ERIC EJ894469: The Measure of Our Success

2010·0.14 MB·English

by  ERIC

PERSPECTIVES ON URBAN EDUCATION SUMMER 2010 | PAGE 73
NOTES FROM THE FIELD
The Measure of Our Success
By Kami M. Patrizio, Towson University
Being in Barbara’s1 office reminded direct. I settled into my chair and “He came in here once before, asked
me of being in my Grandmother’s gestured, as if to say, “Do you want for a sandwich. So, I made him a
kitchen. It was pleasant, small and me to leave?” She waved me to stay sandwich and he sat and ate it.”
warm. There was enough room for seated. Barbara looked at the empty space
three people to sit comfortably, four in her doorway where he had been
if someone squeezed into the seat “Oh.” Her eyebrows lifted, then fur- a few moments before. She didn’t
at the computer behind Barbara’s rowed, “I’m sorry. We can’t help. say anything else about him. I
desk. Every surface had files, pic- Try contacting…” didn’t ask any questions. We were
tures, or office equipment on it. both able to infer that he was trou-
For some reason, which I ascribed The intercom that connected to the bled and in some sort of dire need.
to Barbara’s general ethos of clear- main door of the rectory buzzed and He had required help and she had
headed calm, it never felt crowded. I took the liberty of opening it. Bar- done the best she could to provide
bara finished her sentence and hung it. It felt like vestiges of his despair
“The delivery man wanted to leave up the phone. lingered where he had been stand-
the new stove outside. OUTSIDE. ing. We were quiet for a moment,
In this neighborhood? I told him, ‘I “We have a bill assistance program,” until the phone rang again. She an-
don’t think so…’” she explained to me,” But we can swered it.
only help with the last $50 of the
My stomach hurt from laughing bill. People call us with $700 bal- “You need the check?” Barbara
so hard. Her incredulity and voice ances. We just can’t do all of that.” shuffled through a pile of manila
were both sincere and hilarious. folders on her desk. “I’ve got it right
A man walked up to the office door. here. Come on over when you’re
“Can’t you just see what would hap- He was young, maybe in his early ready to pick it up.” (Researcher
pen?” Barbara continued. “There it twenties, and tall. His khaki pants journal, April 2008)2
would be, 10 o’clock tonight, two were streaked with dirt, his braids
junkies with a cart, rolling the new frayed. The line of his jaw was chis- SUPPOSITONS, SUSPICIONS, AND
church stove down the street after- eled and shadowed with stubble.
SUSTENANCE
hours. Puh-lease. So I told him to He looked hollow.
come back when he had someone “Is Father here?” Narratives are more than a se-
to help him move the stove into the quence of happenings; they illustrate a
building.” The young man’s voice was quiet and point, usually one that revolves around
steady, but teetering on the cusp of some type of dissonance (Ryfe, 2006).
I wiped tears from my cheeks and desperate. Barbara looked at him. There are many “points” one might dis-
gasped for breath. cern from this snapshot of Barbara’s
“I’m sorry; he’s not here today. Can office. As an observer, I am unsure of
“So then, I…” I help you?” Barbara’s place in this setting. Bar-
bara is always busy, dealing constantly
Here, the desk phone rang. While “I need him to pray with me. Is with many demands. She is a resource.
Barbara was talking, her wireless there someone that can pray with People seek her out to provide answers,
phone buzzed and she began to me?” He slumped his shoulders solace and support. Barbara facilitates
respond to a text, pausing only to slightly. “I just need someone to the practical and the spiritual for oth-
pull a folder from her desk labeled, pray with me right now.” ers, with varying degrees of success.
