Dynamics in District–University Partnerships Focused on Leadership for Equity

Abstract

This paper discusses the development of district–university partnerships at the onset of a multi-year grant-funded initiative focused on leadership for equity. Using three illustrative partnership cases, we investigated district–university collaboration through the lens of mutualism, or the mutually beneficial nature of the relationship. Our data analysis revealed the following dynamics as important for the development of mutualism: shared commitment, shared ownership, new collaborative structures, reciprocal benefits, and boundary spanners. We approached partnerships as learning processes, and used a typology of interorganizational learning to understand better how these dynamics sustained the partnerships. Our study contributes to the field’s knowledge of the development of formal partnerships in general as well as of partnerships explicitly focused on equity specifically.

1. Introduction

This paper explores the development of district–university partnerships at the onset of a national multi-year grant-funded initiative focused on leadership for equity. District–university partnerships can be vital to preparing high-quality leaders who can meet the urgent needs of school districts [1]. While the emphasis on partnerships goes back decades, newer forms of district–university partnerships hold particular promise for addressing vexing educational problems because of their commitment to long-term collaboration and intentionality in creating spaces where differences can be made visible and negotiated (e.g., [2,3]). We examine a case in which the district–university partnerships were focused on developing equity-centered school leaders, with support from research teams collaborating with, but outside, the partnerships themselves.

We investigate formal collaborations between eight urban districts in the United States and their university partners, which launched in 2021. We highlight the development of collaborative relationships between three of these districts and their university partners (two per district) in the first year of the initiative, during which the partners developed the enduring structure of their partnerships. The partners came togetehr to build preparation pathways and support mechanisms for equity-centered school leaders. This was a shared goal that benefited both the districts and the universities. We posit that exploring the beginning of formal partnerships is valuable because it shapes their trajectory in essential ways.

While they are not research–practice partnerships (RPPs), which center research rather than program development, these partnerships share many of the defining features of RPPs and functioned as “long-term, mutualistic collaborations between practitioners and researchers that are intentionally organized to investigate problems of practice and solutions for improving district outcomes” [4] (p. 2). In line with this definition, we explore the processes that bring the partners closer together and those that present obstacles to mutualism, or, broadly, “sustained interaction that benefits both researchers and practitioners” [4] (p. 3). Mutualism is a key element of successful partnerships [3,4]. Our analysis is guided by the following research questions: How do universities and districts develop partnerships focused on equity? What processes seem to move the partners closer to mutualism? What processes seem to erode mutualism?

We address these questions using field notes and interviews to illustrate how the partnerships evolved in the first year of their work together (2021–2022). Our data analysis revealed the following themes related to mutualism: shared commitment, shared ownership, new collaborative structures, reciprocal benefits, and boundary spanning. We explore these dynamics through the lens of interorganizational learning to better understand the learning processes that unfolded as the partners came together in ways that both supported and weakened the development of mutualism.

2. Literature Review

Universities and K-12 school districts have a long history of partnering together to improve students’ educational experiences, and these types of partnerships have only increased in recent years [2,3,5]. In the last decades of the 20th century, district–university partnerships were most often established as a means to an end: to meet universities’ needs by providing them with data sources and training sites for students [6,7]. More recently, however, partnerships have begun to transform. Research–practice partnerships, in particular, have shown how sustained collaboration can be mutually beneficial if partners focus on urgent problems of practice, promote shared ownership of activities and goals, intentionally establish strategies that foster the partnership, and produce original analyses (e.g., [4]).

The scholarly literature also provides examples of district–university partnerships specifically focused on equity. One collaborative practice is inquiry into district practices through the lens of equity, also known as equity audits [8]. These audits provide valuable opportunities for districts to systematically explore data that make visible how equity is playing out in their systems [9]. They also give districts access to the voices of a range of stakeholders, including community members [10]. Many successful district–university partnerships take care to involve community stakeholders in decision-making as well (e.g., [11]). District–university partnerships can play a role in shaping school leader pathways and increasing the access of aspiring leaders of color to high-quality preparation programs. Reyes-Guerra and colleagues [12] illustrate that a robust multi-year partnership between a district and a university can help establish “a leadership candidate pool which has allowed the district to hire diverse instructional leaders into newly opened positions and address the student-leader demographic imbalance” (p. 59). Yamashiro and colleagues [13] discuss a collaboration between a university, districts, and community partners that supports the recruitment of leaders of color into a leader preparation program that focuses on cultural responsiveness and social justice. The partnership was mutually beneficial for the districts and the university: it increased the number of qualified leaders of color that districts could recruit, and at the same time prompted the university to refine its “curriculum offerings to focus more directly on anti-racist and culturally responsive leadership approaches” (p. 43). Scholars have also advocated for “radical partnerships” that center justice, create a “third space”, and de-center hierarchies [2].

Developing partnerships across large, complex organizations like universities and school districts can be challenging. Researchers describe several common hurdles to partnerships, including difficulties with communication, misaligned expectations, unclear roles, institutionalized power dynamics between individuals in the partnerships, and resource constraints [14,15,16,17].

Scholars have argued that the challenges and successes of partnerships hinge on how the collaborating organizations operate across boundaries [3,14]. For instance, changes in district leadership, shifts in their priorities, and gaining access to key decision-makers can all shape the success or failure of long-term partnerships [16].

These organizational challenges can come from the university side as well: changes to university structures can stymie partnership efforts [18]. While challenges certainly develop throughout a partnership, the beginning phase sets the stage for the partnership—assigning roles, creating organizational processes, and setting goals and norms for partners’ work together. This makes it especially important to study the start of a partnership.

The scholarship on partnerships has also highlighted factors that contribute to their success. First, an emphasis on reciprocal commitment, ownership, and control over collaborative activities—what scholars refer to as mutualism—can make partnerships long-lived and impactful [2,3,4]. As Goldstein and Matsuda share, partnerships work when people, “step back and consider the bigger picture of [their] interconnected purpose, and partner in service of that purpose” [19] (p. 10).

In addition to shared goals, successful partnerships have organizational processes, structures, and roles in place that support the organizations in reaching these goals. These include the creation of what scholars have called “trading zones”, or intellectual spaces where organizations can exchange ideas and information that further their work toward a common goal [3]. To create “trading zones”, partnerships need boundary practices [20] and boundary spanners, or individuals in either the school district or university who help facilitate effective communication and collaboration between partners [21,22,23]. Boundary spanners assess the constraints and assets of partners and balance organizational cultures as they work to achieve the goals of the partnership [24]. Researchers also emphasize establishing memorandums of agreement, transparency, and maintaining long-term relationships as critical components of successful partnerships [16,25]. Effective partnerships are maintained through continuous evaluation and reflection, as well as flexible partners who adapt to new research and changes in education [26]. These shared goals, new processes, and boundary-spanning roles all begin at the start of the partnership, making it especially important to investigate the early days of district–university partnership efforts.

