchies were not clarified. It became only gradually clear that it would be necessary to incorporate them into the system. (The deans of the faculties should be the heads of the operative headquarters; soldiers should not command but only advise the members of the university.) Due to an emergency of the coronavirus infection, Dean’s instruction No 4/2020 is in force from 17.03.2020. Section 2 (4) of this instruction stipulates that only those employed in teaching and research positions may appear at the faculty building. Even if they are employees of the University, they may go there at the special request of the organisational headquarters or the Dean  – in connection with tasks to be performed in person. (Dean’s instruction, University of Pécs, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, email circular for doctoral schools, March 30, 2020).

As a result, the traditional hierarchy and the chain of ordinances have dramatically been changed. These new and unclear hierarchies have given rise to unusual situations. We know of at least 19 university citizens from Pécs who came home from Barcelona, Spain on Friday night as members of a joint university group. This university group came home together, eventually travelling from Budapest to Pécs on a shuttle bus on Saturday. Two of the group were later hospitalized, and a test in the middle of the week confirmed that

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they were infected with the new coronavirus. They are not at home but in the hospital. We know they are students. For all other group members, the previous voluntary quarantine was changed to official home quarantine. Fortunately, none of them has had a positive test so far, and to the best of our knowledge, they are all feeling well. Neither previously voluntarily undertaken nor the official home quarantine ordered since then has been abandoned yet. (Online newspaper Szabad Pécs, March 19, 2020.) Cs. took a computer home from college so his three children could solve school assignments. (Forray & Kozma, 2020: March 20) I talked to A. She was in Spain with a student group, and they came home four days ago. They have been under house arrest ever since. Two female students were diagnosed with an infection. […] Now A. is at home with her son, due to the detected infection. There is also a red poster at the gate: suspected infection. The police come once in the night, after 11 o’clock, and once during the day to check if she is at home. (Forray & Kozma, 2020: March 20).

Some university officials, although they enforced the regulations by their subordinates, did not consider themselves as subject to disease risk regulations. According to our information, László Rovó, Rector of The University of Szeged was tested only after producing the symptoms of the coronavirus. Our sources also stated that due to the professor’s carelessness, the staff of the Rector’s Office has to be quarantined. (Magyar Hang is a printed Budapest newspaper. See issue March 21, 2020).

Higher education leaders, often confused by the speed of events and waiting for instructions from above, tried to keep up with events. In the meantime, some of their students came up with astonishing innovations. Students for Online Public Education. Nearly 5,000 students have already joined. Our goal is to help teachers in distance learning. (Facebook, April 6, 2020)

Teachers  Although everyone has been waiting for something unexpected since January – since the inevitable appearance of the infection in Europe – no one was prepared for the technical system as a whole to change. Teachers, students, and students’ families alike had to get acquainted with the change in lifestyle and the changed place and appearance of the school. I thought I had up-to-date IT skills. Perhaps yes, according to the concept of ‘knowledge’ used in the ancient world. The reality is different! At home, we have four schoolchildren (class four, seven, and nine plus I myself with three teacher degrees + degree in business informatics). Who got lost in cyberspace? Who can’t retrieve and solve and reload a task with three clicks and one taps? Whoever guessed me won now. I became an archaic. I miss school! And we are only at the beginning. Well, I enter the ‘room six’ of digital biology, the chemistry room, the university hall, and I try to keep up with the students, the students – virtually. That’s it, that’s what needs to be done! (István Baczur, Facebook, March 17, 2020)

We have known the teacher community in recent years to respond to any new government proposal with protest – almost regardless of the reasons. Members of the teaching profession, previously perceived as ageing, retiring, or a bunch of people losing their competencies, suddenly became dynamic innovators. According to the reports of students, parents and the media, they (the teachers) started to teach the

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curriculum in a variety of new ways. True, some of them simply sent paper letters on which task should be solved at home, and some gave too few or too many mandatory tasks for a period. But these problems are also commonplace in the traditional school. We have witnessed the way the schools are transforming. We could follow in the media how schools tried to meet the challenge. The government initially relied on civil-society initiatives to provide a tool and method for teaching online. Furthermore, the media regularly reported ‘sample classes’. Education on the Internet has exploded, as no one expected. We do not yet know what the outcome of these efforts will be, how much of them will survive (Nádori & Prievara, 2020). However, there is no question that schools tried to meet the new situation with success. Students and parents  The risk of an epidemic meant more personal freedom for students and more obligations for adults. How did they live with it? The optimistic answer was that many parents followed the subject teachers and tutored their children online with the teachers. Many teachers were using YouTube and with this action they wanted to form a new alternative for public education (Esik, 2020). In contrast, we also found the complaints of desperate parents. Many of them felt that online instruction was “just plain crappy,” but they found no ways of making their complaint reach a big audience. True, older teachers also use computers, but it also turned out that most of them have no idea how the use of information and communication tools affects children physiologically. It is no coincidence that Steve Jobs did not give any gadgets from what he invented for his children. Honestly, I don’t care why they don’t know. Twenty years should have been enough to learn IT. This kind of knowledge is also part of the profession. [....] Such is the case when the professional does not control the affairs of the profession – the whole thing is just plain crappy. (Balázs, 2020)

The traditional school activities have changed in an astonishingly short time. However, no decision was made on how the school-leaving examination (Abitur or ‘maturity exam’) would take place. The problem was a particular subject, mandatory for every public school in Hungary: a fifty-hour ‘community service.’ The community service had to be performed in an economic venture, a factory or a working place. Since most of the economic or social organizations were not available for the students, alternative solutions had to be found. The school district centre in Szolnok, for example, found that the tutoring of disadvantaged children could also be recognised as ‘community service’. However, they were not accessible to either the school or the tutors. How could they be tutored? (Forray & Kozma, 2020: April 16)

The reports in the media covered almost exclusively schools in Budapest and regional centres. Surveys were launched, but these were aimed usually at teachers in schools with good infrastructure. But what was the situation in the countryside? Especially in the primary schools of villages inhabited by poor peoples (e. g. Romani population)? We realised that teachers always developed some kinds of contact with students so they could provide some form of teaching. Where it was possible, they

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communicated through the internet. Teachers developed their actual curricula together with digitised assignments and passed them on. If the student did not have an internet connection, his/her teacher placed the learning materials and tasks to the student’s school mailboxes. Parents or neighbours carried these learning materials from the school to home and back. We witnessed the birth of a grassroots civic movement or a small-scale partnership between the school and the local society. It still remained unanswered how students in remote places or from low educated families would be able to pass their exams. We asked in an interview how learning took place in reality at the worst-off villages of Szolnok county, typically inhabited by Romani families. Here in the segregate, the schools publish the tasks on the net. There is a computer and internet connection so that children can solve their assignments on the farm. And they can come into the Community House, if necessary, to print the assignments. When the task is difficult, children come together with one of his/her parents for tutoring. Almost everyone has a mobile phone, and they can also work on it. And they do so because if they don’t send the homework back to school, a call goes to the parents. If it is not enough, the teacher goes out to the family and knocks out the bad week. (Phone interview, Forray & Kozma, 2020: April 10)

Vocational Education  Vocational education had to wait until April 2 for the first set of tasks for preparations for certificates (eduBox, 2020). In addition to the lack of written assignments in vocational education, practical work caused the most severe difficulties. ‘Dual training’ – a German rooted system of vocational education – meant acquiring theoretical knowledge as one part of a programme, while the other part, concerned applying theory into practice. Apprentices, however, could not practice in their particular workplaces because of the curfew. Instead, they replaced practices with artificial activities such as cleaning the workshops or moving furniture from one place to another. It took a month for the first official collection of practice replacements to be published. Apprentices also learned online as grammar school students did. However, it was more difficult for them to learn that way due to compulsory internships. The instruction was to look on the internet, imagine and remember what had been in practice so far. Then they were given one day to go to the workplace and take an exam. It did not sound encouraging at all, so most of the trainees did not even take it seriously; instead, they were hanging around. Government  The Department of Public Education of the Ministry of Human Resources began controlling bottom-up activities with a delay of about a month (Forray & Kozma, 2020). That delay of a month was a unique experience for those always arguing for institutional autonomy as a necessary condition of grassroots innovations. However, bottom-up innovations – at least in the Hungarian context – do not align with these theories. The education system proved to be too large, too sophisticated and too complex to be restructured by teachers, students and parents. One of the fundamental results of the 1970s’ legal anthropology – linked to the name of Sally-Falk Moore and can be called a real breakthrough – is that the regulatory mechanisms

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of social control are built on the so-called ‘semi-autonomous social fields’. It means there is no direct impact from the ‘top’ (legislation) on the people. Instead, a complex self-­ regulatory, sometimes rule-distorting web is weaved between the two levels. (Fekete, 2020)

The schools operated without external administrative controls in the first few days of the danger of the epidemic. Many earlier policy debates have become obsolete, and many traditional pedagogical attitudes were changed during those days. However, enthusiastic and bottom-up innovations being spread all over the system could not be coordinated in such a short period. The newly and accidentally won autonomy of schools has attracted more and more innovative teachers and interested local people. However, the Hungarian teaching community was accustomed to top-­ down instructions. Therefore, they asked the Ministry of Human Resources with growing concern, for new instructions. The best example of this growing concern has become the history of the school-leaving exam. The government only announced on April 20 that it would hold the school-leaving examination period. However, even at that time, there was no decision about organizational details. The August date seemed to be an alternative. August for those applying for higher education entrance would be too late; they would not have enough time to choose a career and institution. The other alternative could have been an online school-leaving examination. The third proposition was to postpone the whole examination period and let the students apply for higher education based on their penultimate school attainment. The latter alternative was heavily opposed by many, referring that most of the students used to perform better by the end of the school year and teachers were often stricter in the penultimate semester as a warning to students and parents. Everyone was anxiously awaiting the government’s decision to pass or postpone the school-leaving exam.

The problem seemed to be solved by mid-April. Applicants, according to the government decision, could take the written part of their final exam at the usual time for applying for higher education entrances. Others, as an alternative, could take their final exams both in oral and written forms in the autumn. And yet, the debate continued. As we know afterwards, none of the propositions of the Ministry proved to be the final ones. There is no place here for a more in-depth analysis of this story. It is clear, even from this short story, how important the partnership between government and civilians has become. For a few days, as the partners became aware of the epidemic danger, a real chance for partnership arose. This chance, within a short time, was over. Probably both partners were responsible for missing their potential partnerships. The government could have supported schools, teachers and local societies in their innovation activities, instead of ruling them administratively. The schools, teacher organisations and the locals had to realise the complexity of a centralised educational system which could not be reformed by grassroots innovations only, and which needed partnerships with the government administration.

