Research-practice partnerships (RPPs) have great potential, and often the explicit goal, to improve a number of equity-related dimensions in education. Most often these include student focused aspects of education such as increasing equitable opportunities or improving overall outcomes; those who choose to participate in RPPs, however, also inherently care about producing research in more equitable ways as well. This collaborative aspect of partnerships, which requires researchers and practitioners to approach their roles in new ways, addresses head-on the historical imbalance of power that has generally characterized the production of research knowledge: In RPPs, research questions are jointly negotiated between “R” and “P” partners, bringing diverse forms of expertise from a variety of stakeholders to bear on pressing problems identified by practice-side partners. Although RPPs –by construction– are very likely to foster equitable participation in the generation and use of research, it is not a guarantee. RPP processes are almost certainly prone to the same unintended biases shaping other well-intentioned endeavors, while efforts to address unequal power dynamics can still present challenges, in spite of partnerships actively seeking to rectify these imbalances. 

At NNERPP, conversations about better centering equity in all areas of partnership work are not new: For example, it was the main theme of our 2019 Annual Forum (i.e., “The RPP Journey: Learning Together in Pursuit of Equity and Excellence”) and featured prominently in a number of sessions at this year’s meeting as well under the theme “RPP Effectiveness: Adapting and Advancing Towards a New Normal in an Era of Disruption”. In addition, members and friends of the network have also put forth new thinking and guiding tools on how to work towards equitable partnerships in two previous NNERPP Extra articles (see here and here). 

These conversations have gained even more momentum this year as the pandemic has deepened inequities in education and the calls for racial and social justice have become ever more urgent. In partial support of these priorities, we invited a team from Chicago Beyond, an impact investor working to provide more equitable access and opportunity for Chicago youth, to facilitate an introduction to their guidebook, “Why am I always being researched?”, for one of the sessions hosted at this summer’s Annual Forum. The guidebook is a terrific learning resource that presents a collection of seven inequities that get in the way of truth when conducting research, as identified by Chicago Beyond through accumulated lessons and knowledge gained during their experiences funding community organizations and research over the years. The guidebook also explores how these inequities – which include access, information, validity, ownership, value, accountability, and authorship (see Table 1 for a brief overview) – can be opportunities for change.

Table 1. The Seven Inequities Identified by Chicago Beyond’s “Why am I always being researched?”

Our session at the Annual Forum with Chicago Beyond was so insightful that we knew we needed to dive deeper and keep working through these important ideas as a community. In support of this effort, we hosted a virtual brown bag in late September with our members to re-introduce the guidebook and begin a series of critical conversations about what it means to apply the lessons identified by Chicago Beyond to an RPP context. From the collection of seven inequities, we focused on validity and access first, as they seemed to be two of the most foundational dimensions RPPs must consider when embarking on collaborative research. During the brown bag, we asked all those on the call to take a reflective look at their own RPPs and think through what it would mean to foster partnerships that attended to both the validity and access considerations defined above. 

In this first contribution of a multi-part series on applying Chicago Beyond’s insights around the seven inequities to RPPs, we share back a synthesis of the ideas and suggestions that surfaced during our conversation. Our intention with these pieces is to capture and share-out our initial thinking on these topics; we hope to iterate on these conversations moving forward, and to especially involve more voices and perspectives as we work through these critical dimensions together.

>>Reflections on Validity

As noted in Table 1, the Chicago Beyond guidebook includes the following reflective prompt on validity: “Could we be accepting partial truths as the full picture, because we are not valuing community organizations and community members as valid experts?” (page 7 of the Chicago Beyond guidebook). The three key words in this prompt include “valid”, “expert”, and “community” – we take up a more detailed look at these with our own set of reflective questions that we share momentarily.

Before we get to those, however, we pause to first think more carefully about what the reflective prompt means specifically for RPPs. In our case, we might ask quite simply:

• Whose knowledge do we value?

As is often the case in partnership formation, deciding on personnel is a critical first step – which means if we don’t get this part right, all of the partnership steps that follow will most certainly be fraught with bias. By asking ourselves “whose knowledge do we value?”, we create the opportunity to be more thoughtful about which groups are invited to participate in the RPP, what types of expertise are deemed “valid”, and who gets to determine the direction of the research. This is why from an RPP standpoint, validity is perhaps the most important inequity to consider – we make decisions, whether conscious or unconscious, about whose knowledge we value right from the beginning of the RPP launch process. 

