Discourses of collaboration and participant positioning in research-practice partnerships

Abstract

This study examines how researchers and practitioners navigate between different discourses in a large-scale research-practice partnership (RPP). While argued to be challenging to conduct, RPPs are also argued to be promising for closing the research-practice gap in education. To contribute to our understanding of RPPs, 45 h of video recorded interactions between researchers and practitioners in a large scale RPP including 300 participants are analyzed. Through a discourse analysis, the presence of two discourses is identified: (1) an outcome-oriented discourse that aligns with traditional positions and division of labour, and (2) a process-oriented discourse that aligns with collaborative and less hierarchical positions. Explanations for the results are discussed in relation to didactic and curriculum traditions, as well as resource management and task distribution. Moreover, it is argued that, while the negotiation of discourses is necessary to avoid hegemony, the negotiation also produces ambiguous participant identities in the RPP.