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Conclusions We used the theory of conflicting partnerships for interpreting the events of the Covid-19 in the Hungarian education system. We highlighted the government on the one hand and civil society on the other, as the leading actors in the events. What happened in Hungary during the epidemic threat between March and May 2020, can best be described as changing relations – cooperation and rivalry – between these two partners. If one of the actors overpowers the other one and appropriates the political space for action, the actions will weaken and destroy partnership. Maintaining cooperation, even in conflict situations, strengthens partnerships between the actors. The Hungarian government, as long as it could and wanted to cooperate with the actors of education, proved to be successful in preventing the influences of the pandemic in education and controlling the epidemic threat in the schools. Official narrative says that the government acted immediately when the epidemic threat appeared. During the next months, this government narrative has wholly been accepted by the media and the public. The Hungarian public slowly forgot what happened in the first days and weeks of the epidemic threat. In reality, the education agencies were entirely paralyzed by the epidemic danger. The government initiated ‘distance learning’, without any preparation and further considerations. Teachers themselves had to find out the meanings, forms and tools of distance learning without enough practice and established teacher training. The result was a legion of grassroots pedagogical innovations, first in the classrooms and then in the schools. The wave of innovations soon spread over the education system. It seemed that teachers, parents, students, and local communities wanted to restructure the education system and processes before the government (the Ministry) regained its former influences over them. It also seemed that bottom­up innovations could change post-epidemic education after all. The government’s position was to praise initiatives and manage innovators in partnership with teachers, students and local communities; while the latter initiated solutions for their pedagogical dilemmas. The next phase of the story began three-four weeks later. The government’s educational agencies recovered from their initial paralysis and wanted to regain control over the schools. Government, with its regained control and the schools with their ever-increasing innovations, began to compete. Teachers and parents wanted to intently and passionately change the entire education system by grassroots (classroom and school) innovations. The competition became visible in the debate on the school-leaving examination (‘Abitur’). At this point the teachers and their local supporters had to realise that the system was too big, complex and centralised to be changed by grassroot initiatives. Restructuration, as the case of the school-leaving examination showed, needed coordination from the centre. This was the turning point. The government realised a chance to regain its former leading function over the schools. For a short period, the government educational agencies and the schools worked hand-in-hand.

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From this step on, however, the government became increasingly influential, while teacher school initiatives have slowly been marginalised. In the end, the educational government made innovations mandatory, though these innovations were initiated by the schools and teachers as possible alternatives to bureaucratic educational governance. The story ended in the unequal distribution of power between the government and the civilians (teachers, students, parents). When writing these lines (January 2021), both partners were preparing themselves for the end of the pandemic to return to their pre-epidemic lives. It is only seldom said that some of the innovations were successful and would be worth retaining. It seems as if everyone is forgetting their March–May experience of a once existing partnership between government and civilians. Could it have been different? According to our recent experiences, top-down efforts are more successful in a time of crisis than bottom-up innovations. Is it true that crises prefer power concentrations to partnership? We shall see. While facing the challenge, let us still believe that partnership is possible between schools and the government in Hungary. Acknowledgments  The idea of this paper was formulated in an abstract – somewhat ahead of our colleagues  – on March 20, 2020. The abstract was submitted to the annual conference of the Hungarian Association of Education Researchers (this time an e-conference). We are grateful to the reviewer of the abstract and others for their comments and suggestions.

References Balázs, B. (2020). Karanténban derül ki, hogy a magyar oktatást és a társadalmat is csak a rettegés tartja össze. [It turns out in quarantine, it turns out that Hungarian education and society are held together only by fear]. Azonnali 2020 (issue 02.04). Source: https://azonnali. hu/cikk/20200402_epp-­most-­derul-­ki-­hogy-­a-­magyar-­oktatast-­es-­a-­tarsadalmat-­is-­csak-­a-­ retteges-­tartja-­ossze. Accessed 2 Apr 2020 Battisti, F., & Guarini, M. R. (2017). Public interest evaluation in negotiated public-private partnership. International Journal of Multicriteria Decision Making, 7(1), 54–89. Borbás, B. (2020). A COVID-19 az lesz a társadalmi életben, ami a HIV a szexuálisban. [COVID-19 will be so in social life as HIV has been in sexual life]. Válasz Online 2020 (issue 15.05). Source: https://www.valaszonline.hu/2020/05/15/koronavirus-­jarvany-­tanulsagok-­ elemzes. Accessed 15 May 2020 Brinkerhoff, J.  M. (2002). Government–nonprofit partnership: A defining framework. Public Administration and Development, 22(1), 19–30. Cuff, B. M., Brown, S. J., Taylor, L., & Howat, D. (2016). Empathy: A review of the concept. Emotion Review, 8(2), 144–153. De Zurko, E. R. (1957). Origins of functionalist theory. Columbia University Press. eduBox (2020). Digitális Szakképzési Tananyagtár. [Digital Vocational Training Curriculum]. Source: https://box.edu.hu/apps/user_saml/saml/selectUserBackEnd?redirectUrl=. Accessed 14 Apr 2020 Esik, S. (2020). A világ folyamatosan jobb hely lesz, és ez a járvány után sem lesz másképp. Azonnali 2020 (issue 03.23.). Source: https://azonnali.hu/cikk/20200323_a-­vilag-­folyamatosan-­jobb-­ hely-­lesz-­es-­ez-­a-­jarvany-­utan-­sem-­lesz-­maskepp. Accessed 23 Mar 2020

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Fekete, B. (2020). Most nem szabad elkezdeni indokolatlanul keménykedni. [You must not start to harden unnecessarily now.]. Azonnali 2020(issue 03.30). Source: https://azonnali. hu/cikk/20200330_most-­nem-­szabad-­elkezdeni-­indokolatlanul-­kemenykedni. Accessed 30 Mar 2020 Ferenci, T. (2020). Az első hullám tapasztalatai. [The experiences of the first wave]. Index 2020 (issue 18.05). Source: https://index.hu/velemeny/olvir/2020/05/18/koronavirus_jarvany_magyarorszag_elso_hullam_tapasztalatok_sikeres_intezkedesek_hibak_ferenci_tamas/?token=d 5e844a37e8e9b30f0e49153c2132c78. Accessed 18 May 2020 Forray, R. K., & Kozma, T. (2020): Járványnapló. [A diary of the pandemic]. Unpublished manuscript. Source: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CYn-­yRp0KDa5m3cgDvKCmAx5dM lVGqTGS-­3K4zpYdNw/edit. Accessed 13 May 2021. Frank, A. (2014). Letting stories breathe: A socio-narratology. University of Chicago Press. Hospes, O., van der Valk, O., & van der Mheen-Sluijer, J. (2012). Parallel development of five partnerships to promote sustainable soy in Brazil: Solution or part of wicked problems?. International Food and Agribusiness Management Review, 15 (Special Issue B), 29–52. Hyvaerinen, M. (2012). Analyzing narratives and story-telling. In P. Alasuutari, L. Bickman, & J. Brannen (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Social Research Methods (pp. 447–460). SAGE. Jamali, D., Yianni, M., & Hanin, H. (2011). Strategic partnerships, social capital and innovation. Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility, 20(4), 375–391. Jereb, B. (2020). Így segítik egyetemista önkéntesek a tanárokat a digitális átállásban. [How undergraduate volunteers help teachers make the digital transition.]. Mandiner 2020(Issue 20.03). Source: https://mandiner.hu/cikk/20200320_oktondi_elnok_a_mandinernek. Accessed 20 Mar 2020 Khan, M. H. A., Das Gupta, S., Hasan, T., Chowdhury, D. R., & Hasan, M. (2020). COVID-19: A threat to human existence. IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 25(5), 53–57. Le Ber, M. J., & Branzei, O. (2009). (Re)forming strategic cross-sector partnerships. Business & Society, 49(1), 140–172. Morrow, R. A., & Brown, D. D. (1994). Critical theory and methodology. SAGE. Moulaert, F., & Diana MacCallum, D. (2019). Advanced introduction to social innovation. Edward Elgar Publishing. Nádori, G., & Prievara, T. (2020). Tanítás korona idején. [Teaching in time of pandemic]. Index 2020 (issue 18.03). Source: https://index.hu/techtud/2020/03/22/digitalis_atallas_oktatas_ iskola_tanacsok_javaslatok/. Accessed 18 Mar 2020 Nicholls, A.  J. (2000). Freedom with responsibility: The social market economy in Germany, 1918–1963. Clarendon Press. Ozaki, M. (Ed.). (1999). Negotiating flexibility: The role of the social partners and the state. International Labour Office. Rajna, G. (2020). Covid-19 opportunity. Unpublished manuscript. Source: https://www.academia. edu/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=covid-­19. Accessed 30 Apr 2020 Svensson, L., & Nilsson, B. (2008). Partnership as a strategy for social innovation and sustainable change. Santérus Academic Press. Van den Berg, A., & Janoski, T. (2005). Conflict theories in political sociology. In T.  Janoski, R.  R. Alford, A.  M. Hicks, & M.  A. Schwartz (Eds.), The Handbook of Political Sociology (pp. 72–95). Cambridge University Press. Katalin R.  Forray is Emeritus Professor at the University of Pecs, Institute of Education, Hungary, where she has established a university chair for Romani Studies and a doctoral school on the field of educational foundations. Her training includes a teacher’s diploma in German linguistics and literature (the University of Szeged, Hungary) and a university diploma in sociology (National Institute of Education, Budapest, Hungary). She obtained her Dr. Univ. (university doctorate, sociology of education) from the University of Szeged, Hungary (1976), CSc (Candidate of the Sciences) and DSc (Doctor of Sciences), both from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (1983,  

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2003), and her habilitation from the University of Debrecen, Hungary (1999). Her present interests include partly the small-size educational institutions and their impacts on their catchment areas; and partly the schooling of the Romani population and the formation of a Romani cultural and political elite in Hungary and in its neighbouring countries. Her major publications include: Romani Children at School in Hungary 1999 (Co-Author: Hegedűs T.  A.) (in Hungarian); Introduction to Romani Studies, 2005 (Hungarian); Free from Time Captivity, 2018 (in Hungarian). Tamas Kozma is Professor Emeritus (sociology of education, comparative and higher education research) at the Institute of Educational and Cultural Studies, and founding president of the Center for Higher Education Research and Development, both at the University of Debrecen (Hungary). He has studied theology, history and education in Budapest (Hungary), Szeged (Hungary) and Cluj-Napoca (Romania). He has received his Dr.Univ. from the University of Szeged, his C.Sc. (Candidate of Sciences) and D.Sc. (Doctor of Sciences) from the Hungarian Academy of the Sciences, and his Ph.D. and habilitation from the University of Debrecen. He was the general director of the Hungarian Institute for Educational Research (Budapest) between 1990-2000. Prof Kozma has published 18 books and around 200 papers and articles (mostly in Hungarian and partly in English). His recent volume (in Hungarian) titled “The Right Time. Education and Transition, 1988-1993” His research activities can be followed on Academia.edu and ResearchGate. Prof Kozma is – among others – the founding editor of HERJ Hungarian Educational Research Journal and is president of HERA Hungarian Educational Research Association.  

