Politics at the Boundary: Exploring Politics in Education Research-Practice Partnerships

The challenges of transforming our educational systems to fulfill enduring needs for equity, justice, and responsiveness will take a multitude of partners. Research-practice partnerships (RPPs) arrange collaboration and engagement with research to bring about shared commitments and resources to tackle these challenges. Just as sociocultural and political dynamics can shape educational politics generally, without close and intentional attention to the politics of starting, operating, and sustaining RPPs, those political dynamics can potentially derail a partnership. In this article, we consider the emerging research on the politics in and around RPPs pursuing educational transformation and propose a framework to reflect these dynamics. To introduce this special issue, we also deconstruct RPP politics into four major phases of RPP work, and describe the articles addressing each phase. This compilation of articles contributes a wealth of expertise and evidence illuminating how politics can shape both RPPs and their goals of equity and transformation.

Keywords: educational improvement; equity; politics; politics of education; research use; research-practice partnerships

With the ongoing effects of the pandemic looming large, coupled with long-standing disparities in educational resources and outcomes, the field of education continues to search for solutions that can address these enduring crises. Meanwhile, the calls have become louder and yet more urgent for more immediate, targeted, and sustained action to address the "education debt" accumulated from lingering residual effects of systemically racist policies and structures and consistent underfunding of public education ([14]; [53], [54]). Those who track the history of education policy and politics often speak to a pendulum swing of extremes or cycles of reform and political contest ([20]; [82]), and yet this slow and steady march toward educational improvements improvements in our educational system has not as yet yielded sufficient progress.

Partnerships between education researchers and practitioners have been touted as one way to tackle systemic challenges ([18]; [59]). One such model of partnering, the research-practice partnership (RPP), holds great promise and has expanded nationally and internationally, across a range of disciplines, industries, and sectors ([5]; [31]; [64]). RPPs are often vaunted as a solution to bridging the research-practice gap, as a strategy for connecting research more directly to issues that policymakers, school leaders, and teachers are facing in their practice ([26]; [88]). The research base on whether and how RPPs are successful in either disrupting the traditional balances of power or ensuring research is used to tackle some of education's most challenging equity issues is still nascent. We see some emerging evidence that RPPs can shake up power dynamics by shifting roles and engaging partners that are not often centered or given voice in research and improvement efforts, such as students and their families and communities ([7]; [44]; [36]). In addition, limited research indicates that some RPPs have contributed to improvements in outcomes of importance to those partnerships (e.g., [2]; [15]; [39]; [70]). As attention on RPPs increases, we anticipate that a growing body of evidence will continue to emerge as to whether RPPs can accomplish all that is in their promise, including facilitating organizational learning and transformation and addressing the complex political, cultural, and racial dynamics around education reform ([4]; [21]; [30]; [84]).

Given that RPPs typically aim to rethink traditional relationships of power and control in the research enterprise, and the emerging examples of concrete improvements and adept navigation of complex political dynamics, one could argue that RPPs are well-positioned to work toward equity in educational resources as well as "consciousness and care for one another across myriad social lines," as Carter (2018) suggests (p. 9). The compilation of articles in this issue are selected to further explore how RPPs and the individuals and organizations in them are part and parcel of the sociocultural political landscape, which shapes each stage of the RPP process. Navigating and embracing that landscape may hold the key as to whether RPPs can live up to their potential as a mechanism to address the long-standing inequities and challenges facing our school systems.

Education, as a social enterprise, and as a reflection of the society around it, is infused with political contestations over communal identity and values, shared and finite resources, and collective policy. And the politics shaping the broader ecosystem around schools (and the tensions that accompany them) inevitably bleed into the politics inside of schools and districts and, in turn, that of any partnership research. Conflicts in education have been extremely public over the course of the last several years, though this is not a new trend. We have seen tensions inflamed into outright conflict and even threats of violence over pandemic-related school closures or mandates, book bans, or bans on the teaching of critical race theory or topics related to race or racism; gender, transgender, or LGBTQ+ topics; or school violence and school policing ([8]; [46]; [58]; [40]). Schools, let alone the partnerships around them, are not immune to these often intense and sometimes depleting political dynamics, as we see in one of the articles in this issue where efforts to partner had to be disbanded ([85]).

Tensions have historically existed over differing expectations and values associated with the purpose of schooling, and whether schools should provide a public good (e.g., informed and engaged citizens, productive workforce), and thereby solve many of the larger societal and systemic problems that create the chronic educational inequities, or whether schools are a vehicle for individual mobility up the social ladder of success ([42]; [51], [52]). As [48] note, in the field of education, "politics is a form of social conflict rooted in group differences over values about using public resources for private needs" (p. 4). This tension between the public and the private is echoed by [42]. They caution against the marketization of the public school system, which they argue can deplete the collective commitment to political and civic engagement. Because schools often operate within a context of constrained and finite public support, decisions about how to spend those resources are inherently prone to political conflict, tensions, and debate. Building on [42] and [48], we conceptualize the politics in education as occurring over distributional conflicts—or conflicts over who gets what and how—that can occur in the following three domains: identity and values (how a group of people identify themselves and what they prioritize), resources (how shared fiscal, human, material and power resources are secured, allocated and utilized), and policies or decision-making (how collective choices are made and implemented). Such conflicts exist because decisions in the social, political, and democratic context of public education often require consensus-building or outright competition between differing positions on how best to make decisions within a given community.