One type of partnership that holds particular promise to produce tangible benefits is the research–practice partnership (RPP, e.g., [3]). Research–practice partnerships are “long term, mutually beneficial collaborations that promote the production and use of research” [27]. While the partnerships in our data were not classified as RPPs because they did not center research production and use, they shared similar goals to RPPs. We therefore rely on the significant body of scholarship that has examined these partnerships to better understand what makes district–university collaborations successful. Like RPPs, the specific district–university partnerships we investigate have the following characteristics:

• Established as long-term;
• Focused on the urgent problem of preparing and supporting leaders who can advance equity in schools;
• Intended to be mutually beneficial;
• Supported by collaborative structures and practices;
• Included the building of data systems that could inform both university programs and district selection, hiring, and placement decisions (see [4]).

Rather than focusing on research, however, the main benefit to the university partners was the opportunity to revise their programming, enroll new cohorts of students who were district employees, and provide professional learning to current school leaders in the partner districts. Researchers were studying the partnership, but these studies were separate from the universities engaging in the partnership itself. In this way, the core focus of the partnership remained on students: both education leadership students at the partner universities and, ultimately, K-12 students in the districts themselves. At the same time, the partners benefitted from collaborations with researchers who periodically shared findings from their ongoing analysis of the partnership. Unlike similar initiatives that operate independently from other partnerships (e.g., [2]), partners also benefitted from the other district–university partnerships involved in the grant. By illustrating the partnership dynamics outside the traditional research–practice partnership framework, we show important aspects of district–university partnership development that transcend the specific type of partnership at hand.

In this paper, we explore how this set of district–university partnerships developed in the first year of a multi-year initiative focused on leadership for equity. We use the collaborations between three large urban districts and their university partners as illustrative cases of themes that emerged in a larger dataset. While community organizations and state departments of education were also involved in the partnerships, we focus on the relationships between districts and universities. We leverage the notion of mutualism to explore the processes that both promoted and eroded the partnerships. We then reflect on the themes through the lens of learning mechanisms that characterize relationships across organizations.

3. Conceptual Framework

At their core, partnerships are a “multi-process learning accomplishment”, with mutualism as one important goal [3] (p. 371). Mutualism, or “sustained interaction that benefits both researchers and practitioners” [4] (p. 3) is essential for functional research–practice partnerships. Here, we highlight how processes of interorganizational learning impact mutualism in the distinct district–university partnerships we study, demonstrating how processes of interorganizational learning occur in partnerships more generally. To do so, we use the four learning mechanisms described by Akkerman and Bakker [28]: identification, coordination, reflection, and transformation. Analyzing the partnerships based on these learning processes can help us better understand how the partners engaged with one another, what they did to support mutualism in the partnership, and what practices they could have put in place to strengthen mutualism.

Identification is a type of learning that helps clarify how two partners and their practices are different from one another. This process involves “othering” [28] (p. 142), in that the partners come to a clearer understanding of their unique contributions to a shared process, showcasing the mutual benefit of the partnership. Identification contributes to greater awareness by the partners of their own practices as well as those of the other partner organizations. Identification is also related to “legitimate coexistence” [28] (p. 143): the partners clarify their different roles within the shared process to themselves and to each other and accept that they need one another to move towards their shared goals. Importantly, identification does not necessarily entail alignment. The practices of the partners may not move towards greater coherence even as they develop clarity around what they and their partners do to address a shared problem. In this case, districts and universities must clarify their specific roles in preparing equity-centered leaders.

The second type of interorganizational learning that Akkerman and Bakker [28] describe is coordination. They define it as processes that allow organizations to “cooperate efficiently in distributed work, even in the absence of consensus” (p. 143). As our literature review illustrates, the emergence of intentional collaborative structures is necessary for long-term partnerships to develop mutualism (e.g., [4]). These collaborative structures are examples of “routinization”, or infrastructures that make current and future collaborative work “effortless” [28] (p. 144). Importantly, collaborative routines create stable spaces in which activity can be coordinated, but this may not contribute to cross-organizational consensus. Coordination bridges partners but cannot guarantee coherence in their efforts. In this case, districts, universities, and the funding organization had to work together to create new organizational structures to allow for collaborative work.

The third type of interorganizational learning is reflection. Reflection enables partners “to realize and explicate differences” in how they think about and do things [28] (p. 144). This understanding of differences can take the form of two related but distinct processes: perspective-making and perspective-taking. Perspective-making refers to “making explicit one’s understanding and knowledge of a particular issue” and is a way for a partner to look at themselves “through the eyes of other worlds” (p. 145). Perspective-taking, on the other hand, refers to taking the partner into consideration when making decisions and “is a way to begin to see things in a different light” (p. 145). These two processes can support partners in bringing coherence across their actions, avoiding misunderstanding, and expanding their identities. Reflection can allow partnering organizations to work through impediments to mutualism in their partnership activities.

The fourth type of interorganizational learning that Akkerman and Bakker [28] discuss is transformation. Transformation “leads to profound changes in practices, potentially even to the creation of a new, in-between practice” (p. 146). According to the authors, transformation can only occur when the partners are faced with a “problem that forces the intersecting worlds to seriously reconsider their current practices and … interrelations” (ibid.). In the case of the partnerships we analyze, this problem was the historic and continued marginalization in educational systems of particular student subgroups. The recognition of a “shared problem space” (p. 147) can lead to the creation of new “hybrid” spaces that bring organizations together (p. 148). Partnerships are an example of such a hybrid space, or “trading zone” [3].

Gomez et al. [3] claim that in a strong partnership, “minimally, the partners will engage in each of the stages outlined above” (p. 371). We agree, and feel that the learning typology contributes important insights about what helped build and erode mutualism in the partnerships we describe. We use this lens to reflect on our findings in the Discussion Section.

4. Materials and Methods

4.1. The Initiative

The work we analyze took place in the context of a five-year initiative focused on leadership for equity and funded by a national philanthropic organization. The initiative began in September 2021 and encompasses eight large urban districts in different parts of the United States. The districts applied to participate in the grant and were selected by the funder based on a number of factors including the stability of senior district leadership.

The funding organization approached school-level change with an emphasis on district leadership and cross-organizational partnerships. To participate, districts were asked to partner with two institutes of higher education, a state education agency, and a community organization. Representatives of these organizations and district leaders then formed a district partnership team. Each district had discretion in choosing its partners. The size of the partnership teams varied but tended to include a core of about ten members. The partnership team was led by a district staff member. This staff member’s position was paid for by the grant and in most districts focused almost exclusively on grant-related activities.

The funding agency supported the work on the initiative in a number of ways. First, it hired consultants who worked closely with the district-based team leaders and offered guidance and expertise in moving the work forward and meeting the grant deliverables. Second, it supported specific aspects of the work by providing technical assistance. The foundation hired an external organization to conduct an equity review of each district in the first year of the initiative. The foundation also provided the tool that all university partners used to conduct an equity-focused self-assessment of their leader preparation programs. Given the close relationship between the funding agency and the districts, we consider the grant itself and more specifically the foundation’s approach to change to be a key part of the context in which the district-based teams did their work.