Chapter 12

The Perception of Not-for-Profit Organisations on Risks in Partnership with Czech, Sicilian and Castilian-Leonese Schools Janet Wolf, Francesca Pedone, and Raquel Casado-Muñoz

Abstract  Non-profit sector and schools have different trajectories in the sphere of education and yet they both direct to the same goal – well-being of their target groups. What would happen if they joined their interests and transformed it into some kind of cooperation? Is it already happening and if so, how? This chapter focuses on the everyday reality of partnership between non-profit non-­governmental organizations and schools, particularly in the area of inclusion of foreign language (FL) students in three European geographical areas  – the Czech Republic, Castilla y León Autonomous Community of Spain, and Sicily in Italy. The three-year project aimed to map the extent of such cooperation and allowed us to identify moments that non-profits perceive as critical and that pose threats to a relationship. Our findings were gained through text coding of openended questions in a questionnaire and were categorized followingly: (1) barriers in exchanging opinions and sharing good practices (2) the visibility of partnership in teacher training (3) funding challenges (4) support from administration authorities. We believe that a constructive input or feedback from our partner can provide us with meaningful guidance to change our thinking and/or improve our current practice. Therefore, our findings can serve as an internal audit for possible readjustment of the structure, processes or ethos of educational environments for all interested parties. Keywords  Partnership · Schools · Not-for-profit organizations · L2 students · Risks J. Wolf (*) Institute of Primary, Pre-primary and Special Education, University of Hradec Králové, Hradec Králové, Czech Republic e-mail: [email protected] F. Pedone University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy R. Casado-Muñoz University of Burgos, Burgos, Spain © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 K. Otrel-Cass et al. (eds.), Partnerships in Education, Transdisciplinary Perspectives in Educational Research 5, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98453-3_12

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Introduction Let us start with a reflection on whether schools actually are in need of any external stakeholder considering that they are regulated, supported and funded from state authorities. When we look at the structure of educational systems of our examined countries (Spain, Italy, Czechia), we can see a broad network of public support for schools (by public we mean governmental institutions). Public primary schools are fully funded from the national budget through office-school mechanisms of towns, regions, autonomous communities etc.; teachers may enrol onto many courses which are free of charge and proceed their continuous professional development; students have their place granted in schools and study for free. Therefore, one could perceive that schools are perfectly self-sustaining, having everything they need from the technical background to the professional staff within their own walls. Thus, why there is such a strong emphasis (Menashy, 2018; UNESCO, 2017) on linking different actors in education at national and also transnational level? Dewey (2012) perceived the school as “a community of individuals, in its relations to other forms of social life” (p.  56) which cannot operate in isolation. He suggested to interlink the school world with the outside-school world as much as possible in order to make the school more meaningful. According to Díaz-Gibson et al. (2020, p. 4) “schools as living ecosystems can be understood by thinking about schools as social networks and considering the diverse actors involved and their multiple interactions.” The importance of such networks has been highlighted by several scholars (Daly, 2010; Rauch, 2016; Sliwka, 2003). That being said, it seems unrealistic to let schools exist in some separated bubble since they are a part of society which, above all, poses some demands on them; and in words of Biesta (2019, p. 662), makes them “a ‘perfect’ instrument for society”. There are several studies that support this view and illustrate how schools influence the social fabric and civic culture, how they consolidate human relationships and a sense of belonging or how they promote social cohesion (Hornstra et al., 2015; Moolenaar et al., 2012; Ramberg et al., 2019). Today’s society calls for so-called modern schools which are capable of building ecosystems that encourage children’s creativity, critical thinking, communication and collaboration (Jefferson & Anderson, 2017). To construct such an ecosystem, the school should be part of that ecosystem. In other words, the school should communicate and collaborate with the outside world too. Not-for-profit organizations are a part of such a world. This sector, as discussed further below, often provides services that are linked to the needs of vulnerable groups. According to Robinson and White (1997), the sector has become popular especially in developing countries where it plays major role in financing (e. g. sub-­ Saharan Africa) and advocacy “mobilizing communities to demand services from the state” (e. g. India) (p. 8). An increasing number of voluntary organizations were registered in Europe with the efforts of the European Commission to give them a European dimension (Sánchez-Salgado, 2007). Lester M. Salamon in the foreword of a book (Zimmer & Priller, 2013) dealing with the non-profit sector in central

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Europe expressed that despite all the efforts and potential that this sector offers, it can still be integrated more fully into prevailing social issues; and to do that it is “necessary for them to meet the challenges of legitimacy, sustainability, effectiveness, and partnership that still elude them to a significant degree.” (p. 10). What is the situation in the sphere of education? To date, there have been just fragments of literature that examine how concretely schools and non-for-profit organizations cooperate. Since we were interested in the non-profit sector’s potential in this area within European settings, we decided to explore the situation in three European geographical areas – the Czech Republic, Sicily (Italy), and Castilla-León Autonomous Community. Although the objective of our research was to map the extent of cooperation, in the end, it allowed us to identify moments that non-profits perceive as critical and that can pose threats to a relationship. It is these risks that are the heart of this chapter. Nevertheless, before we move on to our findings, we would like to discuss how partnerships in education can be seen and what the non-profit sector does or may do to be rightfully called a partner.

Partnership – A Higher Form of Cooperation Partnerships and collaborations are often treated synonymously; however, we see a certain difference between them. When we simplify it, cooperation can be characterized as a basic form of social behaviour in social interactions whose purpose is to reach desired objective(s) (Schuster & Perelberg, 2004). However, it does not imply that all involved stakeholders have the same positions in the relationship, i.e. one is not dominant over the other (e.g. a relationship based on a paternalistic attitude, where one plays the role of an expert, analyst or investigator). Whereas, when speaking of a partnership, it should be a different story. According to Menashy (2018), partnership suggests a positive and cooperative relationship among stakeholders. We could describe it as an active, voluntary, reciprocal cooperation of all stakeholders which is built on mutual trust and respect; and where there is no hierarchy between partners. Mwangi (2017), who examined partnership power dynamics and the positioning of partners through 60 international partnerships, set mutuality between stakeholders as the basic premise of a partnership, pointing to its 4 goals, i.e. equity, autonomy, solidarity, and participation. He draws on studies of Galtung (1980) and Hayhoe (1986) explaining that “Equity emphasizes that aims and types of partnership programs are reached cooperatively through mutual agreement. […] Autonomy requires that both partners engage in mutual respect for each other’s values, norms, and beliefs. […] The outcome of solidarity reflects engaged and sustained relationships between partners. […] The outcome of participation reflects a two-way transfer of knowledge and practices (p.  37).” If we think of a partnership as a living organism which is subject to constant changes, we realize that it is not only necessary to focus on ways and stimuli that promote equity, autonomy, solidarity and participation, but also to be aware of risks which might

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endanger them. The formation of a partnership does not happen overnight, and its continuous development is always accompanied by risky moments that can significantly shake its grounds. The professional literature presents a myriad of forms of networks forming within the sphere of education, such as family-school (Epstein, 2018), school-­ school (Azorín & Muijs, 2017), university-school (Jones et al., 2016; Quesenberry et al., 2018), external agency-school (Rollan & Somerton, 2019) and many others; with a common denominator – to improve the outcomes of children.

Not-for-Profits as Partners in Education The non-profit sector is, in some ways, unique being in the middle between target groups, the state and the market (Tālivaldis Ozoliņš, 2017). The nature of this sector compensates for the limited finances and capacity of governmental institutions (Hardwick-Franco, 2018; Kieu & Singer, 2017), and plays a role in innovation, advocacy, expressive function, capacity and community building (Cara & Pellanda, 2018; Kendall, 2003; Salamon et al., 1999). The detailed analysis of how civil society activism influences education, specifically inclusive education reform in Kazakhstan was provided by Rollan and Somerton (2019). The findings of their study showed that apart from non-profits’ engagement in policy-making process, they also “facilitate the provision of methodological support to schools and professionals, contribute to promoting cultural change about perceptions of people with special needs, and inform parents, the state, and the public more broadly about the needs of children requiring additional educational supports (p. 1).” This study does not concentrate on risks which non-­ profits face while cooperating with their stakeholders, nevertheless, several statements imply that the partnership is rather one-sided, i.e. non-profits must be more active in the relationship to make it work. Above that, the authors frequently point out that the general public view on non-profits’ participation and their merits is rather distorted and does not correspond to their actual state. Another vital contribution to this topic is represented by a study conducted in four African countries: Kenya, Mali, Tanzania and Burkina Faso (Mundy et al., 2008, 2010). Even though the comparative report dates back more than 10 years, it explores challenges which non-profits were facing in the period when they officially became partners in the formulation, implementation and monitoring of national educational plans and policies. Among the most articulated ones were the unequal position between non-­ profits and state organizations in all phases of NGO’s possible engagement; either being officially excluded or left out by unfair practices such as having limited access to information, or not being informed about changed dates of important meetings etc. (Mundy et al., 2008, 2010). Above that, the authors of the study revealed a certain lack of coordination and organization at the national level in all four countries which seemed to cause gaps in developing and drawing on the non-profit’s full potential, e.g. quality and scope of services for their target groups. It seems that the

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relationship between NGOs and the state may substantially affect the effectiveness of non-profit sector. It would be interesting to see if and how these findings would have changed in one-decade lapse. Staying in Africa settings, Adams Tucker et al. (2017) brought a study from three provinces in South Africa offering the perceptions of learners, educators and local non-profit representatives on cooperation in the topic of sexual education. The authors’ conclusions were that potential cooperation can enrich all stakeholders in terms of exchange of good practices, time and resource savings, however, it also carries certain risks alleging insufficient communication and unclear assignment of roles. In South Australia, Hardwick-Franco (2018) conducted a research examining the impact of cooperation between rural schools and non-profit sector. As those schools had limited opportunities to engage in activities related to music learning; moreover, had a number of vulnerable, disadvantaged and disengaged students, the partnership seemed to be a way to overcome certain barriers. The research demonstrated that partnerships between schools and non-profit organizations “[…] can make a difference [positive ones] to the learning and wellbeing of students, their teachers and community (p.  118)”. At the same time, the author pointed out that such partnerships have to be managed well and there is still the question of what to improve to strengthen the relationship. Teachers frequently stated that they need ongoing support in the form of teacher training activities because “inspiration is lost where teachers do not feel skilled enough to teach music without continued partnership with and support from the NGO (Hardwick-Franco, 2018, p. 117)”.

Vulnerable Group – Foreign-Language Students We centred our eye on one marginalized group of students – foreign-language children - since we knew that they had been monitored by not-for-profit organizations for decades in all three examined countries. When we speak about FL students, we mean first and subsequent generations of EU and third country migrants, asylum seekers and refugees, as well as national and regional ethno-cultural and linguistic minorities. As mentioned above, our research took place in three European geographical areas  – the Czech Republic, Sicily (Italy) and Castilla y León Autonomous Community (Spain). In all of them, foreign language students belong to the group of students with special educational needs. They are disadvantaged in terms of enrolment in type of school, duration of attending school, indicators of achievement, drop-out rates and types of school diploma reached (Migrant Integration Policy Index, 2015). However, each of these countries has its specifics when it comes to education of FL students and cooperation of schools with other stakeholders. Here, we offer a brief insight into countries’ legislative and practices in education which relate to our topic.