Similarly, education research has itself become a site for political conflict, not only over ontology, epistemology, and methodology, but also about the role that research could or should play in practice or policy making ([59]; [61]; [86]). As [61] suggests in her 2016 AERA Presidential Address where she calls for more public engagement on the part of researchers, "...research-based knowledge and practices to make education equitable are often overpowered by cultural norms and politics" (p. 91). Political dynamics can shape why some research questions are asked and researched, while others are set aside. Some projects and partnerships are funded, while others are not; in some cases, researchers compete amongst themselves for grants and access to educational sites or data. Certain stakeholders are invited to co-develop the research questions at the outset while others are left ([77]) out. Conflicts emerge about what counts as evidence ; and intermediary organizations or coalitions often play an important role in bringing research into the political domain ([72]). Individual or institutional biases may influence how the research is conducted ([68]). An education sector that provides a more democratic and inclusive research process, with the goal of equity and public engagement, as [80] envision, may address some of the institutionalized disparities and traditional power imbalances.

The field of research use or utilization has illuminated a variety of types of research use, including instrumental use, to guide policy or practice; conceptual use, to inform how actors are thinking about the problem of practice at hand or its solutions; symbolic, strategic, or political use, to persuade others of, or give legitimacy to, preferred paths or decisions made; process use, to integrate research processes and steps into practice; imposed use, to abide by requirements to use research; and more recently, latent use, to incorporate research into artifacts or materials that are handed down to others in the organization ([16]; [65]; [87]). Instrumental use is the type most often sought after by "research-based" or "evidence-based" organizational goals or policies, though it is not clear that this is the most meaningful in the organizational learning and transformation process. For example, conceptual use is seen by some as supporting sense-making, enlightenment, and careful consideration of options ([27]). Political or symbolic use is interpreted by some as bordering on misuse; however, given the political nature of educational policy making and the need to convince stakeholders of the evidence base for decisions, legitimate symbolic use seems worth further exploration. Undoubtedly, how these different types of use intersect or build on each other, particularly in the midst of political pressures and demands, remains to be further explored.

In many partnership models, a primary goal is typically for research to be used by, and useful to, those who may need to consider, make decisions with, or act upon the research evidence. Moreover, policy and accountability pressures have increasingly imposed the use of research on school leaders, as part of a general movement towards evidence-based practice. Whether research is used and how is dependent on many organizational conditions and partner characteristics and relationships ([41]; [30]), but is also likewise impacted by politics, both within and between partner organizations ([34]). Studies of school leaders' use of research suggest that access to research can sometimes be a challenge, that use varies depending on various characteristics of the evidence itself (e.g., relevance, accessibility, aligned with prior beliefs, comes from a trusted source), characteristics of the decision maker (e.g., beliefs in research and its value), or organizational factors (e.g., culture, norms, structures, and politics; [25]; [65]). Moreover, the collective work of sensemaking can be important for processing new information (Coburn, 2005). How the particular social and political conditions influence the use of research as evidence, and what that means for partnership research is one of the topics further explored in this issue (see [33]).

In a recent National Academy of Sciences report ([59]), the authors caution that "traditional models of dissemination are insufficient for connecting the education policy and practice communities with the evidence produced by research" (pp. 4–8). Many community-engaged and partnership-focused models of research, including RPPs, aim to confront and address the engagement of those who would use the research ([21]; [24]; [31]; [60]). RPPs represent an approach to facilitating research use, and often research co-production, among educators and practitioners or policymakers in a more intentionally collaborative way, with strategies explicitly and actively aimed to mitigate imbalances of power and transform relationships between research and practice ([78]). Similar to [42] argument that leaders need to be "networked with authentic community leaders and move towards change with their communities" to address the politics of educational policy in the context of inequality (p. 9), RPPs need to have authentic relationships with their partners and those who are most likely to use research, and need structures and processes in place to cultivate and nurture those relationships in order to jointly tackle educational politics.

RPPs can differ along many dimensions that define their partnering strategy ([5]; [31]). Often, education RPPs have a research partner and an educational practice or policy partner, although some RPPs engage other stakeholders and community members, or may engage community organizations as the primary practice partner and user of research ([10]; [85]). RPPs often integrate diverse viewpoints and expertise ([31]) and work to purposefully facilitate trust, communication, and collaborative relationships among partners ([38]). Typically, partners collaborate on the production and/or use of actionable, relevant, and timely research; their collaboration is sustained over time and not just a series of projects; and they have shared aims of inquiry and collaboration, or "synchrony" of purpose, around the research produced or used ([9]; [12]; [19]; [18]).