Our research was supported by the funding agency as well. Research was positioned by the funder as a necessary and valuable part of the initiative, and all partners were expected to support and engage in research activities. Researchers were encouraged to minimize the burden of coordination and data collection on partners. As researchers, we intentionally and consistently cultivated relationships of transparency and trust with all partners.

4.2. The Districts and University Partners

The initiative involved eight large urban districts. In an effort to be both comprehensive and concrete, we selected three district teams as illustrative cases for our discussion of the district–university partnerships. This approach enabled us to provide specific examples that illustrate different district contexts. We selected the three districts based on the following criteria: (a) they engaged with different types of university partners (private/public and predominantly white institutions/minority-serving institutions, see

Table 1. University partner descriptions.

District	Partner	Type	Student Body	Location	History of District–University Collaboration
ESD	#1	private	Predominantly white institution	within the district	No prior history of collaboration
ESD	#2	private	Minority-serving institution	within the district	No prior history of collaboration
MUSD	#1	public	Land-grant university	within the district	Informal collaboration based on personal connections
MUSD	#2	private	Predominantly white Christian institution	outside the district	No history of prior collaboration
SCSD	#1	public	Minority-serving institution	outside the district	No history of prior collaboration
SCSD	#2	public	Minority-serving institution	within the district	20 years of informal collaboration

), (b) some districts had prior collaborative relationships with their university partners while others did not; and (c) they exemplified a range of collaboration dynamics and could serve as contrastive cases in illustrating the themes. Below, we provide contextual, demographic, and student achievement descriptions of each district.

The Eastern School District (ESD) is located in a large metropolitan city in the northeastern United States. Over 50,000 students are enrolled in just over 100 ESD schools. Student enrollment by race/ethnicity is predominantly African American at 51%. Additionally, the ESD enrolls 22% Hispanic, 2% Asian, and 3% multiracial students. Student achievement has been trending positively, as reported by NAEP Math and Reading data. Until recently, the district operated a number of charter schools in addition to the traditional public schools. Currently, there is a charter school board unaffiliated with the district, which operates charters in the city. The number of charter options has increased, decreasing the enrollment of students in the ESD. The ESD offers 11 dual language programs. There are 33 AP courses offered across all high schools. The district offers dual enrollment opportunities across 17 area colleges and universities. The 2023 student graduation rate was 75%. Interestingly, the majority of teachers (50%) and leaders (74%) identify as Black. The demographics for teachers across the district are as follows: White (29%), Latinx (11%), Asian (4%), and American Indian/Alaska Native (<1%). For leaders, the demographics are as follows: White (15%), Latinx (5%), and Asian (1%). Over 70% of teachers and leaders across the district are women.

The Middle Urban School District (MUSD) is located in a large urban city in the Midwest. The district enrolls nearly 50,000 students in over 100 schools. This reflects a decline in enrollment over the years. Notably, at its highest enrollment, the MUSD enrolled over 100,000 students. The MUSD is one of the largest employers in the area, employing nearly 10,000 people. The MUSD community is quite diverse, and the student body reflects this diversity as well. Student enrollment reflects the following ethnicities: 51% African/African American; 19% White; 19% Hispanic; 8% multiracial; and 3% Asian. Over 100 languages are spoken throughout the district. The average teacher in the district has over 15 years of experience and over half the district’s teachers hold a master’s degree. The district has several university partners with whom they work on various educational initiatives, including dual enrollment. The district offers robust extracurricular programming for students in athletics, fine arts, and career pathways leading to certification. Like many urban districts across the country, the MUSD has challenges with staffing, facilities, decreasing enrollment, student discipline, etc.

The Southern City School District (SCSD) is located in the southern US. Geographically, it spans 79 square miles. The urban community features historic sites, museums, art galleries, major league sport teams, and several institutions of higher education. The SCSD serves over 45,000 students in over 90 schools, across the following racial and ethnic demographic groups: African American (6%), Latinx (90%), White (3%), Asian, and multiracial. In terms of academic performance, the 2023 graduation rate was 87% (just below the state average of 90%). Notably, district students have posted double digit gains in Reading and Math. The district is currently involved in a focused effort to improve Black student performance, particularly in Mathematics. Additionally, the SCSD exceeds the state average of students graduating with dual credit and with associate’s degrees. The SCSD offers students unique opportunities like Wi-Fi connectivity on school buses, three single-gender schools, every high school offering dual credit, fine arts access to every student, and over 50 schools with dual language curricula. Like the Middle Urban School District, the SCSD has been challenged recently with the issue of school closures, due to underuse in certain segments of the district.

4.3. Data Collection

The analysis reported here is part of a larger research project. The data for the analysis are qualitative in nature.

Table 2. Data sources.

Data Source	Collection Context/Type of Artifact	Date Range
meeting notes	monthly team meetings Day at the Foundation district reporting event virtual convenings	November 2021 to June 2022 May/June 2022 November 2021, March 2022, June 2022
equity reviews	submitted to the team in writing	January/February 2022
initiative deliverables	grant application workplan for Year 1 definition of equity definitions of an equity-centered leader interim report logic model	April 2021 December 2021 February 2022 February 2022 April 2022 June 2022
interviews and focus groups with university and state partners	virtual	August through November 2022
interviews with district project leaders and superintendents	virtual	August through November 2023

provides a description of the data sources that informed the analysis. The findings reported here draw primarily on two types of data: (a) focus groups and interviews with university partners, and (b) interviews with district leader(s) for the initiative and district superintendents. In total, we collected 17 interviews/focus groups with university partners and 16 interviews with district coordinators and superintendents.

The research team collaboratively developed interview protocols to deepen our understanding of the nature of the partnership work, the history of each university partner’s working relationship with their district, and each university partner’s understanding of and approach to equity-oriented leadership preparation. The semi-structured nature of the interviews allowed for each participant to share their insights and perspectives. Each district had two different university partners, and staff from both institutions were interviewed by the team. Most often, university partners from the same institution were interviewed together, though in one case we conducted two separate interviews with different individuals. Interviews were conducted via Zoom and were scheduled for 60 min. Interviews took place at the end of the first year of the grant initiative, and more specifically August to November 2022. All interviews were recorded, transcribed, and cleaned for clarity.

Interviews with district leaders of the grant initiative and superintendents took place August to November 2023 and focused on the accomplishments of the grant. These interviews were also semi-structured in nature. The majority were conducted virtually and lasted between 45 and 90 min. All interviews were recorded, transcribed, and cleaned for clarity.

4.4. Data Analysis

This study represents a comparative multi-case study [29,30]. Multiple-case-study research is a qualitative methodology that allows researchers to compare individual cases, represent a diversity of qualities and extremes to create depth, and understand a broad phenomenon without losing the individuality of the single case studies [31]. In our analysis, each university partner represented a case that was bound by the context of the institution as well as that of the district.