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Czech FL Students The Czech Republic built its education strategy on the idea of lifelong learning and enshrined it in a document called the 2030+ Strategy. This key document is intended to serve as a general basis for education policymaking and to be shared among its key actors, to which non-profit organizations are explicitly included in the document (mainly in connection with non-formal education). FL students are mentioned in The Education Law (2004) within two paragraphs. One paragraph relates to students-foreigners (term used in Czech legislation) as students with special education needs who may draw from first to third level of support measures (out of 5; where the fifth is for the most disabled children). It involves counselling assistance at school and school counselling facility; adjusting the organization, content, evaluation processes, forms and methods of teaching, school services, etc.; adapting the conditions of admission to education and leaving school; the use of compensatory aids, special textbooks and special teaching aids, etc.; adjusting expected learning outcomes within the Framework Education Programs and accredited training programs; teaching and learning processes according to the individual educational plan; use of teacher assistant; use of another pedagogical worker etc.; the provision of educational services on premises which are technically modified (Parliament of the Czech Republic XE "Czech Republic" , 2015). The other paragraph describes access to education of students-foreigners and adjustment of Czech language in schools. Czech classrooms do not overflow with FL students. Statistical system of Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport reveals that 95,357 students-foreigners were educated at all types and levels of schools in the 2019/20 school year, which is less than 5 percent of all students enrolled in schools. However, each year numbers of FL students are increasing. Italian FL Learners Sicily, autonomous region of Italy, has a particularly high level of autonomy including some exclusive legislative competences in certain sectors except for establishing fundamental principles reserved to the State legislation (so called concurrent legislative power). The Italian education system, inspired by the idea of lifelong learning and transversal strategy, affects the educational, labour and continuing professional development sectors. Law no. 92/2012 state “lifelong learning encompasses learning activity, whether formal, non-formal or informal, undertaken throughout life with the aim of improving knowledge, skills and competence within a personal, civic, social and/or employment related perspective”. Similarly to the Spanish constitution, the Italian constitution (1947) says that “The school is open to everybody. The lower education for at least eight years is compulsory and free of charge. (Article 34)”. This excerpt suggests that in order for education to be holistic, it is necessary to combine several forms and stakeholders, among which non-profit organizations certainly belong. Above all, it is also to be noted that when it comes to foreign language learners, Sicily is one of the most affected areas of recent and contemporary migratory waves. For example, the number of unaccompanied minors in Italy was 5565 in June 2020 (statistics from the font of Ministry of Labour and

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social policy). Most of these minors (92.4%) are males and the great majority are between 15 and 17 years old (87.5%). According to recent data Sicily welcomes most of the migrants. Italian FL students, no matter if immigrant ones or from other language minorities, have the right to education and have to attend compulsory education and undergo the same assessments as Italians. In the “Guidelines for the reception and inclusion of foreign students”, the Ministry of Instruction, University and Research (MIUR) provided some recommendations for organisation and teaching to favour both entrance of foreign pupils at school and their success in their studies. The document includes a series of good practices which, from an administrative, organizational and didactic point of view, should be adopted to promote the integration of non-Italian pupils into the school (MIUR, 2014). Support measures are a subject of didactic flexibility and, in the case of immigrants with low levels of Italian, linguistic support, personalised teaching (through a personalised teaching plan); compensative tools can be adopted (Santagati & Ongini, 2016). Spanish FL Learners Spain is a multicultural and multilingual country with diverse local cultures with their own distinct languages, all living together in one country. Current in force legislation states that the education authorities have to support the entry of students that come from other countries or, for any other reason, are incorporated late in the Spanish education system. López Cuesta (2017) summarized this educational support into “organisational and curricular actions to take account of diversity, curricular adaptations, splitting groups, integrating materials, flexible groupings, support in ordinary groups and offer of specific materials, programmes to improve learning and performance and programmes for the specialised treatment of pupils with specific educational support needs (p. 11)”. Castilla y León Autonomous Community is the largest of the 17 Autonomous Communities in Spain and its autonomy is reflected in all spheres, including education and cooperation with the non-profit sector. Individual policies and practical approaches of the autonomous communities differ from each other as they have executive and administrative competencies for managing the education system in their own territory. Apart from legislative documents issued by Castilla y León Autonomous Community, the central education administration executes the general guidelines and regulates the basic aspects of the education system as a whole. The current Law in force, called The Act on the Improvement of the Quality of Education, passed in 2013, states that a more inclusive and participatory society requires alternative ways of organization and management through collaboration and teamwork (Azorín & Muijs, 2017). Above that, the 1978 Spanish Constitution which also governs the Spanish education system, in its Article no. 27 declares that public authorities guarantee everyone’s right to education through the general organization of education, with the participation of all the sectors involved, and the creation of educational institutions (Spanish Constitution, 1978, Article 27). This implies that all actors in education have open doors and are welcome. Although there is no list of such actors, we presume that the non-profit sector is counted. Moreover, the

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current II Plan of Attention to Diversity in Education of Castilla y León 2017–2022, is based, among others, on the principle of participation, that is, on incorporating the active collaboration of educational agents, families, associations, etc. It is essential to configure policies, strategies and actions that respond to the educational needs of students and the improvement of inclusive education. Thus, it dedicates its strategic line 4 to promoting family and societal participation processes in educational centres. The two specific objectives for this line are: (1) Improve the participation of families in the educational process of their children and (2) Establish relationships with associations or other entities in Castilla y León for the development of an inclusive educational model. In all three described countries, formal education is compulsory also for FL children. It seems likely that the life of a newcomer who does not speak the language of a country faces several challenges. Families of FL students usually seek an assistance with the placement and/or inclusion of their children into foreign education system. Since non-profit organizations mostly offer their services free of charge and have developed methods and tools to assist FL families (Wolf et al., 2021), they are among the first ones to meet FL families. This has given a chance to the non-profit sector to really understand the needs of FL learners, FL families, teachers, schools, and other stakeholders and form a strategy of effective interventions. It is now well recognized that NGOs work very closely with their target groups and promote their interests at the micro (direct work in the field) (Hardwick-Franco, 2018) but also at the macro (policymaking) level (Cara & Pellanda, 2018). Several studies have reported that employees of non-profits are not only active enthusiasts working within their topic but also professionals (Zimmer & Priller, 2013). One example for all, Cara and Pellanda (2018) describe steps which led to an enormous success of civil society stakeholders to approve, after four years of constant debates and negotiations, Brazil’s National Education Plan 2014–2024. The devotion, high commitment, patience and expertise were the factors which helped them to “win” the struggle. Notwithstanding, non-profits’ expertise has been already proven through their active participation and contribution in discussions during many important meetings and events (e.g. Jomtien Conference in 1990, the World Education Forum in Dakar in 2000, and the World Education Forum in Incheon in 2015), leading to worldwide education strategies and impacting the forms of several declarations, statements, agreements and other strategical documents, e.g. the educational Sustainable Development Goal (UNDP, 2016).

Research Settings This chapter deals with the topic of risky moments of partnership between non-­ profits and school. However, this theme arose as a by-product of the whole three-­ year project. Therefore, we firstly introduce the design of the project as a whole and subsequently elaborate on the issue of this chapter.

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The main objective of the study was to find out how non-profit organizations contribute to inclusion of FL students and if national approaches vary across examined countries. We were working with two target groups – non-profits and teachers. To identify which non-profits would fit our purposes, we examined existing, publicly available, lists issued and governed by relevant responsible authority of each country. These lists include all non-profits working in the area of immigrants and minorities with no closer specifics, thus, we had to do a closer look at each organization profile. We set four following criteria which each non-profit had to meet: (a) being non-profit organization (b) being non-governmental organization (c) offering cooperation to schools /teachers or/and other professionals from formal education (d) offering services within the topic of intercultural education. We examined websites of each non-profit, and in case of doubt we addressed non-profits by phone. In the end, we were able to identify 39 non-profits from the Castilla-y-León area, 17 non-profits from the Czech Republic and 12 non-profits from Sicily which met our criteria. These numbers seemed adequate considering the geographical size of areas. As is often the case, we were not able to convince all respondents to participate in the research. We managed to analyse data from 19 non-profits from the Castilla-y-­ León Autonomous Community, 9 non-profits from the Czech Republic and 6 non-­ profits from Sicily. The choice of teachers as a second target group was made in order to get different perspective on the same matter – education of FL learners. We interviewed 10 teachers from 10 different schools in each country, specifically in 3 cities – Pardubice (Czech Republic), Palermo (Italy), Burgos (Spain). Inasmuch as it is not the objective of this chapter, we will not present the research methodology relating to teachers in detail here. Now, let’s return to the purpose of this chapter – to identify risks in a partnership. Our research question here is: What barriers prevent a partnership working effectively? For a deeper understanding of the research question, we chose a mixed research method, i.e. combining quantitative and qualitative research methods (particularly Convergent Parallel Design) following Creswell’s (2014, 2015) approach. We used a questionnaire as a tool to do a descriptive study. To the best of our knowledge, there was no existing questionnaire which could serve our purposes, therefore, we acceded to a questionnaire of own structure which is the most common practice in surveys relating to education (Bartošová & Skutil, 2011). To assure validity and availability of the questionnaire we addressed 6 experts (4 from academic and 2 non-profit settings) from the field (2 from each country) asking them to test clarity, relevance and importance of every item and comment on them. The final form of a questionnaire consists of three main sections: (1) demographic data, (2) general cooperation of NPOs with educational institutions, and (3) NPOs as partners in teacher training. Overall, the questionnaire included 16 questions of which three were open-ended and the rest were closed-ended having forms of multiple-­ choice grid and linear scale. All closed-ended questions were accompanied with a free space for potential respondents’ extra notes or comments. We addressed our respondents (the directors of non-profits) twice by e-mails and then via telephone. Our introductory email provided the link to an online questionnaire (offered in three

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language mutations: Czech Italian, Spanish); above that, we offered a .doc format version enclosed in the email. All respondents used the online version. We decided to use Google Forms as an on-line platform because it represents, according to us, a very intuitive and simple-to-use tool comfortable for both: (a) a researcher: to create the questionnaire and export the collected data, and (b) a participant: to enter the platform and fill in the questionnaire without any special requirements (such as to have an account/community email or necessity to log in, etc.). The closed-ended questions were used for descriptive statistical analysis using SPSS program. Open-­ ended questions together with free-space boxes were subjected to text coding within thematic content analysis using OpenCode program. The following interpretation of results mainly relates to the qualitative part of the research, thus the following paragraph, we elaborate on our approach to qualitative data analysis. We relied on a framework analysis by researchers Ritchie and Spencer (1994), who sought to make their approach easier to systematically examine qualitative data. All responses from open-ended questions of the questionnaire were firstly translated into English language and then transferred to OpenCode program. Each respondent has its own file under the name of a not-for-profit organization. For the systematic classification and sorting of data, we designed a descriptive system of categories with the basic variables of partnership: engagement, communication, sharing of good practice, funding, support, threats. In the second step, individual parts of the text were marked on the basis of this list. Such process allows better understanding of a text and may lead to refinement and elaboration of the categorization system (Hendl, 2005). Based on that, we were able to create categories, and sort and organize data that were directly related to risks. At the end, the software allowed us to either generate a text for each respondent sorted into four categories or see all respondents’ answers within each category. The authors mainly worked with the data within created categories. This part of a research aims to identify moments that non-profits perceive as critical and that pose threats to the partnership. We are of the same opinion as Hancock and Lubicz-Nawrocka (2018) that a constructive input or feedback from our partner can provide us a meaningful guidance to change a way of our thinking and/or improve our practice. Therefore, our findings can serve as an internal audit for possible readjustment of the structure, processes or ethos of educational environments to all interested parties. The following sub-headings deal with four content categories which were identified to pose risks to quality of partnership (1) barriers in exchanging opinions and sharing good practices (2) the visibility of partnership in teacher training (3) funding challenges (4) support from administration authorities.