Returning to the three key words from the initial prompt, here are three “remixed” questions we might ask ourselves in terms of the RPP context:

• Who counts as a “partner” in the RPP?
• Who is considered a “principal investigator” (PI) if there are grants involved?
• Who is considered an “expert”?

Recognizing that oftentimes the decisions to the above questions might be heavily influenced by a multitude of factors beyond any one individual’s control, we include the additional questions in order to probe further:

• Who gets to decide the answers to the above questions?
• How do funders influence these choices?
• How does your home organization influence these choices?

For our virtual brown bag in September, we considered each of these questions with the group, asking members to reflect on the questions themselves and share any reactions or feedback that emerged for them. There was some initial critical reflection by the group on the role equity itself played in the generation of the “knowledge” or “evidence” we start with (i.e., in terms of whose knowledge we value) – that is, are we beginning our conversations with groups whose research / knowledge / evidence base is already fraught with equity issues? Another participant suggested there is an important interaction between “whose knowledge” is considered and “what knowledge” it is that they bring – i.e., we don’t necessarily expect to value everyone’s knowledge “equally”, but rather, “equitably”, or where they have greater expertise and experience. 

In terms of who counts as a “partner” in the RPP, the group discussed the difference between considering these individuals “subjects” or “allies” – that is, are we mining their experiences or inviting them to truly collaborate as equal partners? One participant additionally cautioned the group to ensure we view our communities as humans with full-lived experiences and agency and choice.

The conversation then turned to a critical look at the concept of a PI, applicable when there is a grant involved in supporting the partnership (alternatively, when there is not an external factor dictating leadership roles, the equivalent question might be: who is named to the leadership of the RPP?). This led the group into a discussion about definitions: How do we define “value,” how do we define “experts”, and how do we define “PI”? For example, is the PI the person who runs the project, the expert, the person who manages the RPP, all of those things, etc.? Depending on how you define it, some partners may actually prefer not to take on that role. Indeed, there often is no prestige to being a PI for education leaders on the practice-side of the partnership, whereas being named a PI is generally very important in academia. Yet if the PI is the one calling the shots in a research project, an inherent power imbalance exists even if p-side partners have less vested interest in the position as such.       

Additionally, participants agreed that RPPs often have limited autonomy over these questions, bringing us back to how organizations or funders impact these considerations. For example, rules in research grants and those set forth by universities often restrict who can be named a PI. On the practice side, there is another set of concerns entirely: For one, many practice-side organizations are taxpayer funded, which directly shapes incentives that may not align with being named a PI. Furthermore, practice-side organizations may be subject to significant instability in terms of leadership and personnel, which is also not conducive to being named a PI. As leadership changes, priorities change – the person that gets to set the direction for research activities can change frequently, which is typically unfavored from a grant funding perspective.  

Taking into account all of these considerations, participants suggested a number of valuable ideas for proceeding:

• With regards to setting up the RPP leadership, participants identified a need to purposefully create structures within the RPP to encourage shared, collaborative, and equal decision making opportunities among partners, even if individuals are not officially named in those roles via a formal grant. For example, this might include naming a practice-side partner as an associate director of the RPP or co-director of the RPP, regardless of where the money flows to. 
• Participants also suggested the importance of having an open mind as to who an expert might be, and moreover, being thoughtful about seeking out these potential experts. One way to do this is to first map out all of the actors or individuals in the ecosystem that encompasses the locality your partnership is focusing on; then, spend time understanding the varied perspectives each brings to the problem your team is trying to address. By advancing in this manner, you potentially avoid limiting who is considered an “expert” via some hidden or arbitrary measure.
• A reflective question you might ask after an initial identification of expertise to offer a check on unintended biases: How representative of my community are the partners or stakeholders I have invited to participate?
• Additionally, participants on the call noted that the eventual work of the partnership itself will depend heavily on who you’ve identified as an “expert” or “partner”, and this will be important to consider upfront as the partnership forms. For example, are district research leaders considered your primary p-side partners? Or school principals? Or students? What would change, in terms of the production of knowledge, the research questions asked, and the actionable results developed, depending on which of these groups you ended up naming as “partners” or “experts”?