The analysis of interview transcripts proceeded in several stages. All of these stages were collaborative and carried out using the MAXQDA qualitative software program. They consisted of thematic coding using the constant comparison method [32,33]. First, the team drafted a codebook that was informed by our developing knowledge of each district context and contained topics of interest related to partnership development. The existence of a codebook early in the process helped build coherence in the collaborative work. An important feature of the codebook was that it was broad in nature and treated as a heuristic by the team. It included categories such as equity definitions, collaborative work, history of the partnership, vision for the partnership, and resources.

Second, the team analyzed university partner interviews from six districts and compiled a list of tensions and assets as a way to synthesize emergent themes. Different team members focused on different districts and built a collective understanding of emerging cross-case themes during collaborative meetings. Third, two members of the research team drafted a second codebook that reflected these themes. Codes in the second codebook included the following: equity definition, shared vision, within-organizational dynamics, cross-organizational dynamics, external influences, power, and roles. Fourth, the research team coded partner interviews from all eight districts using the second codebook. This process enabled us to identify themes related to university–district partnership development across all research sites. These themes are represented here as the headings of the Findings Section. This step also made it possible for the team to select illustrative cases. Fifth, we analyzed interviews with district coordinators and superintendents. This step in the analysis confirmed that no new themes needed to be introduced.

5. Findings

We explore how district–university partnerships evolved during the first year of their collective work focused on leadership for equity, focusing specifically on the processes that led to mutualism and the processes that eroded mutualism. Five dynamics were particularly salient in how the partners developed mutualism: shared commitment, shared ownership, new collaborative structures, reciprocal benefits, and the role of boundary spanners [3,4]. These features help us illuminate the processes that both strengthened and challenged the partners’ movement towards mutualism.

5.1. Shared Commitment to Equity Work

5.1.1. An Urgent Problem of Practice

In order for universities and districts to develop mutualism in their partnership, they need to begin with a shared commitment to addressing an intractable problem of practice. In the case of the grant initiative, this problem is preparing and supporting leaders who can advance equity in the partner district’s schools.

All eight districts in the initiative applied for the initiative because they saw equity-centered leadership as an urgent and relevant issue. This sense of urgency was shared by the university partners. All university partners were committed to serving the district by preparing leaders who would have the knowledge and skills to support the learning and wellbeing of historically marginalized students. ESD partner #1, for example, shared, “I’ll reiterate that point …: as a university, we very much see ourselves as wanting to meet the needs of the districts that we’re serving” (focus group, 14 September 2022). This sentiment is echoed by university partner #1 for the MUSD, “I don’t think it’s any secret that [the district] does struggle in some areas of their academic performance and student outcomes. And so seeing how this work can have a positive impact on students will inform us … in how we recruit, prepare principals” (interview, 27 September 2022). This commitment was visible to the district partners, who saw it as a foundation for the success of the partnership: “And the work, the redesign work, last year was significant. The amount of time that we spent with [both our university partners], the level of people that they had dedicated to the project showed the commitment on the university side” (ESD district coordinator, 18 September 2023).

The district leaders’ explicit focus on serving historically marginalized students and families helped foster a sense of trust and shared purpose among the partners. As ESD partner #2 put it, “everyone is very clear that they are intentional about interrupting white supremacist constructs and blatant racism and practices. And then the other strength is, they are clear that this isn’t about making people feel good or making some people feel bad” (interview, 26 August 2022). The shared commitment to serving marginalized students helped ground the work of the partners and contributed to optimism in the success of their efforts. In the words of SCSD partner #2, “I feel very positive that we’re going to reach our initiatives because everybody’s very invested in the work” (focus group, 8 August 2022). From the point of view of the district, the trusting relationships were key to envisioning a future for the partnership: “And then also to think through … ‘How do we [the district and university partners] want to continue to work together with equity in mind?’ So … again this all goes to the part of its sustainability so we can have really strong roots” (SCSD district coordinator, 21 June 2023).

The grant initiative provided an opportunity for the university partners to contribute in more formal and systemic ways to advancing equity in their district partner’s schools. While the universities and districts in question had worked toward advancing equity in various ways before, by coming together in the context of this initiative they developed a shared focus for this general charge. Both the university representatives and the district leaders were committed to this vision. The shared sense of purpose that motivated the partners to engage in the work and created a sense of trust and optimism in the partnership.

5.1.2. Dissimilar Definitions of Equity

While the broad shared commitment to supporting leadership for equity united the partners, agreeing on definitions of equity introduced complexity into this shared commitment, and eroded mutualism among the partners. Crafting shared definitions of equity was one of the main deliverables for Year 1 of the grant initiative, which made this complexity apparent at the beginning of the partnerships.

The ESD’s equity policy made an explicit commitment to anti-racism, with a focus on racial equity. While one of the partners (partner #2) appreciated this definition, partner #1 was uncomfortable with a definition of equity that privileged racial equity. Partner #1′s definition included many other components of equity, such as students who speak a second language at home and students who have unique needs or identify as LGBTQ+. ESD partner #1 acknowledged that, “there are specific examples of how these populations have not been served well in [ESD]” (interview, 14 September 2022). University staff participated in many conversations with the ESD where they communicated that although anti-racism was a crucial aspect of being an equitable leader, its preparation program would need to ensure that it was also preparing equity-centered leaders who could address the needs of all students in the community.

While in the ESD we observed differences in the equity definitions of the university partners, in the MUSD there was a lack of overlap between the district and one of its partners. MUSD partner #2 chose to adopt the definition of equity from the state’s Department of Education rather than craft their own specific definition. According to partner #2, the MUSD was struggling with coming to an equity definition and district staff were “more on a continuum, if that’s a way to say it, where they have some individuals that define it broadly and other people that are trying to get really specific in terms of how narrow they want that definition to be” (interview, 24 August 2022). MUSD partner #2 felt that the state’s broad formal definition of equity—one that works to ensure each child has access to relevant and challenging academic experiences and educational resources necessary for success regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, language, disability, family background, and income—would best serve their students in the MUSD-specific cohort because those students would go on to be licensed and work within the state.

In the SCSD, both universities were committed to pushing equity beyond a buzzword and using their equity framework to make a real impact and break down barriers for all levels of learners. For these partners, embracing equity meant preparing people willing to challenge the status quo and any system of privilege that promotes unfriendly policies towards the children they serve. While both university partners’ definitions of equity explicitly challenge systems of privilege, partner #1 noted that the district was not ready to embrace this vision of equity and look critically at itself. Partner #1 felt unable to be forceful within the partnership with its version of equity that challenges systems of privileges because “we’re working with a school district that has pockets of excellence. Certain schools have certain privileges and certain enrollments. And so until we can help our partners problematize their own role and leadership in that, it’s having those conversations that will help us get to where we want to do with equity” (interview, 21 September 2022).