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Risks in a Partnership Seen by Non-profits Here we present four content categories which are interpreted on the basis of not-­ for-­profit organisations’ point of view; thus, we are aware that we offer only one-­ sided perspective into the problematics. It is important to be noted that even though we have identified four different categories, they are all interconnected and therefore overlap. Since we do not want to link answers to individual non-profits, we use letters “S” for Spanish non-profits, “I” for Italian non-profits and “C” for Czech non-profits together with a number given according to the order of received responses when referring to individual citations. Barriers in Exchanging Opinions and Sharing Good Practices The non-profit organizations expressed that greater openness to cooperation, including exchange of experiences, good practices and opinions, not only with the non-­ profit partners but also among teachers themselves, would contribute to a better cooperation. At the same time, they stated that in most cases a school or a teacher addresses non-profit only when they face some problem, e.g. FL student is passive, does not communicate and has bad school results. Rather than looking for a partner or proper continuous training, teachers seek for help to fight the fire. Rather than discussing and sharing experiences, they desire to possess some manual which they can look at in times of emergency. Our respondents think that teachers may perceive their need for help as their professional failure, they are not used to be observed and get advice, criticism or some feedback relating to their pedagogical performance. This all may, according to non-profits, prevent teachers from establishing long-term cooperation. As a result, non-profits’ interventions are limited and dependent on the openness of individual schools and/or teachers. In non-profits’ view, this is also connected with another risk - the loss of contact – once “the problem” is solved. It means that if a teacher wins a fight with the fire, she/he might not be interested in keeping in touch with the non-profit sector further. However, the objective of the non-profit sector is not to solve individual “problems”. Their mission is to show that linguistic and cultural diversity is part of every healthy society and as such we should approach it – especially in education. Above that, we asked our respondents what steps could be taken to eliminate such risks. They proposed to concentrate on the establishment of regular thematic tables during which the management of a school and the representatives of non-­ profits could discuss each other’s expectations, share mutual experience, and set possible future direction in a partnership (such as workshops, cooperation in projects, intercultural weeks and other events). To see a few concrete examples, S7 claimed that “wider mutual communication and dissemination of awareness is the way towards better collaboration”. S8 suggested that “carrying out follow-up meetings to continue with the established cooperation could help”. One Czech non-profit (C5) had the idea of “bigger involvement of the management of educational institutions and motivate its staff (especially teachers) for further professional education”. I4 highlighted three points “mutual recognition, co-planning, sharing common

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vision to achieve higher satisfaction from mutual expectations”. In addition, non-­ profit organizations also recommended learning to cooperate more not only with external stakeholders in education, but also among other teachers and parents. “It is important to exchange opinions, practices and start observations among teachers themselves.”, S1 mentioned. The Visibility of Partnership in Teacher Training The second frequently mentioned risk in cooperation is, according to our respondents, outdated teacher training plans. These plans do not take into account the non-­ profit sector as one of the partners in education. As a result, there is a risk that teachers do not see why they should cooperate with the non-profit sector, or why this cooperation could be beneficial. In other words, this risk comes from another stakeholder in education who shapes the form of teacher training programmes – universities. Our respondents had the following suggestions: “It would be useful to focus on specific training in social issues, and methodologies such as service and inclusion from the social perspective in the curriculum so that teachers value collaboration with non-profits and can consider opportunities of such relationship for their educational practice. If they [teachers] cannot recognize and integrate possibilities of relationship with non-profits due to an absence in the curriculum, they are not encouraged (not even self-motivated) to cooperate with us later on in practice.”, S5 argued. Another Spanish non-profit (S10) presented an interesting view having said that “the main thing would be to make compulsory content on human rights in education at all levels so that for teachers it is not an extra burden but already part of their education program.” C4 also agreed with this approach adding that “teachers should be prepared for this issue already at Faculties of Education”. According to non-profits, this risk stems from the belief that non-profits belong to the social sector and social sector is for social workers not for teachers. Nevertheless, non-profits think that we all share responsibility in the process of social cohesion and teachers should participate in this sense. The presence of social topics in teacher training programmes may contribute to it. Our research among teachers has shown that teachers are in favour of cooperation with non-profits, however, teachers do not actively seek them (Wolf et al., 2021). In any case, this aspect does not depend on non-profits or teachers, but on providers of education for future teachers or those who design the curriculum. Funding Challenges The non-profit is, by its nature, an organization that primarily depends on funding from external entities. We like the idea that such organization is not so different from a usual store or a service. Just as we pay for our groceries in a supermarket or a massage in a wellness centre, we can participate in some activities indirectly by supporting them financially. The financing of non-governmental non-profit organizations must be seen as an issue of typical multi-source financing. In general, non-­ profits use two basic budgets: (1) own finances (i.e. income from their own activities, members’ contributions), and (2) finances coming from other stakeholders (i.e. state support, endowment resources, public donations, business entities, etc.). As everywhere, funding is an issue also in the non-profit sector. Our respondents admitted

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that there is certain dependence and linkage to money providers which might determine how their services are offered to their target groups. This may pose a great risk in maintaining cooperation and quality of partnerships. S9 describes the situation followingly “Non-profits work for results not for sustainable cooperation. Once we present a project and it is approved, we work to achieve set goals and requested indicators. For example, it is given that you have to provide 10 courses in a month. This will mean that once the training is done in one school, we will no longer work in that school because we need to go to other 9 schools to provide courses. Announced projects need to support and finance medium-term and long-term educational projects to implement processes that can have real, long-term impact. I mean the key should be to provide activities systematically. These are two wings and one without the other cannot fly.” Another Spanish non-profit organization (S18) argued that “the budget and funding should be created on an ongoing basis, logically and according to current requirements, and should not be determined by time [project periods]”. Sicilian and Czech non-profits expressed very similar views on this matter. The Czech non-profit organization (C6) suggested that “a possible solution how to ensure the continuity of services and cooperation would be to involve the educational authority in communication as a systematic organizer”. To sum it up, our respondents identified non-conceptual project calls to prevent the establishment of long-term relationships. Above that, Sicilian NGOs generally complained about low allocation of money coming from the state to support the non-profit sector. I3 expressed that “there is a need to allocate more money to our activities to ensure better cooperation between entities”. Support from Administration Authorities “We see the state as an important player in this field who can, by various means, encourage, not to command, cooperation. I think it would be useful to improve, especially, the communication between educational institutions and non-profits. However, what I am really worried about is the question of time and money that are the issue in both mentioned areas.”, stated Czech non-profit (C8) while explaining what can be done to eliminate risks in a partnership with schools. Similarly, S19 described that “the public administration must promote joint work between schools and non-profits to ensure the sustainability and quality.”. Apart from the already mentioned finances and time, our respondents believed that that the state is an entity of a huge importance that has a fundamental impact on the quality of a cooperation between schools and non-profits. “The state involvement would enrich and facilitate mutual cooperation. Moreover, it would bring better performance of all stakeholders”, said I3. Educational authorities (city, municipalities, region, etc.), in many cases, manage, direct, monitor and control the activities of schools. From this point of view, there is a close cooperation between schools and their superior(s). If activities and projects are supported from the top, even through financial motivation, schools are more open to new opportunities and willing to search new ways. In short, the priorities coming from the management offices determine the direction in which schools are moving. If the state prefers or recommends to pedagogical staff to participate in

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teacher training courses through state organizations, most probably, teachers won’t question it and won’t look for other providers. Thus, the element of the state and its support plays, according to our respondents, a crucial role in forming partnerships with schools.

Discussion and Conclusion Overall, our results give an indication that non-profits perceive there are several factors which influence the quality of a partnership between non-profits and teachers. However, we have to stress that findings we present here are one-sided - based only on non-profits’ view. Nevertheless, there are certain similarities comparing to studies of other authors. Our respondents identified teachers’ willingness to cooperate and share experience with others as a step forward to a better cooperation. This view is also shared by Wennergren (2016) who argues that collaborative learning and a collective responsibility is crucial to improving teaching performance and increasing “student learning and achievement through collegial conversations about teaching and learning (p. 261)”. Just as our sample of non-profits felt that teachers are not willing and/or unable to cooperate, Wennergren (2016) found out that teachers do not use the whole potential which the cooperation teacher-teacher can bring to them. Moreover, she identified “time” and “continuity” as aspects playing role in forming partnership when she pointed out that it takes more than one year of continuous cooperation to develop mutual trust. As mentioned in our introductory part, mutual trust is a base for well-functioning partnerships, thus, it is a question if non-profits have enough space and time to construct them. This is surely connected with internal policy of each non-profit organization but also with external factors which influence running of the non-profit sector, e.g. the state and the funding. Our respondents identified the state in the role of (1) a provider of finances, and (2) a coordinator of cooperation between stakeholders, as a key external factor. Under normal circumstances, it might be better if non-profits, charities, foundations, etc. received money from different sources than the state because they should represent an alternative to the state. Nevertheless, the situation is different, and the non-profit sector has to respond to the calls of the state to receive money for its functioning. This might represent a potential threat for a partnership with schools. Not only our research but also a study conducted by Menefee and Nordtveit (2012) revealed the importance of the state as an influencer of an intensity and quality of stakeholders’ relationships. The author described the situation in China after the earthquake in Wenchuan and argued that only due to the institutional opening towards non-profit’s initiatives, could the deprived places finally benefit from the non-profit’s education relief programs. The situation of strategic inconsistency and financial shortages from the top (educational authorities) was also described by Bain, Bruce & Weir (2017). Their study showed that the national policies are changing without much sustainability or continuity whereas in-field stakeholders (university-­school partnership in this case) aim to work together on long-term, more

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fundamental issues. This view is in line with what our respondents claim to be an obstacle preventing them to establish long-term relationships with schools. Last but not least, a part of our research which dealt with a target group of teachers (see Wolf et al., 2021) confirmed the conclusions of Marsh (2019) that partnerships should be built on clear and agreed divisions of labour respecting expertise and experience of all partners. Even though our interviewed teachers were in favour of cooperation with non-profits, they insisted on the division of roles, taking non-­ profits as an external help rather than ongoing long-term partners (Wolf et al., 2021). According to Walmsley, Bufkin and Rule (2009) a strong partnership goes through several stages: exploration, formalization, action, institutionalization, critical growth, and sustainability. We believe that being aware of risks which we can meet on the way in all mentioned stages may eliminate or at least minimize failures of a partnership. Our objective was to map and describe the situation in European context in order to advance the discourse on cooperation between the non-profit non-governmental sector and schools. We hope that our findings will serve as a starting point for further research and, of course, as a source of inspiration for all interested actors in education.