To make their shared aim of collaboration and improvement a reality, RPPs tend to build in structures, norms, and routines to support collective and multi-directional learning ([88]). These intentional strategies and structures tend to set them apart from other partnerships that may be driven by short-term, single-project convenience or that may be looser in their collaborative structures. Many implement strategies to address issues of status and authority, close relational gaps, and manage insider-outsider dynamics between researchers, practitioners, and intermediaries ([17]; [26]). Some RPPs address power dynamics and participants' identities by adopting common values and norms for working together ([21]; [83]) and negotiating roles and defining who is responsible for what aspects of the partnership ([29]).

We draw on [31] updated RPP definition as "a long-term collaboration aimed at educational improvement or equitable transformation through engagement with research...[that is] intentionally organized to connect diverse forms of expertise and shift power relations in the research endeavor to ensure that all partners have a say in the joint work" (p. 5). We note the evolution in this definition toward the inclusion of equitable transformation at the heart of the definition and the removal of the terms "mutually beneficial" and "original research" (see original in [19]). For many RPPs, their synchrony of purpose involves research being used to inform, improve, and transform educational practice and that those improvements will lead to more equitable outcomes. However, having equitable transformation in the definition of RPPs ([31]), may be aspirational rather than descriptive and is an ongoing empirical question ([47]; [84]). Not all RPPs, nor their partners, have the same understanding of what equitable transformation might look like or how to achieve it, let alone have it as their primary mission.

As with so many educational phenomena, opportunities for political contestations abound at each layer of partnership interaction, especially given that RPPs—and most partnerships, generally—are reliant upon relationships, communication, and trust that reinforces the partnership ([38]; [79]). More fundamentally, RPPs are inherently political in that they are a function of the internal politics within each partner institution, as well as the politics between the partner institutions ([3]; [35]; [49]). An RPP can maintain or exacerbate inequitable distribution of power and resources, or it can mitigate inequities through intention. [32] describe how RPPs prioritize equity through their mission and focus on outcomes as well as through the processes and structures that they establish to equitably engage partners and the community. To the extent that RPPs situate themselves with the goal of explicitly addressing disparities or distributional conflicts, or organize themselves structurally to address power dynamics, they may provide a model for tipping the scales toward progress against political challenges.

Against this backdrop, being aware of the social and political context of collaboration and research use is critical for understanding how RPPs undertake their partnership work. As many have pointed out, RPPs are often characterized by "boundary-spanning" individuals (i.e., brokers) to enact the boundary-spanning practices and structures required to create space for the "porous" flow of ideas and resources between partner organizations ([30]; [88]). In other words, RPPs exist in the liminal space between organizations or institutions with different, and sometimes competing or conflicting, goals and values, motivations and incentives, and climates and cultures—while simultaneously attempting to build trust and a set of shared goals and values and collaboration processes among partners (see [75] discussion of productive tensions in RPPs). Whether or not a partnership is able to build those shared goals and co-construct boundary spanning structures, such as collaboration and communication routines and mechanisms, depends heavily on whether each partner organization has internal structures, orientations, resources, infrastructure, and leadership to engage in partnering and research use ([28]; [30]; [65]). Also, partnerships can falter based on the extent to which partners have addressed the complex and intertwined institutional histories, power asymmetries, and core racialized organizational routines that can continue to shape current partnership interactions ([23]) or have been intentional about who is involved in designing and implementing the boundary infrastructure itself as well as the research that is produced or used within the partnership ([21]; [83]).

Without attention to these essential collaborative structures and supports, to the divergent cultures and climates at work in the partner organizations, and the political dynamics of power, privilege, and race that emerge in partnering, RPPs may perpetuate or even exacerbate the inequities of education research, amplifying the imbalance of power between and among researchers and practitioners and intensifying the underlying conflicts ([50]; [76]; [83]). Partnership participants write about their struggles to balance power ([22]), reshape their relationships by producing research on shortened timelines ([56]), and attempts and sometimes failures to engage at the boundary of their roles on joint work together ([49]; [64]). Yet, insufficient research exists exploring the politics of RPPs and how and under what conditions RPPs may mitigate the political dynamics that can impede the ultimate goal of improving students' outcomes through research and evidence use. Moreover, more cases and lessons learned are much needed about the features of RPPs, either explicitly designed at inception or organically evolved over time, that ameliorate political conflicts. Given the political nature of partnerships and collaboration, RPPs present a rich and robust context within which to learn more about balancing political dynamics across diverse and sometimes conflicting needs and priorities. A key question is how well partnerships manage and channel the political dynamics within partner organizations as well as between partner entities, to increase the likelihood of improving equity and student outcomes.