Our findings illustrate that although all partners were committed to addressing sources of historical and systemic harm in education systems, their approaches to equity were sometimes fuzzy and other times dissimilar across partners. Some partners, such as the SCSD, did not yet have definitions that represented their organizations’ approach to equity in the first year of the initiative. In other cases, there was divergence in the extent to which the definitions focused on racial equity. As we explore further in the Discussion Section, the lack of an agreed-upon definition—whatever it might be—appeared to be a stumbling block that eroded mutualism among the partners.

5.2. Shared Ownership of the Work

Another dynamic that was important for mutualism was shared ownership of the work. This sense of shared ownership is typically achieved when “the focus [of the work] is jointly negotiated and responsibility for how the work unfolds is shared” [4] (p. 3). In the initiative we discuss here, however, this was one of the most difficult tasks for the partners to accomplish. As we illustrate below, shared ownership was still an aspiration during the first year of the initiative.

Within the context of the initiative, the two partners were not placed on equal footing with the district. In the grant’s financial model, funds flowed from the district to its university partners rather than being received directly by the universities. Unlike a research–practice partnership, this model positioned the universities as entering into a partnership whose ultimate purpose was to support the district in reaching its goals. There were two implications of this positioning that we would like to highlight.

First, the asymmetrical power dynamics between the district and the university partner resulted in the university collaborators feeling like vendors rather than collaborators. The tension between these two roles was particularly evident in the ESD. As partner #2 explained, “there was no clarity around what the relationships look like from the [team]. The relationship, how it was presented initially, was more like the district was the stakeholder and [the university and state partners] were the vendors” (interview, 26 August 2022). The university team struggled with this tension for most of the first year. This challenge was eventually resolved through conversations with other university partners at an initiative-wide convening and efforts by the district consultant:

Around June-ish, May-ish or beginning of June as some things came to a head. And we got crystal clear about what the relationships were. And that it was not a vendor stakeholder relationship, that it was a stakeholder relationship period in the eyes of [the funder], and that we were all stakeholders with equal voice. And that there was a service component to it, right? Because the “it” was to work in benefit of the district, which [our university] has always been happy to do.

(interview, 26 August 2022)

The positioning of the university partner as a vendor impacted the engagement of the university in the partnership. One member of the university team explained, “The whole vendor versus stakeholder relationship really set things up to be tasks” (ibid.). In other words, this framing reduced the partnerships into a series of actions that the university needed to complete at the behest of the district, and inevitably generated resistance to some of the tasks. The shift in relationship from vendor/stakeholder to something closer to a partnership motivated the university partner to make more extensive changes to the university’s leader preparation program: “the clearer I get [about our role], the more the wheels turn, in my mind, and there have been changes made” (interview, 26 August 2022).

The second major implication of the asymmetrical power dynamics was that district leaders often engaged their university partners in providing feedback on policy-like documents (such as descriptions of equity-centered leadership competencies) rather than co-constructing them with the district. As SCSD partner #1 shared, “we’ve been able to be in the room, to be participants in the conversations, and to give input and to receive input as well” (focus group, 21 September 2022). The district coordinator provided a similar description of the relationship:

“[our university partner #1] said, ‘You’re moving really fast, we need to know about this.’ And so said, ‘You know what? Yes.’ Because if they’re there helping, sitting at the table with us to help create and inform what we’re creating, our definitions, our profiles, then they can embed it [in their leader preparation programs], and we can inform one another’s work.”.

(SCSD district coordinator, 21 June 2023)

As the quote illustrates, the input that university partners provided was most often related to grant deliverables. This was the case in the MUSD as well: “certainly writing different portions of the logic model [one of the central grant deliverables] has been our role” (MUSD partner #1, interview, 27 September 2022). Occasionally, university partners provided feedback through their participation in district practices. Partner #1 for the MUSD, for instance, was included in the selection committee for the new equity officer for the district (interview, 27 September 2022).

Among the three district teams we highlight here, the only example of co-construction came from the ESD team. In January 2022, the district organized a one-day virtual retreat. During the retreat, district leaders and their university, state, and community partners embarked on a collaborative design of a district-specific portrait of an equity-centered leader. This work was rooted in existing district documents, and more specifically its equity framework (field notes, 26 January 2022). After the partners drafted “leadership actions and look-fors”, district leaders continued the work of finalizing the portrait. This example suggests that while co-construction was possible, it was rare. In addition, it was the district partner who created the space for such co-construction rather than the university partner.

The evidence we have presented here suggests that the roles that partners take are consequential for the work they carry out. In the initial stages of the formal partnership, university partners tended to be positioned as vendors or sounding boards. In individual cases, this positioning evolved to one that was closer to a true partnership through the actions of district leaders or through external pressures (e.g., efforts by the funder). Such developmental shifts were more the exception than the rule. True partnerships remained an elusive goal in the first year of the initiative, despite isolated instances of dialog and co-construction. The challenge of fostering a shared ownership of the work was one of the factors that eroded the partners’ movement towards mutualism.

5.3. Reciprocal Benefits

In order for a partnership to be truly mutualistic, all organizations involved must benefit in some way. As we illustrate in the Shared Ownership Section, the partnerships in our data were framed as valuable to the district from the onset: they were intended to increase the district’s access to qualified, equity-focused leaders. Our data analysis shows that the university partners also benefited from the partnership.

The mutually beneficial nature of the partnership was the most frequently occurring theme in the interviews with district coordinators and superintendents. They described the partnership as a way for the district to increase its access to qualified school leaders who are familiar with its equity vision: “our university partners are revamping their principal prep programs so that they can prepare our leaders using the equity-based strategies that we’re highlighting as a part of the grant. And we’re already seeing a return on that investment because candidates are going through the program and then transitioning into roles in the district” (MUSD superintendent, 18 September 2023). Since some of the university partners focused on building the capacity of central office staff to support equity-centered leadership, the professional learning that they provided to district leaders was another benefit: “I’m really pleased with our university partnerships. They have been great to be in the mix of how we develop our leaders and also our central office leaders” (ESD superintendent, 2 October 2023). Finally, the university partners served as sounding boards when the districts created their definitions of equity and equity-centered leaders: “we benefit from having their voice at the table, so we’re creating something more informed” (SCSD district coordinator, 21 June 2023).

Participating in the initiative provided the university partners with resources that enabled them to bring faculty into dialog with one another about what equity meant at their institution, and how it was visible in their programs. The funding that came with the partnership and the partners’ participation in the guided self-assessment (see the New Collaborative Structures Section) promoted collaborative faculty reflection about their programming:

We brought all the faculty together, not just those in the principal program, but everybody in our department. And we brought all of the syllabus, and the faculty member presented the syllabus in small groups. And so we had small groups, about five or six people., and they had to demonstrate how they teach the principal standards and how they take their approach for teaching equity.”

