Youth-championing research-practice collaboration as vehicle for collaborative knowledge discovery and stewardship: insights from an exploratory study with four schools in the Western Cape, South Africa

Abstract

In educational research, interest in collaborative research strategies including research-practice partnerships (RPPs), research-practice collaborations (RPCs) and related approaches has grown significantly over the past decade, expanding beyond RPPs initial roots in the US to an increasingly global footprint. Yet many questions remain about how to engage in collaborative educational research as well as the benefits, ‘impact’, and relevance of doing so for all parties involved. The South African context is one of many - outside the US, UK, and other emerging hot spots - where the potential of these approaches has only been explored sporadically. The core focus of this proof of principle study is how enabling, hospitable spaces for collaborative knowledge discovery and stewardship (CKD&S) can be fostered through RPCs with schools in the Western Cape, SA. RPC is defined as a concept that is closely related to RPPs yet distinct in potentially valuable ways in terms of key challenges that have been identified around the significant investments such partnerships demand. The thesis narrates and interprets four emergent, youth-championing RPCs with schools that ran in parallel over the first two terms of 2023. These RPCs centred on the collaborative prototyping of a developmental intervention for learners in key transitional grades in the SA education system. Drawing on the perspectives of school leaders, staff as well as over 200 learners, the potential of RPCs as vehicles for fostering enabling, hospitable spaces for CKD&S that are tailored to context, allow for differentiated collaborator engagement as well as flexible, distributed, servant leadership, is considered. The discussion augments broader deliberations in the literature on the formative potential of RPCs for researchers and practitioners, as well how the value and transferability of these collaborative research strategies may be assessed. A proposal for first prototype heuristic to support clearer conversations around CKD&S activities is outlined