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Parliament of the Czech Republic. (2015). Act No. 82/2015 Coll. amending Act No. 561/2004 Coll., On pre-school, primary, secondary, higher vocational and other education (School Act), as amended, and certain other acts. Quesenberry, A. C., Hamann, K., Sanden, S., Bates, A., & Hartle, L. (2018). Examining the impact of a year-long university–school partnership. Action in Teacher Education, 40(3), 288–304. https://doi.org/10.1080/01626620.2018.1486752 Ramberg, J., Brolin Låftman, S., Åkerstedt, T., & Modin, B. (2019). Teacher stress and students’ school well-being: The case of upper secondary schools in Stockholm. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/00313831.2019.1623308 Rauch, F. (2016). Networking for education for sustainable development in Austria: The Austrian ECOLOG-schools programme. Educational Action Research, 24(1), 34–45. https://doi.org/1 0.1080/09650792.2015.1132000 Ritchie, J., & Spencer, L. (1994). Qualitative data analysis for applied policy research. In A. Bryman & R. G. Burgess (Eds.), Analysing qualitative data. Routledge. Robinson, M., & White, G. (1997). The role of civic organizations in the provision of social services. Research for Action RFA. https://doi.org/10.22004/ag.econ.295331. Rollan, K., & Somerton, M. (2019). Inclusive education reform in Kazakhstan: Civil society activism from the bottom-up. International Journal of Inclusive Education. https://doi.org/10.108 0/13603116.2019.1599451 Salamon, L. M., Anheier, H. K., List, R., Toepler, S., & Sokolowski, W. S. (1999). Global civil society: Dimensions of the non-profit sector. The Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies. Sánchez-Salgado, R. (2007). Giving a European dimension to civil society organizations. Journal of Civil Society, 3(3), 253–269. https://doi.org/10.1080/17448680701775671 Santagati, M., & Ongini, V. (2016). Alunni con cittadinanza non italiana. La scuola multiculturale nei contesti locali. Rapporto Nazionale a.s. 2014–2015 [Pupils with non-Italian citizenship. The multicultural school in  local contexts. National report 2015–2016]. Milano: Fondazione ISMU.  Retrieved from http://www.istruzione.it/allegati/2016/Rapporto-­Miur-­ Ismu-­2014_15.pdf Schuster, R., & Perelberg, A. (2004). Why cooperate?: An economic perspective is not enough. Behavioural Processes, 66(3), 261–277. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1016/j. beproc.2004.03.008. Sliwka, A. (2003). Networking for educational innovation: A comparative analysis. In D. Istance & M. Kobayashi (Eds.), Schooling for tomorrow: Networks of innovation, towards new models for managing schools and school systems (pp. 49–63). OECD. Tālivaldis Ozoliņš, J. (2017). Creating the civil society East and West: Relationality, responsibility and the education of the humane person. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 49(4), 362–378. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2015.1048666 United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). (2016). Sustainable Development Goal 4: Quality Education. Retrieved from http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/sustainable-­ development-­goals/goal-­4-­quality-­education.html United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). (2017). Education transforms lives. Retrieved from https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000247234?posInS et=2&queryId=c343339e-­7d9b-­42eb-­ba0c-­52f66184d58c Walmsley, A., Bufkin, L., & Rule, A. (2009). Developmental stages of a professional development school: Lessons from a long-term partnership. School-University Partnerships, 3(2), 69–79. Wennergren, A. (2016). Teachers as learners – With a little help from a critical friend. Educational Action Research, 24(2), 260–279. https://doi.org/10.1080/09650792.2015.1058170 Wolf, J., Casado-Muñoz, R., Pedone, F. (2021). Partnership of schools and civil society organizations to support education of students of varied linguistic backgrounds. The situation in the Czech Republic, Italy and Spain. Manuscript submitted for publication. Zimmer, A., & Priller, E. (2013). Future of Civil Society: Making Central European Nonprofit-­ Organizations Work. Retrieved from https://books.google.cz/books?id=3Y31BwAAQBAJ

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Janet Wolf is an Assistant Professor in teacher training within the field of interdisciplinary subjects such as multicultural education, citizenship education etc. at Faculty of Education, University of Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic. Her research interests focus on second language learners and their inclusion in education. She is a member of various research groups involving experts from several countries. Janet is a member and reviewer of Network 15, partnership in education of the European Education Research Association (EERA).  

Francesca Pedone graduated in Pedagogy from the University of Palermo, Italy. She got a Ph.D. in Intercultural Pedagogy from the University of Messina. She is professor in Didactics and Inclusive education at the Department of Psychology, Educational Science and Human Movement (SPPEFF) in the University of Palermo (UNIPA). Her research interests include: inclusive education, teacher education, metacognitive development, motivation to learning, self-regulated and cooperative learning, problem solving, and new media. She conducts workshops for educators on the topic of relationships between teachers and parents. She has conducted training on program evaluation, research methods, data utilization and students’ assessment. She has been involved in several research projects and she is an author of books, articles and papers in national and international academic journals. Her current research focuses on education for citizenship and social participation; family and the development of children’s social skills; and inclusive education.  

Raquel Casado-Muñoz is a professor in Teacher Training for Inclusive Education at the Faculty of  Education, University of Burgos, Spain. She has directed the Institute of Educational Training and Innovation at the same University (2008/2012). Her research focuses on teacher training for inclusion, educational innovation and promotion of inclusive schools. She has been coordinating the Research Group EDINTEC (Education, Inclusion and Technology) for 10 years, managing a number of  international, regional and local research projects. She is a member of  the Spanish University Network of Inclusive Education and has lectured on these subjects at universities in different European and Latin American countries.  

Chapter 13

Partnerships Between Schools and Civil Society Organizations – A Look at Their Role for the Social Integration and Schooling of Newly Immigrated Children and Youth in Germany Christine Steiner

Abstract  From the years 2015 and 2016, when tens of thousands sought refuge in Europe from war and persecution, the spontaneous engagement in civil society will be remembered above all. In the so-called Summer of Welcome, volunteers, civil society initiatives and organizations especially supported refugee children and young people in many ways. This chapter examines the role of partnerships between schools and local partners, especially civil society organizations, for the social integration of newly immigrated students into the school community. Do the partnerships work in times when newly immigrated children and youth are in particular need of support? Alternatively, do the potential risks of such partnerships become more visible at such times because functioning partnerships are full of prerequisites, as social capital approaches would indicate? The results of an analysis based on an online survey of German school principals of lower secondary schools show that schools are managing changes in existing partnerships carefully and tend to stay with established partnerships rather than to search for new partners. Nevertheless, local partners – especially civil society initiatives – make a substantial contribution to the social integration as well as to supporting the learning of the newly arrived students within the school. Keywords  Migration · Refuge · Schooling · Civil society · Partnerships · Social capital

C. Steiner (*) German Youth Institute, Munich, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 K. Otrel-Cass et al. (eds.), Partnerships in Education, Transdisciplinary Perspectives in Educational Research 5, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98453-3_13

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Introduction: ‘We Can Manage It!’ In recent years, school partnerships between parents, enterprises, and civil society organizations have become more important for pedagogical work and for student support. Nevertheless, major social changes and events are challenging schools and their partners. The massive influx of refugees in 2015 and 2016 can be seen as such a challenge for both schools as well as their partners. During this period, hundreds of thousands fled the war zones of the Middle East and Africa, seeking asylum in Europe (EUROSTAT, 2020). Among them, nearly a third were minors aged less than 18 years old who came with their families or on their own (ibd., own calculations). Undoubtedly, the reception of such a large number of refugees in a very short period was a major challenge for the countries of Europe and the European Union itself, both politically and administratively. Politically, immigration has triggered an ongoing controversy over the Union’s immigration policy and led to a tightening of EU regulations and national asylum laws (Kreichauf, 2018). Above all, however, the rapid need for accommodation and care was associated with considerable demands on local, regional, and national governments and administration services, which also revealed specific weaknesses and shortcomings (for Germany: e.g. Hahnewinkel, 2015). In Germany, this is particularly true for the school system. Although newly immigrated children and youth have been enrolled in schools since the 1970s, the education of newly arrived refugee children and youth has often been perceived as a completely new challenge in terms of educational policy and school practice (Terhart et al., 2017). In this respect, it was not only a question of a quick school enrollment, but also of suitable forms of instruction and help with learning the German language and with homework, and last but not least appropriate leisure activities. There is no question that the great commitment of civil society actors, which was found throughout Europe, played a decisive role in supporting refugees and for their social integration within the communities. In Germany alone, around 10% of the adult population volunteered to assist refugees in 2015 (Karakayali, 2019). For many of these volunteers, it was the first time they had assisted migrants and refugees. Nearly 50% of the newly engaged volunteers organized language courses and leisure activities, offered extra lessons, or helped in finding schools and training opportunities (Kleist, 2017). Volunteers also worked in day-care centers, in vocational training and, above all, in schools (Steiner et al., 2020). In addition, students and their parents supported those new to Germany within school, for example through mentorships. It was not unusual for civil society organizations and volunteers to take over the services and tasks of often overwhelmed administrations (Pries, 2019). Ultimately, it was civil society organizations and volunteers who implemented Angela Merkel’s encouragement “We can manage it!”. Many of these volunteers worked longer than expected to support the refugees; and following the

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first spontaneous support of individuals, more organized volunteer initiatives for refugees and migrants often developed within the community. Thus, the so-called “Summer of Welcome” is an example of the efficiency with which regional, and in particular civil society actors, can quickly respond even to major social challenges. It also seems to confirm the new welfare state logic that has been established over the past decades, and which relies more on private than state protection against social risks (Lessenich, 2009). Civil society has a special role to play here because it is less about individualized protection than about support that relies on local communities in particular (van Dyk & Misbach, 2016). The intended sharing of risks as the joint responsibility of state and private actors from business and civil society is combined with the idea of a partnership among those involved. In this chapter, the role of partnerships between schools and civil society organizations is examined, especially those working in the field of immigration and refuge for the social integration of newly immigrated students into the school community. Do the partnerships work in times when newly immigrated children and youth are in particular need of support? Alternatively, do the potential risks of such partnerships become more visible at such times? With recourse to theoretical approaches to social capital, it is first shown that equitable and beneficial relationships are only possible under certain conditions. Therefore, there are typical problems that need to be solved when working together in partnerships, particularly in partnerships between organizations. It becomes clear that new forms of educational governance formalize the relationships more strongly and thus become the subject of negotiation processes (section “Social capital, welfare policies and partnerships in education”). In section “Partnerships in education & the schooling of the newly arrived children and youth in Germany”, the latest educational reforms in Germany and the importance of partnerships between schools and community actors are presented. The aim of these reforms is, in particular, to promote social integration and school-based learning for students with a migration background. In the case of newly immigrated children and youth, especially refugees, they are often involved in various administrative processes and schooling situations due to their often insecure residence status. Here, social relationships and the school’s partnerships form an important counterweight. Based on a survey of school principals carried out by the German Youth Institute (for more details see section “Schools and their partners: A study of the impact of partnerships on social integration”). The results of an analysis of the changes in the partnerships between schools and out of school partners during the Summer of Welcome are presented in section “Findings” of this chapter. Of particular interest is the role civil society actors have been playing within these changes and the contributions they have made to integration of the newly arrived students into the school community. Finally, the findings are summarized and discussed (section “Conclusions”).

