Bridging Theory and Practice: Partnerships and Collaboration in Childhood Education

Abstract

Partnerships and collaborations between the professions, families and communities are an increasingly important dimension of policy landscapes internationally. Across a range of disciplinary fields whose practitioners work with and on behalf of children, there is an expectation that professional knowledge and service are at their most effective when there is meaningful collaboration with stakeholders. In this special issue, contributors working in the field of education consider a range of ways in which notions of partnership and collaboration might be brought to bear in early childhood education and in partnerships between schools and universities. The contributors explore the possibilities of new approaches to partnership, as well as challenging taken-for-granted aspects of partnership discourse. With an increasing demand for innovative partnership research, many educational researchers have shifted to work within an interpretive framework reflecting phenomenological,