School‐Based Research

Abstract

Longago, JohnDewey(1899)describedagapbetween research and practice in education. Over a century later, we are still confronted with this issue. Much research on learning is not embodied in practices in schools, and the practical expertise of teachers rarely informs education research. There is a need to create an infrastructure that integrates research and practice in education. In the field of medicine, research and practice are joined in teaching hospitals. In these institutions, researchers work alongside doctors to incorporate recent advances in medical research into practice and track results. There is a growing movement in the field of education to create analogous institutions in education called research schools (Chen, 2006; Fischer, 2009; Hinton, 2008; Hinton & Fischer, 2008, 2010; Kuriloff, Richert, Stoudt, & Ravitch, 2009). Research schools are living laboratories where researchers collaborate with practitioners to carry out research, train educators, and disseminate findings. Researchers at the Harvard Graduate School of Education have createdpartnershipswith adiversenetworkofpublic and private schools. This article beginswith an introduction to the research schoolmovement. It then focuses on a research school partnership between Harvard Graduate School of Education and St. George’s School, an independent college preparatory school inRhode Island. This partnership has generated fruitful school-based research, and can serve as a model for other research partnerships between universities and schools.