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Social Capital, Welfare Policies and Partnerships in Education A child’s educational attainment depends significantly, amongst other factors, on the family’s socioeconomic background. Children from socially and economically privileged and disadvantaged families show different achievements when they start school (e.g. Cunha et al., 2006). This difference is largely retained during school. Germany belongs to those countries where the dependency is pronounced and is particularly at the expense of immigrant children and youth (Edele & Stanat, 2011). This is especially true for first-generation immigrant students, who in most countries perform worse than native students and second-generation immigrant students (OECD, 2015). However, the development of competencies and the acquisition of degrees depend not only on the family resources and everyday practices, but also on the school itself and the wider social environment the school is situated in. One of the first researchers to point this out explicitly was James Coleman (1966, 1982, 1988). Coleman showed that, given a similar family background and performance level, students in private schools performed better than students in public schools. Coleman attributed this to supportive characteristics of the school community, such as shared values and norms and stable social relationships characterized by mutual appreciation and support within the school, but also in the family and the neighborhood. In communities that are characterized by a high degree of trust and reciprocal social relationships, the willingness to exchange information and to help each other is greater. This opens up the possibility of achieving goals that would otherwise not have been possible. From a theoretical point of view, Coleman addresses this specific value of social relationships as social capital and emphasizes its importance for education, i.e., for the creation of human capital. Meanwhile, numerous findings are available on the effects of the social composition within the neighborhoods and within schools, as well as on the influence of family and intra-school social relationships on the development of individual performance, on school success or on the educational aspirations of children and young people. They suggest that the factors mentioned do have an influence on school success, albeit to a different extent and without, however, reaching the explanatory power of the individual student requirements for school success (Ditton, 2011). For example, the influence of the students’ social composition on individual performance development (e.g. Marsh, 1987) and on the students’ development of educational aspirations (e.g. Dupriez et al., 2012) is well documented. Furthermore, there is also broad agreement that parents’ involvement (PI) in school issues supports the learning processes and school success of their child (e.g. Epstein et  al., 2002). However, in the relevant studies the understanding of what exactly parents’ involvement is differs strongly. The influence of their engagement on the educational success of their child is correspondingly different in the various studies (Betz et al., 2017). The fact that not only the social composition of the school but also that of the neighborhood has an influence on the success of children and youth in school is particularly evident in heavily socially segregated neighborhoods. Here the

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advantages and disadvantages of a socio-economically more or less privileged local population and a resulting socially more or less privileged student community within the school can almost certainly accumulate. The meta-study by Brazil (2016) also shows that neighborhoods not only have an independent influence on school success, but also on a number of outcomes that are important for the development of children and youth, such as health. Neighborhoods differ not only with regard to the socio-economic composition of the inhabitants, but also with regard to the offers and activities that are possible within them. Extra-curricular activities, for example, not only take place in school but also in the context of community programs that are carried out by a wide variety of organizations, including civil society organizations, such as sports clubs or grassroots youth initiatives (Mahoney et al., 2005). The participation of children and young people in extra-curricular activities is considered to be beneficial for social development, but also for school success, although it is not always clear in detail which specific participation and design aspects this is owing to (Feldman Farb & Matjasko, 2011). This brief and selective insight into the body of research shows that the school context can have various effects on individual school success, but it also shows that the actual added-value of school-related social capital may be disregarded. This can be exemplified by the study by Gutman and Midgley (2000). Gutman and Midgley examined various promising factors for avoiding students’ underperformance in school, such the students’ confidence in their performance, parental involvement, support from teachers and the students’ identification with their school. They found that none of these factors alone had an impact on good school performance, but their combination did. This indicates that the beneficial power of social capital is based on the comparatively long-term membership in a particular group. The group members are linked by mutual commitments, trust, shared beliefs and values. Only when a group, a community or a network is structured in this way does the individual group member benefit from it. Robert Putnam (1993, 2000) introduced the distinction between close social contacts (social bonds), relationships with other social members (social bridges), and relationships with state institutions (social links). While close social contacts within a group lead to caretaking and a sense of belonging, across-group relationships are seen as particularly helpful for building useful opportunities and resources (Roffey, 2012). While across-group relationships also exist within an organization, e.g. between teachers and educators within a school, both social bridges and social links focus on actors outside of an organization. Both draw attention to the dynamic aspects of the creation of social capital, i.e. under which structural conditions of a group or network it can arise or change. Moreover, this contradicts the idea that social networks tend to social closure and exclusivity, as for example, Bourdieu (1983) claimed. From his point of view, social closure is a strategy of network members to secure the advantages of the network for themselves, which is a strategy that leads to the reproduction of social inequality. Granovetter (1973), too, pointed out the usefulness of cross-group contacts, especially of the power of so-called weak ties, which are, among other things, particularly helpful when looking for a new job. According to Granovetter, in the case

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of job search it is not a person’s close relationships that matter most, but rather their rather loose contacts that come from various circles of friends and acquaintances who work in very different professions and industries and therefore have a broad variety of useful information and connections. Nonetheless, the building of the bridging social capital is considered demanding because it is usually about relationships between unequals; therefore, the boundaries of social, political, or even professional identities have to be overcome (Kern, 2004). This is especially true in the case of partnerships, not only but also of partnerships in education. The study by Dhillon (2009), which examined the partnerships of British education and training providers, shows that the formation of social capital in the sense of trusting relationships based on shared norms and values is essential for the functionality and sustainability of partnerships. The study also shows, however, that closely related members of the partnership assume a kind of management function, to expand the partnership but also as a kind of social glue despite the different demands, resources or varying level of trust amongst the members. Calabrese (2006), who studied a high school-university partnership, describes very similar processes. Since many organizations have some bonding social capital, the building of bridging social capital is very demanding, because partners have to learn to see each other as equals, and have to overcome concerns about protecting their own interests while finding common goals. To sum up, studies on building partnerships show that in order to create positive social relations there are some serious limitations to overcome. First, the building of social capital is based on intensive interactions and a constant investment is necessary to maintain the supportive and useful character of such relations, networks and communities. In particular, restrictions in the autonomy and equality of those involved and in the expectation of reciprocity reduce the beneficial potential of social relationships and social networks or change their character. This is particularly important because equality and autonomy are important prerequisites for a partnership. Private interests and ideas have to be negotiated over with the other partners. Thus, the network becomes a negotiating network that can also lead to the development of an (in)formal rule set to prevent the case of negative externalities such as mistrust or the exploitation of specific actors. Given that the successful establishment of long-term partnerships is very demanding, the question arises as to how effective the promotion of partnerships within the framework of government programs can be. With regard to educational policies, the idea of decentralization, which favors responsibility and autonomy for local administrations as well as educational institutions in designing local educational structures and offerings, has prevailed in all OECD countries (Martin et al., 2016). For its part, the state takes on a more coordinating and activating role (ibid.). This also includes out-of-school actors such as businesses or civil society organisations and initiatives. Especially in Germany, it is expected that schools, in particular, will open up and cooperate with local actors by building partnerships based on joint responsibility (see next section). However, especially those civil society actors involved in the field of migration and asylum work see the Summer of Welcome as a particularly striking example of

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the use of civil society actors, who are perceived primarily as producers of social services (Mayblin & James, 2019). Civil society actors do not want to merely be a Notnagel (bandaid) for welfare state deficits; they are also concerned with changing the social conditions which have produced the consequences they need to compensate for with their work (Atac, 2015). On the other hand, there are doubts, not only but also in the field of education, about the quality of work provided by (usually) non-trained volunteers and other civil society actors (van Dyk & Misbach, 2016). In the context of welfare state cutbacks, the fear is arising that volunteers contribute with their work to a de-professionalization. Ultimately, the central question that is raised concerns equality within partnerships among very unequal partners. Given that, Ostrum and Ahn (2001) assume that social capital can hardly be created through such external interventions. They also see regional and national institutions primarily as restrictive factors. Several studies have shown that the effectiveness and sustainability of promoted partnership are rather limited (Verger & Moschetti, 2017). In line with Dhillon, this is exactly because such programs and funding scheme are neglecting the importance of social capital. From this point of view, social capital is a necessary micro foundation of a partnership that allows it to continue following the partnerships’ goals even if the social and financial circumstances change. This might include both a shortage of resources and possibilities, as well as the use of new opportunities.

 artnerships in Education & the Schooling of the Newly P Arrived Children and Youth in Germany As already stated above, the governance of the education system in Germany has become more decentralized and has resulted in educational institutions, such as schools, gaining greater autonomy (section “Introduction: ‘We can manage it!’”). In this context, one educational reform in Germany is of particular interest because it explicitly relies on partnerships between schools and non-school actors: the expansion of all-day schools (Stecher et al., 2011; Stecher & Maschke, 2013). Germany has traditionally been one of the countries where school ends around lunchtime. Due to the growing participation of women in the labor market and the lack of day care centers for younger students’, this time structure has become an increasing problem for parents trying to balance family life and employment. In addition, the results of the first PISA study showed performance deficits for a relatively large proportion of the students. Moreover, it was becoming clear that in Germany educational success depends much more than in other OECD countries on the family background of the students. Against this background, all-day schools, which are based on an extended time frame, extra-curricular activities and cooperation with various outside-school actors, are meant to support both a better balance between work and family life and a better individual promotion of the students. This also applies in particular to the

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promotion of students with a migration background, who are not integrated into the school system in Germany in the same way as autochthonous children and youth, and are overrepresented in less-demanding school tracks (e.g. Wernig et al., 2008). In Germany, the Bundesländer (federal states) are responsible for the school system. However, the education ministers of the federal states have agreed on a number of nationwide criteria that a school must fulfill in order to be recognized as an all-­ day school. To work together with partners outside the school is one of these binding requirements. Additional rules and procedures are defined by the respective federal states. In some states, an explicitly output oriented-strategy was used, where schools could apply with their own program to become an all-day school (Tillmann, 2011). In all cases, schools have a relatively high level of autonomy in terms of the educational design. With regard to the core elements – extracurricular activities and partnerships  – schools were usually able to fall back on existing structures. For example, partnerships with civil society organizations such as sports clubs or cultural associations have a long tradition in schools (Arnoldt & Züchner, 2020). In addition, prior to the introduction of the all-day school there were already additional educational offerings for the students in nearly in every school, such as choirs, sport activities or scientific projects (Krüger & Kötters, 2000). However, both schools and partners were confronted with changed conditions due to the introduction of all-day schools. Schools had to ensure that this new form of everyday school life was reliable both organizationally and pedagogically. Therefore, the partnerships between schools and the partners from outside the schools became more binding and they are now based on formal agreements or contracts. Although partners were strengthened in their position, not least because of the greater demand for their services and the increased recognition and legitimacy of partnerships, the cooperation is still characterized by tensions until today. Partners often do not feel as though they are equals and think that their organizational and educational autonomy is restricted. This not only applies to cooperation between organizations, but also to cooperation between the various educational professions. The example of the expansion of all-day schools shows that even if there is already experience with partnerships, typical conflicts in relationships or partnerships rise up again and must be dealt with by the partners due to changes in the framework conditions, triggered in this case by an educational reform. Due to research findings on the beneficial effects of all-day school offers with regard to the social integration of schoolchildren, and the development of their social competencies, there was a comparatively high degree of agreement, both in education policy and among practitioners, that extra-curricular activities and partnerships would be important factors for the integration of newly immigrated students. In particular, the extra-curricular activities can be seen as both an opportunity to bond with native-born schoolmates and to offer additional support for learning. In addition to setting up additional preparatory classes, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research supported the establishment of local coordination centers for new immigrants. These centers are not only meant to support a quick integration of new immigrants and coordinate the existing educational offers, but also to initiate additional offers and projects (Pädagogisches Institut, 2019).