To lend an additional frame to the types of political dynamics at work in RPPs, we draw upon the work of prominent researchers in the RPP field who have proposed a framework for understanding (and studying) how RPPs might be able to "facilitate organizational learning toward educational improvement and transformation" ([30]). In particular, they describe partner organizations coming together to design the boundary infrastructure where partnering and collaboration occurs. Along with boundary spanners who "move across boundaries and facilitate connections between groups" ([30], p. 198), the infrastructure consists of two additional components: "boundary practices," the activities that "bring together multiple participants with varying roles, perspectives, experiences, and areas of expertise" and "boundary objects," the "material and conceptual tools used in a partnership that are critical for joint activity" ([30], p. 199). Farrell and colleagues argue that when the capacities and conditions that constituent organizations bring to the partnership are combined with well-developed boundary infrastructure, RPPs can facilitate changes in collective knowledge, policies, and routines (i.e., organizational learning), which in turn can promote educational improvement and transformation as well as broader contributions to knowledge production in the long-term. The strength of the model put forward by [30] is in the combination of two elements: (1) the notion of boundary infrastructure that facilitates boundary crossing and can potentially lead to organizational learning with (2) the proposition of key (internal) organizational aspects of each partner organization (e.g., strategic knowledge leadership practices, or resource mobilization) that enable the partner to engage in partnership work and that were identified as "absorptive capacity" in earlier publications by some of the co-authors ([28]).

At the same time, we find that the framework, especially for purposes of addressing the politics inherent in RPP work, may be missing some key ingredients. [30] in fact invite such elaboration: "There are other characteristics of participant organizations, as well as the external environment, that could potentially influence partners' ability to engage" (p. 205). We note three specific aspects that we see as needing more prominence in the framework presented by our colleagues. First, the authors focus on RPPs as a collection of diverse organizations, but they spend less time discussing the inequities in power and interests among RPP partners as a persistent condition influencing the entirety of RPP collaboration. Second, the authors present the elements in the RPP interacting in a linear progression. Yet, interactions in and around RPPs are dynamic and fluid, often with feedback loops that can either amplify issues or concerns or help to address them. While we recognize that [30] necessarily simplify the complex dynamics to highlight the process of organizational learning, our conception of the learning process necessitates an incorporation of the loops and feedback that can influence partnership interactions. Third, we argue that the process of learning and transformation through RPPs is fraught with tension, conflict, and disruption, arising from interactions over time across individual, organizational, and contextual differences, and the current model does not sufficiently elucidate the sociocultural and political dynamics that underlie and surround RPPs. We expand on the importance we see in each of these aspects below and propose an alternative graphic representation to incorporate them.

First, inequities abound among the partners in an RPP ([84]). Members of partnerships do not enter into the RPP with equal amounts of power, influence, interest, prestige, privilege, and resources. Moreover, these differences surface and vary across the range of facets of partnership work, and inequities of power can shift between partners over time. That is, one partner might have more control over the purse strings while another might have more power over the bully pulpit and community influence; a partner who is more powerful today might not be so next year. These shifting and changing dynamics appear in [30] framework simplified as uniform characteristics across partner organizations. We depict these variations in our diagram below with differing organizational partner shapes, though we recognize that this is, in turn, insufficient in representing the power differentials that can occur between organizations and at more micro-levels within an organization, that is, between divisions or individuals. Contestation emerging from, and mitigation of, these differences in power shape the very nature of the boundary infrastructure constructed for the RPP, and the subsequent individual or organizational learning that may take place.

Second, the work of educators in schools is naturally cyclical, with school years among other cycles providing periodicity. In addition, the endeavor of continuous improvement ([63]) which many educators and RPPs engage in, involve ongoing iterations of action and reflection. Research use in this context takes multiple forms and can thus enter at multiple points in the process in conjunction with other types of evidence use (e.g., [43]). More generally, feedback loops are crucial in complex systems, and even more so in RPPs where two or more complex systems come together around a boundary infrastructure. Cycles and iterations can amplify or dampen dynamics at hand by providing positive or negative feedback ([45]). For example, partners in RPPs may gravitate toward imbalance, if resources, supports, and voice and power are not distributed equitably among all the partners in the partnership. In our diagram, we choose to depict the cyclical dynamics in schools with the figure eight shape in the center, rather than a linear progression.

Third, collaboration among partners can give rise to tensions, conflicts, and disruptions from within the partnership itself, from individuals and organizational partners' internal dynamics, or from external sociocultural and political dynamics. Partners will not only need to face those as they arise but should also set out to anticipate them through their boundary infrastructure and communication routines and norms. Inevitably, partnerships can fail to effectively resolve or anticipate conflicts, which can lead to minor complications or more substantial difficulties in launching or sustaining the partnership. In fact, as new RPPs get under way each year, many others are simultaneously dissolving their activities ([11]). When these failed RPP efforts go unstudied or unnoticed, we lose invaluable opportunities to understand what complications might have contributed and, thus, what strategies may support success in future efforts. For this reason, we solicited articles that touch upon political challenges that led to or nearly led to the failure of a partnership or partnership effort ([49]; [85]). However, even when the partners do resolve their conflicts on an ongoing basis, how they do so would affect the characteristics of the boundary infrastructure, thereby shaping the partnership collaboration and the organizational learning emerging from it. In this respect, boundary infrastructures are not necessarily neutral and reflect the broader sociocultural and political context in which the partnership is embedded. For this reason, we depict the boundary infrastructure as porous and we embed the partnership enterprise within the context of sociocultural and political dynamics.

