ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Leadership in Education
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1657547
This article is part of the Research TopicStrengthening Equity in and through Research Collaborations in EducationView all articles
People, Politics, and Pivots: Sustaining Research-Practice Partnership Collaboration
Provisionally accepted
- 1University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, United States
- 2University of California San Diego, La Jolla, United States
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A growing body of scholarship outlines the value of research-practice partnerships (RPPs) for disrupting inequities across education systems. While promising, RPP work is also complex as partners navigate politics, turnover, and distinct organizational cultures and goals. To support the field with navigating such complexities, we examine approaches for sustaining RPP collaboration over time. Our work is situated in a national RPP that brings together researchers and 30 leaders across 28 state education agencies to improve multilingual learner policy and practice. Analysis of extensive interview and observation data collected over five years revealed practices supporting joint work amidst significant shifts in membership and national politics. We conclude with actionable recommendations for researchers and practitioners to sustain RPP collaboration over time.
Keywords: Research-practice partnerships, RPPs, collaboration, state education agencies, multilingual learner policy
Received: 01 Jul 2025; Accepted: 19 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Weddle, Hopkins, Shanahan and Stern. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Hayley Weddle, hweddle@pitt.edu
Megan Hopkins, mbhopkins@ucsd.edu
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