UC Berkeley

Research-practice partnerships (RPPs) in K-12 education are one important form of community partnered scholarship intended to strengthen the alignment between research and practice communities to better understand local contexts and address pertinent issues that affect the health and wellbeing of students. To assess and evaluate RPP effectiveness, scholars have developed an assessment framework consisting of five dimensions. The first dimension, the focus of this dissertation, emphasizes the importance of trust and relationship-building. Within the RPP literature, scholars discuss the importance of trust, the indicators of trust, and the obstacles and challenges that impact trust; however, few studies explore how it is built, operationalized, and sustained. This dissertation addresses these gaps by undertaking a focused examination of trust-building frameworks, strategies, and assessments to expand the conceptualization and strengthen the operationalization of trust, laying the groundwork for improved RPP effectiveness.

Paper 1 is a narrative literature review that aims to: (a) explore how trust within RPPs is characterized in the literature, (b) identify RPP processes that assess trust, and (c) identify partnership activities that build and sustain trust. This review highlights existing gaps in the field related to effectiveness indicators on trust, noting that trust within the RPP literature is predominantly characterized as formal, technical, and process-oriented, while the relational and informal aspects are underexplored.

Paper 2 examines trust within the San Francisco Unified School District and UC Berkeley Research-Practice Partnership (SFUSD-Berkeley RPP). I apply existing trust indicators as a unique analytic frame to illuminate evidence that detail formal and informal trust-building strategies and narratives (e.g., time as a required resource for trust, trust in the context of multiple complex systems, trust and power imbalances, and relational trust). This study expands on existing RPP dimensions of trust by identifying and articulating understudied technical and relational processes that are often practiced but never explicitly detailed as trust-building or trust-sustaining within the RPP literature.

Paper 3 is a practice-based product and summary detailing the SFUSD-UC Berkeley RPP’s efforts to integrate youth-generated evidence from youth participatory action research (YPAR) into school and district decision-making routines and processes. Youth-led Participatory Action Research (YPAR) is an approach that engages young people as researchers who conduct systematic inquiry to identify and understand issues relevant to their own lives, and develop action plans and recommendations to address those issues. I report on the process and challenges of developing an interactive online YPAR data dashboard and inventory as a knowledge brokering tool to promote visibility and the use of youth-generated evidence. Major themes include privacy and consent related to the sharing and dissemination of youth-generated evidence from YPAR, district crises and capacity issues, and adult readiness and trustworthiness to hear and take up youth recommendations. This summary provides valuable insights for K-12 school districts and RPPs that wish to replicate this innovation and strengthen the integration of youth-generated evidence into decision-making processes.