Transformation and improvement will often require disrupting the existing distribution of costs and benefits, and working through the tensions and conflicts to effect those changes. In this context, partner organizations and RPPs need deep commitments to tackling challenges related to equity and systems change through collaboratively learning through the use of research. This set of commitments, all in the service of equity in both process and outcome, is necessary to productively channel the political forces towards improvement of student outcomes. Such commitment continuously, albeit imperfectly, advances the interactions away from self-interested actions that maintain the status quo toward meaningful collaboration toward the transformations needed to make progress.

Figure 1 is a proposed adaptation, combining some of the concepts we mention above into a diagram, building on the framework proposed by [30]. Given the focus of this issue and the need to surface and examine the political and sociocultural tensions, we have embedded the partnership work within that larger context. Two or more partner organizations comprising the partnership vary in type (e.g., research, practice, policy, or community organizations), and they join together to commit to, invest in, and build a boundary infrastructure. The boundary infrastructure here has two additional attributes from that conceptualized by [30]. One aspect is that it is explicitly porous. The boundary, in addition to being the liminal space among the partners, is subject to influences of the larger environment as well as those of individual partner organizations. At the same time, the boundary infrastructure and the partnership will often begin to take on a life of its own beyond the individual partners. The other aspect is that the infrastructure consists of norms, values, and commitments that the partners come with as well as co-create. We feature these in the center of the diagram, circling and centering the figure eight, including the central goals of equity, in the process and structures utilized by the partnership, as well as in the ultimate outcome of the work together. Also, the commitments to collaborate and jointly learn through research for the purpose of making improvements that will impact equity is the driving force that perpetuates the collaboration. While some of these commitments and dynamics may manifest in the boundary spanners, objects, and practices that [30] depict, we argue that their explicit presence is a prerequisite for partnerships to negotiate tensions and conflicts.

Graph: Figure 1. Dynamics of politics, equity, and learning in RPPs.

To further specify, the main endeavor of RPPs takes place inside the boundary infrastructure, centering on the two types of equity. Outcome equity refers to equity associated with the impact of a partnership's work, for example, improving students' social emotional learning (SEL) outcomes or improving college access supports, among many other examples. ([32] refer to this as "equity-in-mission.") Equity in process or structures refers to equity associated with how a partnership engages in its work, such as which voices are present in the collaboration, how decisions are made, and how resources are shared and allocated among the partners. ([32] refer to this as "equity-in-process.") Others have broken process/structural equity into further dimensions—such equity in research, equity in practice, and equity in partnership ([73]). Surrounding these main types of equity highlighted at the center of RPPs, is a figure eight of ongoing cycles consisting of learning and reflection through research, improving practice, and transforming systems. The infinite loop represents the continuous nature of not only the improvement work but also its iterative and continuous relationship with research. In our conceptualization, partnerships jointly produce and/or incorporate knowledge, in order to spark the conversation that leads to potential organizational learning; organizational learning then may lead to changes in practices, structures, supports, programs, policies, which may lead to improvements in student or school outcomes. At each stage, inquiry, reflection, and action take place and may shift directions or contribute to joint learning. However, similar to the porous boundary infrastructure, cycles of research and improvement are also imperfect, which is represented by the broken borders of the loops. Our model emphasizes a focus on improvement of practice, but [35] explores changes to university norms and values that may improve the research praxis as well, to better support RPP outcomes.

Tensions and conflicts arising from external contexts or individual partners, or from turnover in partnership roles or the leadership of either partner organization, frequently interrupt/disrupt the work. In these situations, the commitment to the two types of equity in conjunction with well-established routines for iterating and collaborating around research and practice can, theoretically, help the partnership weather the turmoil. In short, in the inevitable presence of political dynamics, we anticipate that RPPs are more likely to be successful at breaking down political barriers and reducing long-standing inequalities when: (1) the partners join with strong and explicit commitments to equity and systemic transformation; (2) the collaboration centers around equity not only in the outcomes that it seeks to manifest and improve but in the process and structures guiding the partnership joint work; and (3) the partnership also commits to collaborative organizational learning through robust cycles of research use and continuous improvement.