(SCSD partner #2, focus group, 8 August 2022)

The collaborative reflection, particularly as part of the self-assessment, contributed to a greater awareness among faculty of the ways in which programs they offered were focused on equity. EUPS partner #1 framed the main guiding question for their redesign in terms of the program’s equity focus: “What does it look like to be centered on including equitable practices in everything that we do as educational leaders?” (focus group, 14 September 2022). MUSD partner #1 also described the growing awareness among faculty of the ways in which their programs promoted a focus on equity-centered leadership, “[we have] an admin program, … we train superintendents, we have a EdD program, all of that. How to bring all of that into alignment with equity? Some of our newer programs we have found are more aligned with equity standards than some of our older programs” (interview, 27 September 2022).

The awareness that university partners gained about the equity focus in their programs informed revisions that they had long wanted to make. For MUSD partner #2, for instance, the grant was “an opportunity for us to do the things that we always wish we could do. Without grant funding, without the time and the dedication and the resources, we have to do that sort of piecemeal” (interview, 24 August 2022). The same sentiment was shared by ESD partner #2, who shared, “we are going to go through this [self-assessment] process. And both our programs [initial licensure and EdD] are going to be a part of it. So we’re going to get critical feedback that is going to be incredibly valuable for us to make changes” (interview, 26 August 2022). The opportunity to engage in program revisions was evident even in partners, like MUSD partner #1, whose main role in the partnership was providing professional learning to sitting principals rather than preparing aspiring leaders: “program improvement is definitely a goal of ours, as well, even for our initial licensure programs. So even though our larger focus is around veteran administrators, we do want to have some permanent improvement around those initial principal licensure pathways as well” (interview, 27 September 2022).

The partnership also sparked ideas about additional programming that university partners could provide. In the MUSD, the partners realized that the district provided very little professional learning to assistant principals. The awareness of this need made partner #1 think about additional coursework they could offer:

We talked about adding a course on the assistant principal ship to our program, I was like, duh low-hanging fruit, why have we never done this? We even talked about, we can do either a full semester or seven week courses. And we talked about a seven-week course about understanding the assistant principalship. And so anybody can take that course. You know, so, yeah, we’ve just been kind of talking, we want to be perhaps the place that develops APs in the state in a different kind of way, because nobody’s really doing that.

(partner #1, interview, 27 September 2022)

As the quote illustrates, the new ideas about course offerings can help position universities as providers of specific kinds of learning not only for their district partner but also across their state. The program ideas that originated in the partnership, therefore, had the potential to strengthen the university’s standing in general and attract students beyond the boundaries of the district partner.

The findings described in this section illustrate that the partnership was indeed mutually beneficial. It contributed to tangible changes in relationships between faculty and university programming. The partnership also enabled the universities to bolster their standing as leading institutions in leadership for equity. These benefits strengthened the university partners’ commitment to the partnership. They were also a mechanism through which changes the universities made could be sustained beyond the scope of the grant initiative.

5.4. New Collaborative Organizational Structures

No matter the level of shared commitment, ownership, and reciprocal benefits a partnership might have, partnerships cannot endure without infrastructures that can sustain them. Within the grant-funded initiative, the district–university partnerships were supported by different organizational structures that promoted mutualism: some that were under the control of the district coordinator, and others that were required by the funding agency. All partnership teams met regularly to engage in design and implementation work related to the initiative. The logistics of the meetings were determined by the district coordinator, who received guidance from the foundation consultant. The teams met with their university partners on a weekly basis (SCSD), every 2 weeks (MUSD), or every 1–3 months (ESD). The team that met least frequently (ESD) also met for longer periods of time, typically a day. The meetings were essential to both fostering relationships and moving the work on the initiative forward. As SCSD partner #1 described, “I do appreciate that we meet every Tuesday morning, so that we can reconnect and talk about any of our concerns or any questions” (focus group, 8 August 2022). In the MUSD, the meetings gave the university partners opportunities to offer input on grant deliverables and receive updates on the initiative: “we have had the opportunity for input [on deliverables] and we’ve been aware of the process with them” (focus group, 24 August 2022). In the ESD, the longer meeting periods provided an opportunity for co-construction as district leaders and their partners collaboratively crafted a district-specific portrait of an equity-centered leader (field notes, 26 January 2022).

The funding organization also played a role in establishing certain collaborative structures, demonstrating that putting these structures in place for the partnering organizations can aid them in working toward mutualism. The most important action in this respect was asking all university partners to participate in a rigorous self-assessment process of their school leader preparation programs (see the context section above). University partners received guidance to form study teams that would include district and state agency partners, among others. As a technical assistance provider who supported this process shared, the self-assessment “provides a rich opportunity for hearing different perspectives about the work from a program implementation place” (field notes, 9 May 2022). The self-assessment process created a space in which district leaders could impact the universities’ program revisions (field notes, 9 May 2022).

Formal structures that enabled collaboration supported the partnership between the districts and their university partners. All teams met regularly, which helped coordinate the work on the initiative. The funding agency strengthened these relationships by creating a space for district partners to have a voice in the revision of university programs.

5.5. Boundary Spanners

Finally, in addition to new collaborative organizational structures, partners need individuals who successfully operate across organizations in order to develop mutualism. These individuals who can connect people across institutions are essential to the success of interorganizational partnerships and are typically referred to as brokers or boundary spanners [3]. In our data, the district coordinators of the initiative played the key role of boundary spanners. They engaged in crucial relational work that not only removed barriers to district–university collaboration but also promoted stronger relationships among the university partners themselves.

Most universities were selected by their district partner based on existing personal or institutional relationships. These relationships were not as formal and deliberate at the onset of the initiative. The relationships that began when the grant was launched were therefore novel. The newness of the partnership made the role of boundary spanners particularly important.

One of the main contributions of district coordinators was their investment in relationship work that promoted collaboration among all members of the district partnership teams. District coordinators set the tone for the partnership team meetings, invited partners to participate in district events, provided feedback on the work and plans of university partners, and publicized the partners’ programs within the district. District coordinators were therefore vital in fostering the trust that MUSD partner #1 described: “every time we meet as a [district partnership] team … there’s just a large amount of trust with that team, everybody’s kind of working towards the same goal. Which … you and I both know, can be difficult when working with multiple entities” (interview, 27 September 2022). In the ESD, the influence of the district coordinator was also tangible. A permanent district coordinator was selected in spring 2022, and ESD partner #2 observed that “the whole tone, vibe, tenor” improved (interview, 26 August 2022). The new district coordinator clarified the role of the university partner, and promoted a partner rather than vendor relationship with the university. The district coordinator played an “essential and crucial” role in the strengthening of the relationship between the district and the university partner (ibid.).