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However, this process also leads to regional imbalances that make educational work as well as the participation of asylum seekers in education difficult--among other reasons, because it can take asylum seeking children and youth a comparatively long time to finally get enrolled in a school. According to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Assembly, 1989), as well European Union law and the German Grundgesetz, minor asylum seekers have the right to education. The school laws in most of the German federal states include compulsory school attendance for minor asylum seekers. Children and youth who arrive in Germany with their families or on their own should attend school no later than three months after arriving. However, in a number of federal states, compulsory schooling only begins after leaving the reception centers and having been assigned to a particular community (Lewek & Naber, 2017). The reason for this is to avoid children and youth having to change schools too often, since the stay in a reception center is intended to be short. Since 2015, due to legal changes, the reception center can also be used for long-term or permanent stays. The consequence is that the schooling of children who live in a reception center is significantly more precarious than that of children and youth who have been assigned to a community. According to a survey conducted by UNICEF Germany among employees of reception centers, at the time of the survey every fifth minor inhabitant had no school lessons at all (Klaus & Millies, 2018). Due to the precarious situation, support networks of volunteers and refugee initiatives have been built in some neighborhoods near the reception facilities in order to provide quick and broad-ranging support. For asylum seekers, the way to their apartment is often particularly long. After several months in a reception center, accepted asylum-seekers live in the communities to which they have been assigned initially in communal accommodation before they can move into their own apartment. Most immigrant families find an apartment in neighborhoods that are particularly accessible to them, under consideration of their limited financial means due to their uncertain residency rights (Helbig & Jähnen, 2019). In other words, integration mainly takes place in the neighborhoods where a high proportion of disadvantaged families already live. This has immediate consequences for the school attendance of their children. Enrollment of the children and youth is through the local school authorities or the local integration centers according to the ability of each child in the language of instruction as well as additional criteria such as the previous schooling. However, there seems to also be informal, pragmatic regulatory practices such as the assignment of refugee children and youth to schools near their place of residence, the available capacities within the schools or the willingness of schools to accept them (Altermann et al., 2018; Baier & Siegert, 2018). Schools have various possibilities for taking in the newly immigrated students. Besides the direct placement in regular classes and additional courses in German, there might be preparatory classes that permit a gradual participation in regular classes or a transition to the regular class at a particular time. Preparatory classes are a central element in the schooling of newly immigrated students. There has been a large increase in their numbers over the course of the past few years, owing to the

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large number of newly immigrated minors in all of the German Länder (Autorengruppe Bildungsberichterstattung, 2018). There are now indications that preparatory classes are not evenly spread across schools, but rather appear to be primarily a part of less-demanding academic tracks (Kemper, 2016). Since these schools have a high percentage of youth with a migration background, this can be seen as an indicator for an increased ethnic segregation among the schools. In sum, it can be seen that the distribution of asylum seekers in the regions and schools tends to increase rather than reduce existing social disparities. Within the school, however, the pedagogical work is oriented toward a fast integration into a regular class (Otto et al., 2016). Some schools combine models mentioned above in order to have more options to support students. In some schools, students and their parents support the new classmates’ “arrival at school” by mentoring (ibid.). Existing relations and networks with community partners are seen as an important resource for involving professionals and volunteers within the schools. There is no doubt that schools work with local integration centers, but also with refugee initiatives or social services for immigrants.

 chools and Their Partners: A Study of the Impact S of Partnerships on Social Integration This paper explores the question as to what role partnerships between schools and civil society organizations, especially those working in the field of immigration and asylum play in the social integration of newly immigrated students into the school community. Given the outlined discussion in section “Social capital, welfare policies and partnerships in education” and section “Partnerships in education & the schooling of the newly arrived children and youth in Germany”, it can be assumed that schools tend to stay with established partnerships rather than expanding their search for new partners (hypothesis 1). With regard to the bridging function of social capital, civil society partners should play a role during the enrollment process of newly immigrated students and support them in finding access to communities or help them in clearing up administrative issues (hypothesis 2). Civil society partners, play a less important role in the creation of additional offerings for newly immigrated students; primarily additional staff and volunteers do this (hypothesis 3). Participants & Background Information The analysis is based on the data of an online survey of school principals of lower secondary schools from four German federal states, which was conducted by the German Youth Institute during the summer of 2017. It is a multi-thematic survey, which also includes the topic of the partnerships, especially those with initiatives, organizations and administrative services who are working for and with migrants and refugees. From the 557 school principals participating in the survey, only 468 were responsible for schools that had accepted newly arrived students since the 2015/2016 school year. The definition of a newly arrived student used in the survey

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is that he or she came to Germany no more than two years ago with little or no knowledge of German, no matter where she or he is from or for what reason she or he came. This includes not only refugee children and youth, but also immigrants, especially from EU member states. However, nearly two-thirds of the schools enrolled newly arrived students before the 2015/2016 school year (see Table 13.1). The number of newly arrived students varies considerably from school to school. The average proportion of newly arrived student is around 15% of all students. According to the school principals, almost a third of the schools accepted significantly more than the average 15% of newly immigrated students. The schools work with a number of local partners. A surprisingly high proportion of schools, around 50%, worked with volunteer initiatives for refugees and immigrants, who supported newly immigrated students already during their enrollment process. Overall, working local partners seems to be very common: Only a small proportion did not work with any of the partners listed. To support the social integration and the learning of the newly arrived students, schools could get Table 13.1  Descriptive statistics for variables: frequencies, means and standard deviation (SD) Independent variables Enrolled newly arrived students before 2015/16 Average proportion of newly arrived students Above average proportion of newly-arrived students School is working with… 1. Social work agencies for asylum seekers 2. Volunteer initiatives for Refugees & Immigrants 3. Psychotherapists for Children & Youth 4. Community agencies 5. Other partners Other partners (at least one of partner 1, 3, 4, 5) Enrollment supported by volunteers or refugee initiatives Additional funding Additional volunteers Additional teachers & educators School with more than one school track All-day school 1 compulsory model 2 partly compulsory model 3 open model

N

Mean or %

SD

468 412

65.8% 15.4 30.9%

25.8

469 469 469 469 469 469 469 465 467 467 469 469

13.7% 50.8% 21.3% 76.1% 13.4% 86.8% 48.0% 66.5% 27.2% 44.5% 36.2%

Schools located in a city Dependent variables Changes in partnerships 1 intensified 2 new partner

469

Above-average additional offerings: Learning support Above-average additional offerings: Social support

469 469

40.9% 8.5% 20.5% 40.5%

466 18.0% 19.1% 22.0% 26.7%

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or apply for additional funding. In sum, two-thirds of the schools have received additional funding. This was one of the reasons why schools were able to attract additional volunteers (27.2%), but above all additional educators and teachers (44.5%) to work at the school. Germany has a differentiated school system. More than a third of the schools that participated in the survey offered a variety of school tracks. As a rule, however, they did not lead to a school leaving certificate that would entitle students to study at university. Students usually attend school from grade 5 to grade 10 and are between 11 and 17 years old. Most schools (70%) are all-day schools, but they differ according to whether the students participate voluntarily or compulsorily in extracurricular activities. Around 40% of the schools are situated in a city. The interest of the analysis is to find out what impact the presented school characteristics had on the changes in partnerships during the Summer of Welcome, particularly concerning the intensification of existing partnerships and the acquisition of new partners . Of particular interest is the role civil society actors have been playing within these changes and the contributions, in the form of additional offerings, they have been making to the successful integration of the newly arrived students into the school community. Therefore, several multiple logistic regression models were conducted.

Findings Schools have been working with different partners for a long time, and certainly for different purposes. The cooperation with out-of-school actors in all-day schools has already been mentioned. In addition, all schools work together with agencies, stakeholders from the economy, such as the local chamber of commerce and companies as well as other educational institutions to prepare young people for working life and to support the school-to-work trajectory, especially the transition into vocational training. The partners of the schools do not necessarily form a common network. They can each form their own networks or working groups due to the different objectives. In addition, the intensity of the cooperation is likely to be very different. In some cases, such as the collaboration with the Employment Agency, it is an established collaboration that is anchored in school law; other collaborations are permanent and based on agreements, and schools have a regular, but event-related, exchange with some organizations. In view of Granovetter’s argumentation, such rather loose relationships are an important resource for bridging social capital that can support the admission of newly immigrated children and youth to the new school and their integration into the new neighborhood. Due to the great commitment of civil society actors, as well as the additional local coordination centers and support structures, the headmasters were also asked which agencies, organizations and volunteers in migration and refugee work they were working together with at the time of the survey. The majority of the school administrators (around 80%) referred to the cooperation with the local coordination

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centers; after all, more than every second school worked with a volunteer refugee initiative (Table  13.1). All other options  – such as working with child and youth psychotherapists, social workers for asylum seekers or other people and groups – are far less common. Changes Within the Partnerships Network Given the large number of schools that work with the partly newly-established local coordination centers and with voluntary refugee initiatives – which also were only just established – it seems reasonable to assume that schools will work primarily with new partners. As the corresponding information in Table  13.1 shows, only around every fifth headmaster stated that, their school also worked with new partners in the course of accepting new immigrant students. A roughly equal proportion of schools that work with partners has intensified this contact, but no new partnerships have been established. However, there was no change in almost two thirds of all schools. First, this means that partnerships between schools and local authorities, agencies or initiatives that are engaged in the field of migration and refugee work are apparently only partly about new working relations. The results of the logistic regression model (Table 13.2) show furthermore that these are precisely the actors with whom the schools have intensified the partnership or made such intensification possible. The same is true for the building of new partnerships or the support of their development. For example, municipal coordination centers need not only be or become partners of schools themselves; it is also part of their mandate to act as an intermediary for partnerships and offerings, or to support existing partnerships. In contrast, refugee initiatives seem to have found increased access to schools as new partners during this period of increasing migration and enrollment of newly arrived students. The same applies to child and adolescent psychotherapists who - if they have already worked with schools - have now intensified their collaboration. These influences essentially persist, even when further factors are included that could contribute to the intensification of existing partnerships or the finding of new ones. All-day schools, in which the students take part voluntarily (open model), tended to look for new partners when they accepted new immigrant students at their school, as opposed to half-day schools and all-day schools, where the participation is compulsorily for all or at least some of the students. One possible reason for this could be greater flexibility in working with partners, given that the offerings in an open model all-day school depend on the number and specific needs of the participating students. Additional financial resources, as well as an urban environment, favor the search for new partners. The latter is plausible insofar as cities usually combine a larger number and greater diversity of potential partners. With regard to the beneficial effect of additional financial resources in the search for new cooperation partners, the interaction effect included in the statistical model shows that schools located in cities that have additional funds to support the newly arrived students tend to invest them into existing partnerships rather than into the new ones. The same effect can be found for the intensification of partnerships. Possible explanations are

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Table 13.2  Multinomial logistic regression: changes within the partnerships network Reference: no changes

Social work agencies for asylum seekers Volunteer initiatives for Refugees & Migrants Psychotherapists for Children & Youth Community agencies Other partners All-day school – open model Newly-arrived students enrolled before 2015 Above average proportion of newly-arrived students School with more than one school track Additional funding City Additional funding x City Constant N Prob > chi2 / pseudo R2

Model 1 Intensified partnerships OR Sig 2.00 *

New partner OR Sig 1.47 ns

Model 2 Intensified partnerships OR Sig 2.07 *

New partner OR Sig 1.53 ns

1.54

ns

2.32

**

1.54

ns

2.74 **

2.47

**

2.44

**

1.92

*

2.14 **

3.61 3.33

** **

4.27 4.53

*** 3.16 *** 2.79 0.95 1.59

** ** ns ns

3.67 4.10 2.34 1.23

0.79

ns

1.17 ns

0.96

ns

0.82 ns

ns ns ** ***

4.40 6.61 0.24 0.01

0.05 *** 0.04 466 0.000 /0.08

0.96 0.35 6.42 *** 0.04 461 0.000 /0.13

** *** ** ns

** ** * ***

ns not significant, * p