Between Transaction and Collaboration: Struggles for Coherence, Responsiveness, and Mutuality in a Fizzled-Out Research-Practice Partnership

Abstract

A movement for research-practice partnerships (RPPs) in education has gained momentum, defined as long-term collaborations between researchers and practitioners involving mutually beneficial joint work. Given the history of transactional relationships, establishing a long-term collaboration poses challenges. While scholars have warned that many RPP efforts may not succeed, few studies have examined unsuccessful partnerships. Through analysis of interviews and meeting recordings, this paper traces interactions that enabled and hindered collaboration in an aspiring district-university RPP that fizzled out after one year. The study revealed three core struggles: (a) coherence struggles when working across a siloed district invited fragmented goals; (b) responsiveness struggles when reactive adaptations to emergent needs competed with a longer-term vision; and (c) mutuality struggles when funding arrangements positioned university partners as service providers rather than collaborative researchers. These struggles pulled the partnership into transactional interactions and contributed to the partnership’s dissolution, posing implications about collaborative partnership development.