“Phone bill assistance”. His use of the words “right now” The narrative alludes, too, to the
held no imperative demand, but myriad of dilemmas that present them-
“We can only help with the last $50 rather intoned a need, an immedi- selves in the daily series of events that
of the bill. How much do you owe?” ate need, for comfort. Barbara di- define Barbara’s life as a community
She finished texting as she listened, rected him to another local church. leader. Humor, pain, poverty, and
eyebrows furrowed. The tone of He turned and we heard the door resilience wend through the experi-
her voice was rich, assured, and click locked behind him. ential parameters that render her a
reliable, grounded constant for mem-
PERSPECTIVES ON URBAN EDUCATION SUMMER 2010 | PAGE 74
bers of the Prima Valley Community local ethnic groups. These spaces of these facets, including identity, net-
(PVC). It can be inferred, and right- hold rich and revealing data about works, processes and resources must
fully so, that Barbara’s office was a the resilience of young adults, with- be taken into consideration through-
place where hope grew in the midst out denying the oppression which out the course of research. Attending
of the dire needs of the community. threatens the borders and interiors to these facets requires ethical con-
It became apparent to me early on of community life amidst urban sideration of participants, as those di-
in my experiences with the PVC that poverty. (Weis & Fine, 2000, p. 58) rectly involved in the research and as
any space Barbara occupied, literally those connected to the networks that
or metaphorically, was infused with We identified the influences that defined the parameters of the research
the lived realities of PVC residents. fueled, challenged and influenced our and distribution networks (Nespor
She represented these neighborhood work in the community through our & Groenke, 2009). Hence, ethically
voices at each meeting that she attend- conversations over time. It was from conducting research with an eye to-
ed. When she was not in attendance this dialogical space that I was able to wards agency was inextricably linked
at a meeting, her name and activities dialectically question my “participa- to my use, as a researcher, of “cul-
were referenced as almost the default tory responsibility to research with tural tools, artifacts, organizations,
proxy voice for the needs and desires and for a more progressive commu- and communication systems” (Nespor
of community members. Indeed, her nity life” (Weis & Fine, 2000, p. 59). & Groenke, 2009, p. 998) in commu-
experiences justified her role: she had This safe space became one of the key nity, school and university contexts.
grown up in Prima Valley, had given up frames through which I began to ad- The notion of agency-as-product reso-
a lucrative career to combat the crime dress many of my own questions about nated as appropriate for my research,
that had sprung up amidst it during conducting research in the context of particularly, given my focus on the
her adulthood. She was active in many community partnerships. What are the research process and its relationship
community boards and organizations. dimensions of ethical research design to learning in partnership networks.
Her work with one of the neighbor- and implementation in community- I attempted to address these ques-
hood churches connected her with the school-university research? What are tions by consistently revisiting my re-
spiritual lives of PV’s residents, her the phenomenological dimensions of search problem, and by holding myself
activism in community trusts, boards attending to agency in this context? to “ethical stances in as much as they
and organizations put her in touch This paper addresses these ques- shape the implications of the research
with the activities, schools, and poli- tions by exploring the process of for the agency of its participants” (Ne-
tics of the community, city and state. problem framing (Nespor & Groenke, spor & Groenke, p. 997). The above
Barbara was a leader, and a pas- 2009) in research, and considering led to another stream of questions.
sionate advocate for PVC in the con- the ethics of the framing in the con- How did I decide what to study about
text of the formal community-school- text of my dual role as a researcher and leadership development? How was I
university partnership through which educator seeking to engender learning asking my research questions? What
I came to know her. I was conducting amongst partnership stakeholders. In were the geographic and temporal pa-
research on leadership development in doing so, I attend to issues of agency rameters of my considerations? Where
school-community partnerships, and in partnership research by providing was I allocating the locus of agency in
realized that my research methods re- the situational context of my research the research process: with communi-
quired sustained contact with the com- and work in the community. I also ty, school, or university participants?
munity in a more intimate way that my include excerpts from my research Conceptualizing the link between
interviews and surveys did not allow. I journal. These excerpts describe in- research and agency through this heu-
instantly felt comfortable around Bar- cidents that raised questions for me ristic of problem framing made me
bara, and our interactions evolved over about the subtle nuances of research, sensitive to the idea of maintaining
time. What began as a collaboration agency, and common understanding in “responsibility at a distance” (Nespor
to develop an afterschool program be- a community-university partnership. & Groenke, 2009, p. 998), which sur-
came an intimate dialogue about the faced a number of additional ques-
history, happenings, dreams, and vi- AGENCY, ETHICS, AND PROBLEM tions throughout the research process.