>>Reflections on Access

Although we intended to consider “validity” and “access” in somewhat separate reflections within the conversation, we realized as a group that they are quite connected. In the synthesis that follows, you’ll likely notice some recurrent themes that carry over from the validity discussion.

In terms of “access,” the Chicago Beyond guidebook poses the following reflective prompt: “Could we be missing out on community wisdom because conversations about research are happening without community meaningfully present at the table?” (page 7 of the Chicago Beyond guidebook). 

Applying this prompt to RPPs, we focus in on the phrase “at the table” and pause to reflect on:

• Who is at the RPP table?

While the “validity” inequity centers on value of expertise or knowledge, this inequity invites us to think more carefully about representation and voice. As we ponder “who is at the table” in our RPP, we can again start right at the beginning in the formation phase of a partnership and consider who is represented there, and who is not. In this regard, “access” may perhaps be even more fundamental than validity when embarking on the work.

Some additional questions we posed to the group to probe further:

• How diverse are your partners or stakeholders?
• Who is not meaningfully included in your RPP conversations?

And as we did before, recognizing that the approach to these questions may itself be subject to unintended biases, we also ask the following questions:

• How do you know whether or not you have the “right” people at the table?
• What if a partner does not wish to include additional voices in the work?
• Who or what constrains meaningful engagement with multiple stakeholders?

In the ensuing discussion, the group brought two main observations to the forefront: (i) What an equitable representation looks like with regards to who is “at the table” might depend and differ based on the research project, and (ii) it is important to also reflect on your own team and who is or is not represented there. 

Several NNERPP members observed that the nature of a research project and the questions it seeks to answer shape the kind of representative expertise that is needed. From there, it is important to intentionally seek out experts whose knowledge can then be leveraged based on the research content. This echoes what the group mentioned earlier with respect to the validity discussion; the additional insight here is noting that different groups of stakeholders may serve as important partners depending on the nature of the project, the question itself, or even where your RPP might be in terms of the research process. One participant described this idea by envisioning a stream, rather than a table, that people get to join by going in and out as appropriate – what is most important is that all groups have access to the stream itself. Another participant wondered how we can make access a two-way street, being careful to not default to always having one side or person consistently appointing who gets invited to the table / stream. For example, does the process or opportunity for reaching out to partners look different based on whether your home organization is on the “R” or “P” side? 

The group also discussed the need to critically examine who you yourself are bringing to the table, and reflect upon the extent to which your home team is diverse. Indeed, determining the size of the table, who gets to sit at the table, and who gets to meaningfully participate at the table are all decisions that will be made by those in power. How can the partnership make these decisions more equitably, taking into account the inherent limitations to participation that may restrict some groups from having their voice heard? Related to this, participants pointed out that RPPs might be able to leverage various boards or advisory groups to get more consistent input from a broader constituency. 

As the conversation came to a close due to time, one final thought brought up by the group had to do with RPP training, which is yet another aspect of access we can consider. For example we might ask, who are we training to do this type of work? Some universities are beginning to offer RPP-related course work (e.g., Stanford University, Rice University, University of Washington, and University of Colorado, Boulder, to name a few), but this is not a widespread phenomena, which suggests that only a small number of people have access to graduate training that exposes them to RPP work. Furthermore, as far as we can tell, there are no opportunities for those outside of academia to train in RPPs (note that this is something NNERPP is currently working on developing). These pipeline issues will require further thought and action if we are to address head-on some of the access issues related to joining an RPP.

In Conclusion

Although we had just a short 60 minutes for the September brown bag, we ended up having a rich discussion on “validity” and “access”, with many participants contributing incredibly valuable viewpoints to the conversation. As mentioned earlier in this piece, we hope this is merely the start of many more conversations to come as we continue to ponder together and refine our thinking on how best to attend to several inequities that may be unintentionally driving partnership work. We are excited for our proximal chat with the group, where we will take on “information” as the next inequity.

Paula Arce-Trigatti is Director and Nina Spitzley is Marketing Specialist of the National Network of Education Research-Practice Partnerships (NNERPP).

Suggested citation: Arce-Trigatti, P., & Spitzley, N. (2020). “Why am I Always Being Researched?” An Application to RPPs, Part 1. NNERPP Extra, 2(4), 9-14.