Politics, Community, and Leadership in a School-University Partnership

Abstract

A review of 8 years of the history of one school-university partnership and detailed field work for 3 years offers some new insights into this undertheorized organizational arrangement. Although much attention has been given to the advantages and disadvantages of working across the cultural boundaries between schools and universities, this work points to divergent interests and resources within each participating organization and several points of intersection between the two. Therefore, the authors suggest that a micropolitical perspective be used to analyze such partnerships. They speculate that partnerships sharing elements of the professional community may promote more improvement but that only subunits within partnerships are likely to become professional communities. Finally, they suggest that although people in a number of positions may be able to offer leadership for such partnerships, those in boundary-spanning roles are especially well placed to do so.