sion for PV and for us. Our dyad be- Elements of these considerations, as
FRAMING
came a safe research space, of the type the following journal excerpts demon-
that has been described as growing: Nespor & Groenke (2009) describe strate, were centered in the safe space
from the passions and concerns of agency as “a product of the way people that I had created with Barbara. Did
community members; they are rare- define or appropriate identities, craft my research methods adequately at-
ly structured from “above”…They associations and networks, and mobi- tend to the manner in which the expe-
can be designed to restore identities lize other people and resources to par- riences of the people in Prima Valley
devastated by the larger culture or ticipate in and influence processes that were “constitutive of lives and events
they may be opportunities to try on begin and end outside their immediate elsewhere” (Nespor & Groenke, 2009,
identities and community rejected settings” (p. 998). Agency is the result p.998)? Would my research help those
by both mainstream culture and of many facets of community life. All in Prima Valley and beyond to criti-
PERSPECTIVES ON URBAN EDUCATION SUMMER 2010 | PAGE 75
cally consider and reform the learning Prima Valley had been taken advan- During the second year of my work,
processes in their community? Was I tage of by previous partnerships, and I began to connect with other faculty
incorporating enough participants into as a result, community members were from the university who were inter-
my considerations to allow for agency now leery of such relationships. Many ested in providing programs and ser-
by demystifying the power dynamics community residents were afraid that vices through the PVI. This presented
inherent in collaborative partnerships? the university was only interested in me with occasion to consider the man-
Was I, “dishonest or disruptive”, favor- working in Prima Valley because big ner in which my university colleagues
ing “some participants over others” name developers wanted to gentrify the approached collaborative work with
or infringing on “the privacy of the community and change its racial and urban communities, reinforcing my
people depicted?” (Nespor & Groenke, socio-economic profile. The Prima Val- beliefs in the value and potential of uni-
2009, p. 999) All of these questions ley community members inferred that versity-community partnerships. I be-
helped to improve my understanding the university only cared about their gan to work on two research projects in
of the relationship between research schools because “rich” children, poten- the PVC during this second year. The
and agency in community partner- tially, would soon be attending them. first was a participatory community
ships. In the next section of the paper, It was for these reasons that it took two health initiative that sought to address
I describe the manner in which the his- years of relational work to gain com- issues of adolescent pregnancy in the
tory, demographics and participants munity support for the partnership. community. The second project inves-
of PVC informed my investigation. The purpose for the Prima Valley tigated the development of leadership
Initiative (PVI), according to its web- in community-university partnerships.
THE PRIMA VALLEY INITIATIVE: site, is “to build upon the strengths My understanding changed over
of Prima Valley to meet its needs and time, and much of this was influenced
PARTNERSHIP AND SELF CONTEXT
nurture its potential in areas related to by my involvement in community-
Prima Valley is adjacent to a large economic, community and educational based health and economic develop-
city on east coast. The community sat development.” (PVI website, retrieved ment activities in PVI. It became ap-
on the southern edge of the city limits February 12, 20103). The manner of this parent that developing agency through
and was bordered by green spaces and development remains unarticulated in research meant considering agency
waterfront. Major companies and a well PVI. Over the course of the initiative, through the lens of all community resi-
known, international real estate devel- “development” has happened in the dents, and not just residents involved
oper had expressed interest in develop- form of grant acquisition, professional in PVI’s schools. It also meant con-
ing Prima Valley. Barbara advocated development for schools and commu- sidering how university faculty and
for the rights of community members nity organizations, the formation of administrators approached partner-
in her role as the Executive Director of advisory boards, and the delivery of ship learning through programs and
the Prima Valley Trust. Her efforts re- programs for children and residents. research processes. I had to reframe
sulted in some financial resources be- my problems once again to include an
ing brought back to the neighborhood Multiple Roles, Intersecting Identities extended network of participants as
in the form of community programs. I considered leadership development
I have had many roles in the PVI
through the lens of interdisciplinary
since I was first introduced to the com-
The Prima Valley Partnership partnership networks. Engaging in
munity more than two years ago. My
As the introductory narrative sug- work began as a university faculty two research projects, one focused on
gests, Prima Valley was in need of consultant for a middle school renew- leadership development and one fo-
resources. Almost 70% of the house- al initiative. As part of this project, I cused on community health issues,
holds in the community were families became a member of the PVI Princi- ultimately enriched my understand-
and the median household income for pal’s group, acted as a professional ing of framing research problems and
the community was about $18,000 developer for school parent groups, nurturing learning in partnerships.