District coordinators’ relational work also shaped the collaboration between the two university partners that each district has. In the ESD, the district coordinator was instrumental in dissolving conflict between the two partners over intellectual property. The district coordinator also facilitated a collaborative activity in which both partners contributed to the design of the district’s portrait of an equity-centered leader (see New Collaborative Structures for more details). In the SCSD, the district engaged both university partners in examining the state leader standards through the lens of equity. The two university partners also worked together with the district to co-design a master’s level principal preparation program that both institutions would use for their district-specific cohorts. As SDSU partner #2 stated, “It is understood that both [partners] would be a part of all the planning for all the types of leadership development, to make sure that we are grounded in equity” (focus group, 8 August 2022).

An important and inevitable challenge that the university faculty faced was turnover at the district senior leadership level. Districts in the study experienced consistent administrator turnover, disrupting communications and relationships between partners. Mutualism depends on relationships, and turnover erodes those relationships. As SDSU partner #1 described, “The inconsistency of district leadership [is challenging] for us because it’s hard to inform a superintendent, then the next superintendent, and then the next superintendent, and also the changes within the hierarchy of school leadership when there’s a shift of new superintendent” (focus group, 21 September 2022). District initiative coordinators helped provide continuity when senior leaders changed and districts restructured. District coordinators ensured that the work on the initiative continued, and worked to secure the necessary internal buy-in to make the work impactful.

As boundary spanners, district coordinators engaged in crucial relationship work. They fostered team norms that foster collaboration, and helped clarify the roles of university partners. They also promoted collaborative relationships among the partners. Ultimately, this work helped keep the partners engaged and increased the alignment across their work and the work of the district. District coordinators therefore played a vital role in the sustainability of the partnership.

6. Discussion

In this section, we reflect on our findings from the perspective of interorganizational learning. More specifically, we use the four types of learning described by Akkerman and Bakker [28] to better understand how the dynamics we described above strengthened or eroded the partners’ movement towards mutualism. Our illustrative cases demonstrate how interorganizational learning occurs in partnerships that exist outside the traditional research–practice partnership framework.

6.1. Identification

Our analysis suggests that working toward mutualism helped districts and universities more clearly understand where they were different and how the partnership could make leader pathways stronger. While all members of the partnership shared commitments to creating equity in schools, in order for each partner to receive the reciprocal benefits that were built into the partnership, they needed to successfully delineate boundaries between their organizations’ capacities. The clearest example of this is the districts’ reliance on university partners to prepare qualified leaders. All partners knew that the universities could help increase the pool of equity-centered leaders available to the districts, but only if the preparation programs met the district’s vision for what these leaders should know and be able to do. Therefore, an important area of collaborative negotiation of meaning was the exploration of state leader standards through an equity lens (SCSD) and the co-design of equity-centered leader portraits (ESD). In the MUSD, university partners provided feedback on the equity-centered leader portrait. The university partners used the portraits to guide the redesign of their district-specific programming for school leaders. The redesign took two years, and all university partners launched district-specific cohorts by the beginning of Year 3 of the grant (2023–2024).

The equity focus of the partnership also made visible distinctions between districts and universities that were relevant to the work. As our analysis in the Shared Commitments Section illustrates, we documented divergences in how districts and university partners defined equity. At the core of this difference was whether a partner defined equity in terms of race or more broadly to include a range of student subgroups (such as LGBTQ+, migrant, and special education students). While we noted this divergence, we have no evidence that it presented a hurdle to the collaborative work. As Akkerman and Bakker [28] suggest, the partners were able to accomplish their work without moving towards a shared definition of equity. However, rather than a process of collaborative meaning-making, which might have sustained mutualism, the lack of clarity eroded mutualism, becoming an issue for some university partners. In the ESD team, the university partners had to wait for the portrait of an equity-centered leader to be finalized by the district before they could move forward with program revisions. Our findings suggest, in sum, that the absence of a clear district definition of equity-centered leadership presented an obstacle for collaboration but not the different interpretations of what equity entails.

Given that different approaches to equity can be consequential for the actions that organizations take [34], we feel that this is an area in which the teams could have benefitted from sustained collaborative meaning-making. We address the issue of aligning approaches to equity in our discussion of the learning process of reflection below.

6.2. Coordination

Coordination creates the space necessary for collaboration. Our findings suggest that the partnership was supported by a range of formal collaborative structures, but that additional collaborative structures could have created additional space for deepening mutualism.

We noted that all teams established a formal collaborative infrastructure that consisted of regular meetings. We also discussed the ways in which collaboration required by the funder, and, in particular, the rigorous guided self-assessment process that all universities went through, fostered district–university collaboration. District staff were included in the taskforce that was engaged in the self-assessment. In addition, the self-assessment process brought the university partners a number of benefits, including collaboration among faculty and the strengthening of programming related to school and district leadership.

An important tension that surfaced in terms of coordination was the power imbalance between district and university partners, and the lack of clarity about the role of university partners. Scholars have noted that “radical partnerships” need horizontal hierarchies because power imbalances erode partners’ abilities to work together effectively [2]. The funder’s positioning of university partners as working in the service of the district prevented the universities from having shared ownership of the work. This positioning limited the contributions of most university partners to providing feedback rather than engaging in collaborative design. The power imbalance gave rise to a “vendor” relationship between some universities and their district partners. The focus on leader preparation also contributed to a partner role that was too narrow for some partners. Many university partners felt that they could not leverage fully either their expertise or their researcher identities, eroding mutualism in the partnerships.

The partners handled the tensions created by the power imbalance by developing a tolerance for role ambiguity and being optimistic about the future. In the MUSD, partner #1 hoped to expand its role as a thought partner by becoming better integrated into the district’s decision-making processes. Partner #2 in the SCSD described the importance of bringing their identity as researchers to the partnership, which had not happened yet:

You have two tenured faculty members who lead this initiative and we understand that this could be a site that can be considered as a service or a teaching. But for us, it’s much more than that. Research is an identity. It’s our professional and personal identity and how we have been involved in this. And so we’re hoping that anything that grows out of this is how that evolution of identity manifests in the district.

(focus group, 21 September 2022)

In the ESD, one of the university partners expressed a hope that in the future the relationship with the district would be more two-way. As they described it, “we would like to … establish that with them as well to the point where we can not only be informed by them, but then also inform their work as to what experiences do leaders need to have before they become a leader? What would be the most effective form of an internship?” (focus group, 14 September 2022).

In sum, during the first year of the initiative, the university partners had to manage ambiguity and certain constraints around their roles. They were committed to the partnership, however, and looked to the future with optimism. They were hopeful that their roles would expand as the partnership matured. In order for the partnership to be mutualistic, they needed to continue to develop “spaces” for collaboration—both meeting times and clear organizational roles.

6.3. Reflection

Reflection was the type of learning that seemed absent from our data. Despite their broad shared commitments, and the work of specific, boundary-spanning individuals, the lack of built-in time for reflection prevented the partners from recognizing and naming explicit differences in their goals and approaches to the work. For instance, divergences in partners’ definitions of equity were evident in our data but did not become a topic of discussion in the three focus teams in the first year of the initiative. We have evidence from districts that we do not profile here that “level-setting” about equity was possible to achieve at the onset of the initiative. Ongoing collective negotiation of meaning around equity and equity-centered leadership seemed to occur in teams for whom shared ownership of the work was a key goal of the partnership.