The articles in this PEA Yearbook issue of Educational Policy explore and make visible various political dynamics at work in RPPs, many of which remain tacit and under-investigated but most of which demonstrate how inherently political RPP work is. Thus, this issue demonstrates how porous the organizational and partnership boundaries are to the political and sociocultural dynamics in which they are embedded. We focus on four crucial aspects of RPPs: internal politics within partner organizations; politics in developing and sustaining RPPs (i.e., at the boundary infrastructure); politics of research production and use in RPPs; and politics of addressing equity and transformation in RPPs.

Each organization and the individuals within them who are engaged in an RPP, experience internal political dynamics, power, and distributional conflicts within their institutions. These internal conflicts can bleed over into the partnership interactions and functioning, significantly impacting and potentially derailing the development, the operations, and the sustainability of RPPs. In this special issue, authors explore internal politics specific to two organizational settings, the politics within academia associated with incentives or disincentives in engaging in partnership work, and the political pressures within practice organizations—in this case, school districts—that may impede partnership work.

Researchers' choices to engage in partnership-based research with practice-facing educational entities is often driven by whether and how much the partnership work will count toward their tenure and promotion process ([62]). Applied research that is useful and relevant to practitioners often results in reports, briefs, or presentations, which do not align with the history and tradition of what is defined as currency or valuable for success in the academic context. As a result, junior or even senior faculty may be more hesitant to engage in RPP work, if publishable work is not the end result. This conflict over publication through academic mechanisms, as opposed to supporting practice and policy through digestible and actionable products, is not necessarily insurmountable, as [35] suggests.

Drawing on William T. Grant Foundation's Institutional Challenge Grant, designed to support universities in making institutional shifts to foster community-engaged research, as well as relevant literature and documentation of grantees' attempts to value and conduct applied or community-engaged, partnership-oriented research, [35] explores the tensions and sources of opportunity for the future of engaged research in the academy. Importantly, given prior research indicating that female faculty and faculty of color often disproportionately take on service roles and responsibilities in the academy ([37]; [66]; [67]), and emerging research indicating similar imbalances in who takes on community-engaged research ([24]), [35] rightfully points out that even as the field grows opportunities for partnership research, universities must pay close attention to whether the cost of engaging in this type of research will fall disproportionately on female scholars and scholars of color.

On the practitioner or policy maker side of educational RPPs, political, cultural, and organizational factors can influence whether and how a practice agency may have the time, capacity, and resources to engage in partnership work. Federal, state, and local accountability and finance systems influence priorities and resource allocation in many kinds of educational practice agencies. At the same time, organizational compartmentalization—or "siloing"—frequently impedes effective collaboration across departments, collaboration which could enable more efficient and effective delivery of educational services. Distributional conflicts across departments can occur over fiscal, human, or material resources and over control or power of policies and programs, which can also alter how practice entities engage in research, research use, and partnerships generally.

The article illustrating internal practice-side politics in this issue ([49]) focuses particularly on school district contexts, and highlights common district politics and how those politics influence school leaders' work in RPPs. Klein provides us with an insider view of key district politics, including leadership turnover, school board member priorities, or the persuasion of an influential funder, and examines how those politics influence the partnership work. Klein's analysis suggests that politics in school districts rely heavily on the presence of leaders with strategic knowledge leadership, as suggested by [30], as well as larger systems and structures of governance and influence, such as school boards, central office departments, unions, funders, and other community members. Klein's analysis draws on her long career working in RPPs while either leading district research departments or conducting research in a university and a non-profit organization in the greater Chicago area.

The contrasting cultures, values, and identities between researchers and practitioners are well known (e.g., [13]; [19]; [29]). Developing and sustaining RPPs involves, among other things, building trust, securing financial resources, and conceiving and implementing collaborative institutional design, or as [30] label it, the "boundary infrastructure." These elements of trust (relationships), resources, and organizational structures act as cornerstones for RPPs as they grow and progress. During the early stages of partnerships, participants need to develop trust to feel confident about working together ([71]; [81]). Yet, little is understood about the politics entailed in developing and sustaining trust. Collaboration on a shared problem across institutions often requires development of a common group identity ([1]), shared understandings about identity and values, as well as intentional organizational structures that can foster trusting, collaborative relationships. Building the infrastructure to support these relationships requires resources—human, fiscal, temporal, spatial, material—and conflicts can emerge across all of those resource dimensions. Two articles in this issue address the politics of developing and sustaining the boundary infrastructure and relationships within RPPs, by exploring the political dimensions of launching an RPP ([3]) and funding RPPs, from the perspective of funders ([69]).

Initial choices about the design of the structure of RPPs can be heavily contested, including membership in the partnership, roles of each member or organization, the organizational hierarchy of included entities, and the decision-making process or structure. These roles and structures may be devised at the onset but they are also continuously negotiated and adjusted as RPPs evolve ([29]). [3] reviews the RPP literature and finds that the inherent political nature of educational research influences the way RPPs originate and establish in the beginning stages of development. Anderson argues that RPP partners should ask questions of themselves that might elicit tensions around values, identities, and distribution of resources because without addressing these questions, partners may not reach their equity-centered goals.