(Prima Valley Master Plan, 2007). and became a member of the PVI de-
Prima Valley was a small community cision-making body, the Community RESEARCH PROCESS
of approximately 7,500 residents, ap- Advisory Board. Working with teach- The following three journal ex-
proximately 96% of whom were Black. ers, parents and principals from each cerpts illustrate the manner in which
Four of the five K-8 schools in the of the PVI schools helped me to un- my experiences with PVI participants
neighborhood were in corrective ac- derstand the rich and complex history, influenced my attempts to engage in
tion for failing test scores just around relationships, challenges, and political agency oriented research. The entries
the time the Prima Valley partnership issues that impacted the PVC. I came are taken from the journal that I have
began to take root in 2005. High turn- to know people during meetings, class- maintained since becoming involved
over among teachers and administra- rooms, after-school football games, with PVI more than two years ago. The
tive personnel plagued the schools, as community celebrations and their selected entries focus primarily on uni-
did the effects of poverty, violence and homes. My participation in each of versity and community relations, one
drug use that pervaded the community. these groups has continued to this day. interaction occurring in the context
PERSPECTIVES ON URBAN EDUCATION SUMMER 2010 | PAGE 76
of a PVI school, and highlight issues of partnership activities. I watched tion of sovereign research, wherein re-
related to understanding communi- the eyebrows of one of the com- searchers autonomously control the re-
ties that were germane to my evolving munity members raise slightly. No search process in its entirety (Nespor &
understanding of ethical community one else really said anything. I re- Groenke, 2009). I found this tradition
research and the complex nuances sponded, suggesting that research problematic in our context because it
of partnerships that are grounded in was an important thing for us to established a false dichotomy in the
school and community development. consider, but that we as a partner- locus of agency in research, simply by
These reflections connect my experi- ship had yet to engage in any dia- virtue of the collaborative essence of
ences to theoretical and practical un- logue with community members the partnership. University faculty and
derstandings that I have come to con- about the processes of research in community members had consistently
sider in the course of my work in PVI, PVI. This dialogue, I suggested, worked together to identify, explore,
and raise important questions about the needed to happen before we could and determine PVI activities. Why
nature of research and partnerships. talk about conducting any research. should research have been approached
any differently? The raised eyebrows
Research Journal Excerpt One: Who The university faculty members and silence that followed my col-
that were present stayed after the league’s statement were troublesome.
Said Anything About Research?
meeting to discuss this interchange. We had sought to engage and empower
I was in a meeting of the Commu- Three of us were pre-tenure and community voices over the past three
nity Health Advisory Board today in one was tenured. The senior fac- years of the partnership. Introducing
Prima Valley. These meetings feel ulty member was, no doubt, ad- research as a “given” instead of a topic
different to me than the first middle vocating for our best interests as for discussion silenced those voices and
school meetings that I attended; junior faculty members…after all, simultaneously glanced over an oppor-
there are more members of the uni- publication is an important part of tunity to explore the respective mores,
versity present now than two years being a faculty member. As such, cultural values, politics and knowledge
ago. I have mixed feelings about research is a need of the university that are so crucial to framing and con-
this. University faculty members as an organizational partner. I am ducting research. We had had acted as
bring so much needed expertise to working towards tenure and I un- if research was something to be done
the table, but they don’t know the derstand all of this pointedly. What “on” instead of “with” the community.