In addition, the absence of reflection seemed to keep the university partners’ dissatisfaction with their roles invisible to the district partners. In the first year of the initiative, the partners had not yet created a space in which they could open up for discussion the identities they brought to the partnership and the contributions they were able to make.

Although the partners in the illustrative cases did not engage in reflection as teams, there was another important mechanism that helped sustain the partnership: the role of boundary spanners. District coordinators engaged in perspective-making and perspective-taking as they worked to foster relationships of trust and helped resolve conflict between partners. The significance of their role cannot be underestimated, and seems particularly vital in a context in which there were no other formal spaces for reflection.

We contend that deliberate and ongoing reflection about the partners’ approaches to equity and their roles in the collaboration is necessary for the sustainability of mutualism in the partnership. If the partners are as intentional about reflecting on the nature of the work as they are about carrying out the work, they can build greater coherence in their understandings as well as actions. Reflection can thus complement coordination and contribute to the emergence of shared understanding and ownership of the work. Team reflection can then complement the efforts of boundary spanners and distribute the work of bridging different worlds.

6.4. Transformation

Our findings suggest that transformation was possible even in the absence of reflection. This was most likely the case because of the shared commitment of all partners to advancing equity, the shared benefits of the work, the new collaborative structures that did exist, and the successes of the boundary spanners. The districts and universities in these partnerships were, together, focused on the same goal: preparing equity-centered leaders for K-12 schools. This shared goal was, as Akkerman and Bakker [28] argue, an urgent, complex, and intractable problem, allowing for transformation without sufficient reflection. The reciprocal benefits of the collaboration to both partners are an immense motivator for the partners’ continued engagement in the partnership.

In the summer and fall following the first year of the partnership, all university partners engaged in self-assessment and made changes to their preparation programs. These changes included revising textbooks and syllabi, redesigning student experiences, and changing course sequences and schedules, among other changes. The formal nature of the partnership made these revisions possible, and through them helped ensure the sustainability of the partnership’s impact.

The districts transformed in that they began bringing greater alignment to existing leader pathways. District leaders engaged university and other partners in collaborative work related to leader standards and equity-centered leader portraits. This work was new to most districts and served as a foundation not only for the program redesign by university partners, but also for the district’s hiring, professional learning, and evaluation processes. In addition, districts engaged with university partners as providers of both leader preparation and professional learning focused on equity.

In sum, we documented the ways in which the partnership transformed the structures and practices of both districts and university partners. These transformations helped increase the alignment between different areas of work that constitute leader pathways and that typically fall under the purview of different institutions.

7. Conclusions

This paper explores partnerships between large urban districts and institutes of higher education in the United States. The district–university partnerships formed in the context of a multi-year initiative focused on school leadership for equity. Eight districts took part in the initiative, and we discuss three as illustrative cases. We investigated the relationship dynamics between the partners through the lens of mutualism. Our data analysis revealed the following dynamics as important for developing mutualism: shared commitment, shared ownership, new collaborative structures, reciprocal benefits, and boundary spanners. We illustrate why these dynamics are essential for developing strong partnerships outside the realm of traditional research–practice partnerships.

We leveraged a framework of interorganizational learning [28] to better understand how these dynamics shaped the partnership. The process of identification helped deepen the partners’ awareness of their different roles in leader pathways. They sought to align their unique areas of work through the use of district-specific profiles of equity-centered leaders. The partners coordinated their efforts by establishing structures that made collaboration between them routine. Because the partners did not engage in reflection about their roles and identities, their collaboration did not lead to a shared sense of ownership of the work in the initial stages of the partnership. District coordinators of the initiative helped mitigate the absence of shared ownership by acting as boundary spanners. They fostered relationships of trust in the collaborative spaces, and helped resolve conflict between the partners. The shared commitment to advancing equity in schools and the reciprocal benefits that the partners received motivated them to transform their practices. These transformations, which extended to both the district and university partners, indicate how the effects of the partnership may continue to shape the practices of the individual partners into the future.

The findings of this study have a number of practical implications, of which we highlight three. First, district–university partnerships do not need to be limited to one area of work, such as research or preservice preparation. These partnerships can support many of the activities in which districts engage as they grow, hire, and develop school leaders.

Second, structures of collaboration are necessary but insufficient to sustain partnerships. Partnerships are strengthened by ongoing reflection not only on what needs to be done but also on how the work is being accomplished, if everyone’s needs are being met, and what the ultimate goal of the effort is. This type of reflection is particularly necessary when the partnerships focus on equity. Building a shared understanding about equity priorities can help bring coherence to the work of the partners and help them understand systemic inequities at different levels (school, district, and university) more fully. Third, our findings suggest that strong partnerships require all partners to change. A robust partnership entails transformation in individuals’ understanding as well as organizational structures and routines.

We posit that exploring the beginning of formal partnerships is valuable, because research shows that the onset of the formal relationships shapes their trajectory in important ways [2,3]. Data we have analyzed but do not present here suggest that many of the dynamics we illuminate were present in the second year of the grant (2022–2023), and perhaps in the third (2023–2024). Understanding how partnerships developed in the first year, therefore, can generate insights about what partners in other contexts may want to put in place as well as avoid.

However, we also acknowledge that our study has some limitations. Our work with the partnership teams began at the onset of the initiative, and in the first year most of the contact between us and the teams was virtual. Even as our knowledge of each team increased steadily with each meeting we observed, that knowledge remained narrow and related primarily to the work on the grant initiative. Therefore, we did not have a full understanding of the equity-related work that each district had carried out prior to the initiative.

The analysis was based on a single round of interviews with university partners and district leaders, and focused on the initial year of the grant initiative. This means that we had greater access to the perspectives of the university partners than to those of district leaders. We look forward to future rounds of data collection that will enable us to include a broader range of perspectives and trace the development of the university–district partnerships over time.

In accordance with the focus of the Special Issue, the analysis we report here focuses on district–university partnerships. There were other partners that were part of the partnership teams, including state and community partners. A more comprehensive analysis of different types of partnerships could have highlighted ways in which district–university partners are unique as well as similar to other types of interorganizational collaboration.

In conclusion, our findings contribute to the field’s knowledge base about the development of partnerships explicitly focused on equity. We show that the key features of research–practice partnerships are relevant to partnerships that are not centered around research use but instead aim to support pathways for equity-centered leaders. This finding suggests that the features of RPPs may be broader than a specific type of partnership and extend to any long-term partnership focused on an urgent and complex problem of practice. In addition, we shed light on the ways in which the focus on equity shaped the partnerships. It created a sense of urgency that motivated the partners to engage with one another despite the inevitable tensions. Also, it introduced complexity into the partnership by creating a need for negotiation around the meaning of equity and equity-centered leadership.