In addition to the political dimensions of developing relational resources, to launch as well as to sustain RPPs, participants must negotiate and secure resources ([74]). Control over resources provides a great deal of power in shaping an RPP's work, in terms of the research agenda and the nature of expenditures. While some funding sources and arrangements can level the playing field between researchers and practitioners, others may preserve the dominance of universities as the "principal investigators." Deciding which resources to pursue to sustain the partnership over time may well shape the work and the identity of the RPP, so partners need to be in sync with those decisions. In the RPP context, conflicts over financial resources may be explicit, in which researchers and practitioners confer and negotiate about allocations and resources, or those discussions may remain obscured. [69] discuss the process of building or sustaining the infrastructure of RPPs, but from the perspective of funders making decisions about supporting and sustaining funding for an RPP. The authors explore cases where, as funders, they invested in RPPs, to support the mutually beneficial, long-term, improvement-oriented focus of RPPs. Through a set of reflection questions grounded in their case experiences, they examine various political dimensions of allocating funds to RPPs. The issues range from the potentially out-sized role that funders play due to their power status in holding the purse strings, to the importance of building the capacity of fledgling entities or those that do not receive funding with an eye toward equity. They conclude with concrete recommendations for funders who support RPPs.

The third section addresses the production and use of research, which are at the heart of what makes RPPs different from many other research-related activities, partnerships, or collaborations. RPPs are meant to close the divide between research and practice or policy by developing shared ownership over, and co-designing, the research ([19]; [64]) so that the work can benefit researchers and practice partners alike ([18]), and to jointly learn from the research to improve policy and practice ([19]; [31]). Inequities can permeate educational systems, specifically in terms of access to research, resources, and supports to apply research-based practices toward improvements. RPPs, in this sense, are a potential strategy for leveling such inequities, by increasing access, collaboration, and engagement around research through a long-term relationship focused on the use of research for improvement ([19]; [38]). In the process, though, decisions must be made about who defines the questions that get answered, who decides what constitutes research evidence, what collective sense-making processes or conditions are used to learn from the research and who is involved in those processes, and in what ways (if at all) research ultimately gets used in decision making around improving outcomes for students.

Three articles in this issue explore politics around the production and use of research, including those politics that emerge when setting an RPP research agenda, when navigating the complex conditions needed for research use more generally, and adapting research collaboration during the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure research is useful and used, more specifically. [57] explore how to manage power differences and balance priorities when establishing and carrying out research agendas in an RPP. They draw and build their analysis on the boundary framework by [30]. The authors identify additional factors for the framework, some that facilitate and others that obstruct the process of collaboration to establish and implement research agendas in partnerships.

Two additional articles, one by [33] and the other by [6], illustrate the many ways that the use of research evidence is inherently political. Finnigan's thorough review of the research use literature argues that social and political conditions influence the use of research evidence. Finnigan explains the political nature of the different types of research use, the political nature of brokers facilitating access to research, and the influence of racism and power differences over what research gets produced and used. Arce-Trigatti, Klein, and Lee further the argument that research use is inherently political by examining RPPs "responsivity" during the pandemic to practice partners' needs. Their unique data set from the National Network of Education Research-Practice Partnerships (NNERPP) allows them to examine research production and use among RPP members during the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused an unprecedented disruption of schooling, and where values, resources, and policies clashed in a perfect storm.

[54], [55]) recently referred to the four pandemics our country is facing simultaneously, including the COVID-19 health crisis, the increased attention to systemic racism, the economic inequality and crisis that has been exacerbated by the pandemic, and the global climate crisis. We would argue, similar to Ladson-Billings, that addressing these large-scale and systemic societal disparities changes will require changes in the distribution and balance of power. RPPs and their partner organizations and the individuals within them are inevitably impacted by these crises in different ways.

Three articles in this special issue focus on how RPPs grapple with addressing issues of equity and transformation. [30] explore equity in RPPs through participants' definitions of equity, ranging from equity being about individualism and achievement to equity as anti-racist transformation of power dynamics in educational systems. In essence, the definition of equity in RPPs becomes another example of how negotiating identity, values, and priorities within an RPP is an inherently political process. Similar to other literature (e.g., [84]), [30] share a framework for thinking about what equity in RPPs looks like—both in terms of what RPPs do ("equity-in-mission") and how they do it ("equity-in-process")—to aid in developing common language and to guide future research.

Two other articles explore the politics of equity and transformation in RPPs. [10] explores the tensions experienced when access to RPPs and the resources they bring create political tension and conflict. Using data from two cases of RPPs, Booker demonstrates the potential for RPPs to develop "productive politics of participation" by navigating the "productive disruption" needed to overcome the marginalization of young people and other community members often held at the periphery in RPP work. [85] use data from a case of an RPP between researchers and a community organization supporting districts in pursuing racial justice that did not thrive. The authors suggest that RPPs need to challenge racism and power differences to achieve their goals and have to work against the status quo in both process and outcome. They suggest RPPs can navigate a polarized sociopolitical climate by establishing commitments, building capacity for critical racial analysis, and confronting on-going internal and external resistance when an RPP is working to disrupt racism.