people in this community. My expe- I am wrestling with is the assump-
rience has been that my colleagues tion that research should be put on
Research Journal Excerpt Two: Who
at the university differ substantially the table so blithely, as a foregone
from the people that I have met in conclusion, in the context of a part- Has the Rights to our Research Design?
here in Prima Valley. Race, social nership that required two years of We’ve completed the IRB for the
class, and even gender aside (as if relational work and negotiations focus group research. I feel good
you can ever put those things aside), to establish. Ideally, a process for about the design of the study; we
the culture of this specific area has a research would have been outlined worked with the Community Health
rich history that is unique. I worry at the outset of the partnership. Advisory Group to establish the
about how faculty members’ per- Let’s be honest, though: partner- questions and the language for
sonal assumptions and prior expe- ships are often not so clean cut. our consent forms…it feels good
riences with urban research will im- In many ways they involve “build- to know that in spite of the some-
pact their words and actions in these ing the airplane as it flies.” This is what shocking way that research
meetings, and find myself hoping not ideal. But it is real. (Research was introduced into the partnership
that they will focus on the things journal excerpt, April, 2009). dialogue at that Community Health
that connect all of us. I’m unsure Advisory Group months ago, we’ve
about what these ‘things’ may be. The False Dichotomy of Sovereign learned and are involving commu-
nity voice in our research process. I
Research Traditions
Near the end of the meeting, one sent one of the key community lead-
of my senior colleagues mentioned This experience raised a number ers a draft of the IRB in the spirit of
that faculty would be using their of questions for me about research in collaboration, along with a request
work on this community health partnerships. How should university that the draft be kept within the
project for research. I felt myself faculty introduce the idea of research to group. A couple of days ago I was
blanch. No one has ever mentioned community members? What about the cc’d in an email from another agen-
the word “research” in this setting, community’s needs and rights? Is it eth- cy that is doing similar research to
or any other setting in the context ical for faculty to assume that research ours in another part of the state.
of PVI community meetings, so is a foregone conclusion in community The email thanked the PVC leader
far as I knew…and I had been in- partnerships? The manner in which for passing along our IRB materi-
volved in many, if not most of the my colleague introduced research into als. After a brief moment of panic,
PVI meetings since the early days the dialogue reified the academic tradi- I thought to myself, “Is this what it
PERSPECTIVES ON URBAN EDUCATION SUMMER 2010 | PAGE 77
means to do research with the com- dire economic needs, the act of shar- cerns that had been expressed in
munity?” Do community members ing the IRB co-opted the agency of the the letter. Moreover, the Principal
now have the rights to share our community members who had partici- and teacher felt that the language of
study design and research instru- pated in the research design process, as the letter revealed the faculty mem-
ments with other researchers? I’ve well as our agency as faculty members. ber’s lack of understanding about
not done enough collaborative re- One community member had made what it means to work with children
search to know if this is a common this decision and the locus of agency in an urban setting, like the PVC.
practice prior to IRB approval. I was once again framed by a positional
feel uncomfortable, regardless. I bound conceptualization of leadership. I was heartbroken: for the students,
do not know this organization. I do This action did not infringe on our who had been unjustly character-
not know their researchers’ level of privacy as partnership participants; ized; for the teacher, who I knew well
training. I do not know the purpose however, it tested the boundaries of to be an outstanding educator; for
of their organization’s research or our rights to intellectual property. the Principal, who had made great
any agendas that may sit behind The ethics of this community mem- academic strides with his school and
it. And ultimately, there’s nothing ber’s action are complicated. Does was deeply committed to PVI; and
that I can do about it now (Research the right to act in community research for the faculty member, who had not
journal excerpt, June, 2009). belong to individuals, or collaborative been adequately prepared or sup-
groups? Who, if anyone, should have ported at the university end to work
Agency, Expertise, and Action the final word? Should it be community in the Prima Valley community (Re-
members or those trained in research? search journal excerpt, May, 2009).
