Academic flocking and global distress: Equitable south-north research partnering to promote quality education in diverse contexts and cultures.

Abstract

In this article we apply an Afrocentric Resilience Theory (relationship-resourced resilience) to the domain of education research partnerships. We posit academic flocking as an equitable research partnership approach aimed at developing education knowledge that responds to collective distress and supports collective quality education. We provide support for our supposition regarding academic flocking by overviewing the mutually beneficial development of an online, home-based learning resource with relevance in two transnational contexts and cultures, South Africa and the United States of America. Whereas the context of the argument is a COVID-19 related global need for evidence-based education resources, conceptually we draw on lenses of resilience and emancipatory, democratising methodology to make sense of academic flocking as a fundamental structure for research partnership equity and relevant education innovation. As such, academic flocking holds value as a transformative alternative for South-North researcher partnerships in generating useful, quality educational innovations to address critical needs.