Politics are woven throughout the education endeavor, from political conflicts about the core of schooling and what should be taught and how, to how schools and school systems should be run and how they should respond to contextual crossroads or crises. Insert external partner organizations such as universities, researchers, community organizations and more into the mix and the sociocultural and political dynamics expand, likely exponentially. The act of infusing research into the system is rife with political hazards as well, not only in who uses it for what purposes, but also in what is being studied to begin with, by whom, and why. So, how do we manage these political dynamics in a way that maintains focus on the core task at hand for many of us engaged in this work—to draw on evidence to improve educational experiences for students, particularly those who have been historically underserved by our educational systems? For partnerships with educational agencies, like RPPs, that believe strongly that collectively learning from research can be a crucial tool for transformational improvements of school systems, bringing the lens of equity, and a commitment to working through political complications in the service of equity, is critical not only to what we study and how we study it, but also to why we partner.

This compilation of articles attempts to uncover some of the pitfalls and opportunities that politics introduces from many different angles, from the internal politics within partner organizations (in this case, universities and districts) that can seep into partnership functioning and success, to the operational politics of an RPP (e.g., starting up and sustaining support for the RPP over time), to navigating the politics of producing and using research, to ensuring that the research use and partnership focus is persistently aimed toward the equitable transformation of schooling, in mission, outcomes, process, and/or structure. In some cases, the articles point to productive disruptions or in failed attempts to overcome politics, to generate ideas for practices RPPs might use to ensure the commitment to equity stays true. The articles in this issue highlight important political dynamics and repercussions that research has only begun to address. As these articles point out, more research is needed to better understand how RPPs implement and sustain their focus on equity and transformation amidst political challenges and strife over the content or the very focus on equity, or amidst the practical realities of political upheaval and leadership turnover in any one of the partner organizations.

In this introductory article to the issue, we have also attempted to provide our perspective, as current or former RPP leaders, on ways to integrate the sociocultural and political dynamics into our understanding of how organizations learn collectively at the boundary of partnerships. We wholeheartedly embrace the expanded notions of absorptive capacity that [30] have enumerated in their article and framework, and the importance of those readiness indicators for organizations to engage in partnership work. We also appreciate the contributions from several of the articles in this issue that address head-on the issues of equity and how RPPs might address them—and have tried to incorporate those notions (particularly the notion of equity in process and structure as well as in outcomes) in our proposed model. We also have attempted to capture the cyclical, dynamic, iterative, and recursive nature of improvement and transformation in education and social systems in the diagram. And we denote how commitments to learning collectively through research to improve practice and the outcomes of importance to the community are fundamental to the formation of the boundary infrastructure. However clear those commitments might be, the boundary, the partners themselves, and the processes of partnership they enter into are not immune (and are porous to) the dynamics of political contestations. Conflicts over values, resources, and power are also fairly ubiquitous and inevitable. Whether those contestations become turbulent or the source of existential crises for a partnership or for the good work that they may do, we argue, is likely dependent on whether the partnership has spent the time to develop relationships, trust, intentionally equitable collaborative structures and processes, and clear and shared commitments to equitable transformation. Examples of the importance of these dimensions in RPPs are illustrated throughout the articles in this issue but we encourage the continued story-telling, research, and collective sensemaking about the political realities of making successful, sustainable, equitable, and transformational partnerships work.

Kyo Yamashiro, PhD, is Assistant Professor in the School of Education at Loyola Marymount University (LMU). She engages in collaborative, partnership-based research on key policy or practice issues, to foster improvement and equity in educational outcomes. In addition to co-founding the Los Angeles Education Research Institute (LAERI), a research-practice partnership with Los Angeles Unified, and serving as the Founding Executive Director for the first ten years, she has also supported schools and districts in evaluation and continuous improvement through district leadership roles and as an external researcher.

Laura Wentworth, PhD, is the Director of Research Practice Partnerships at California Education Partners. For over a decade, Laura has worked to unite research, policy and practice by directing the Stanford University and San Francisco Unified School District partnership and supported the development of the Stanford-Sequoia K-12 Research Collaborative. She has a Masters in instruction and curriculum from the University of Colorado, a Masters in the social sciences of education and a PhD in administration and policy analysis in education from Stanford University Graduate School of Education.

Moonhawk Kim, PhD, is the Director of Research-Practice Partnerships and Community Engagement at UC Berkeley School of Education (BSE). He brokers collaborative projects between researchers at UC Berkeley and educators and practitioners at school districts in the Bay Area in service of improvement and equity. Previously, he was the Supervisor of Analytics at San Francisco Unified School District, and prior to that he was an assistant professor of Political Science at University of Colorado Boulder.