In this entry, I reflect on one com-
Do the community’s needs for money
munity member’s decision to send a
and political support outweigh uni- Learning from our experiences
draft IRB proposal to another agency
versity research parameters? Murell
that has not been involved with our Journal Entry 3 also addresses
(2001) addresses these questions in the
collaborative research project. The learning and the creation of safe spac-
context of teacher education, calling
community member, part of this re- es in partnership networks, but in the
for discursive practices that allow for
search development team and a re- context of program delivery. The in-
“the deliberate and systematic articula-
search participant, acts independently cident described in Journal Entry 3
tion of foundational difference among
and consults no one about his decision speaks to the importance of deliberate-
participants contemplating a research
in spite of the collaborative and partici- ly creating safe spaces for learning that
project” (p. 155). Opting to engage in
patory nature of the research. Sharing span the organizational, temporal and
research processes with an individual
the IRB without consulting the team geographic boundaries of participants.
orientation encourages false dichoto-
repositions the locus of agency in the The manner in which the faculty mem-
mies that overlook the importance of
research to the community, but the ber confronted his problem suggested
and the need for collaborative spaces
locus is still individual in its orienta- that he did not feel like he was a mem-
where multiple narratives are taken into
tion. The action speaks to the need ber of the network. He did not approach
account during the research process.
to create safe spaces for talking about the teacher or school principal as col-
research as an ethical process; while leagues who might help him to solve
Research Journal Excerpt Three: Best
the community had been involved in this problem. He did not consult fellow
the research design, there had been no Intentions and Faculty Engagement researchers who were involved in the
dialogue about the ethics of research partnership. Instead, he went directly
I was privy to a flurry of disturbing
or the research process as a whole. to his Dean, who was only tangentially
emails today. The correspondence
It is possible that this participant’s involved in the problem, and resorted
began with a letter from a universi-
actions were fueled by political or fi- to blaming the very people who could
ty faculty member to his Dean. The
nancial motives. Indeed, this event have helped him to be successful with
Dean had forwarded the letter to
hearkened to mind the flip side of in- his work in the middle school. As I read
PVI leadership. The faculty mem-
volving community in agency-oriented the email correspondence, I wondered:
ber had been delivering a classroom
research. Weis and Fine (2000) de- “What could we have done to draw on
program in of one of the Prima Val-
scribe these phenomena, speaking of the significant knowledge of those in
ley Schools as part of the PVI. The
how participants in their ethnographic PVI schools to orient him appropriate-
faculty member expressed extraor-
research have “welcomed us into their ly to their culture? How could we have
dinary frustration with students, the
spaces to exploit our capacity – our made this into a learning experience?”
classroom Teacher, and the Princi-
class and professional positions and Here again, the incident depicts some-
pal of the school. The letter was then
networks” (p. 59). Had this commu- one acting as an individual agent on
forwarded to the Principal and, sub-
nity participant done exactly that? I behalf of the university, not as a mem-
sequently, the Teacher. The Princi-
was aware that those who received the ber of a multiple stakeholder partner-
pal and the teacher were incensed;
IRB were associated with a funding ship. This Journal Entry also speaks
the faculty member had never spo-
opportunity for PVI. In spite of PVI’s to the connection between agency-
ken to either of them about the con-
PERSPECTIVES ON URBAN EDUCATION SUMMER 2010 | PAGE 78
oriented research and agency-oriented ceral experience of teaching children tiate this hyphen as I, too, endeavored
program delivery. As agency-oriented are complex when taken as isolated to learn about the nature of research,
researchers, we must question, “Does endeavors. Combining the two makes agency, partnerships, and learn-
our presence affect or interrupt the it intense. How could we have pre- ing…as a researcher and an educator.
music of life within free spaces? Does pared him? Supported him along the
our social scientific voyeurism shatter way? Involved classroom teachers and What Have We Learned?
the sanctity of that which is presum- school leaders in the dialogue? There is
This research has implications for
ably (although recognizably not) free” so much talk about learning communi-
agency-oriented partnership research
(Weiss & Fine, 2000, p. 58). So too ties in schools, and to a lesser extent,
in the PVI context and beyond. In my
must partnership participants criti- universities. This incident speaks to
research, I came to understand how ex-
cally examine their own identity, as- a need to create learning communi-
tending my conception of research par-
sumptions, and communication pat- ties, as safe spaces, for faculty work-
ticipants across disciplinary boundar-
terns within partnership networks ing in complex partnerships like the
ies in the partnership provided me with
in the course of program delivery. PVI. Indeed, it seems central to en-
a richer understanding of the influenc-
Additionally, partners must be will- gendering sustainable partnerships.
es on leadership development in the
ing to sit down to listen and learn from
partnership context. Working with col-
each other. This holds true for members RESEARCH, AGENCY, AND OTHERNESS
leagues and community members com-
of all stakeholder groups and is essential
I allude to the matter of identity pelled me to revisit my ideas about the
if partnerships are to engender learn-
in the context of this writing and feel locus of agency in different situations,
ing that ultimately contributes to the
I must acknowledge: this work largely as well as the manner in which I framed
capacity of all partnership stakeholders
leaves the matter of my own identity problems for consideration, particu-
to act in a manner that might strength-
unexplored as it intersects with part- larly during the course of analysis.
en the partnership’s collective agency.
nerships and the research process. The Journal Entries demonstrate
What might have been a safe space
In choosing to focus on the manner the centrality of creating organiza-
where even children from the commu-
through which I came to understand tional learning structures that will
nity were allocated agency in their own
agency and problem framing in an ap- act as safe spaces for dialogue about
right became a site of relational con-
plied context, I have opted to adopt a research and program delivery for
tention. Though we have addressed
lens that is bound to my role of being members of the partnership. Sus-
this by holding a community orienta-
a university faculty member. As such, taining partnership learning requires
tion for faculty interested in participat-
I have, for the most part, eliminated opportunities to surface and me-
ing in the PVI, I still wonder: how could
matters related to my own race, class diate perceptions, values, beliefs,
we have done a better job of supporting
and gender. This may be seen as a defi- information, and assumptions
this faculty member? And are we do-
cit in my approach. Indeed, there were through continuing conversa-
ing enough now? Education was not
many times when my own assumptions tions; to inquire about and gener-
his area of expertise or interest. He was
and beliefs, partially explored herein, ate ideas together; to seek to reflect
from an entirely different academic
rendered me an “other” in the eyes of upon and make sense of work in
discipline. I had heard him speak. His
community members and university the light of shared beliefs and new
heart was in the right place; he wanted
colleagues. Examining my “ecology of information; and to create actions
to share his culturally relevant knowl-
practice…at multiple levels of exper- that grow out of these new un-
edge with children. The school and
tise, experience, and activity” (Murrell, derstandings. Such is the core of
community had trusted this goodwill
2001, p. 7) through the lenses of oth- leadership (Lambert, 1998, p. 6).
and content expertise, and opened
erness remain areas ripe for insight.
their doors to him, allowing him access
They merit additional consideration Paradoxes, conundrums, and disso-
to their most precious resource: their
in the context of my own work as well nance will inevitably arise in the course
children. Did he learn anything from
as the larger body of scholarship about of partnership events and often, there
what happened? I wonder, too, what
research, teacher education, faculty will be no easy answers. The capacity
we might do in the future to draw on
development and partnership learn- for agency lies in the ability of part-
the significant knowledge of those in
ing (Orr, 2008; Wilson, 2006). This nership processes to turn these ques-
PVI schools to orient faculty to the PVC
boundary between self and other is, af- tions into learning experiences. The
culture? And to what end? Children
ter all, “the hyphen at which self-other framework and research experiences
have always been the heart of the PVI
join in the politics of everyday life, that presented are compelling incidents
initiative, the goal to help them reach
is, the hyphen that both separates and that suggest the true measure of part-
their full potential as learners. Sus-
merges personal identities with our in- nership success is the extent to which
tenance of the partnership, however,
ventions of others” (Fine, 1994, p. 70). agency oriented research supports
requires support mechanisms for fac-
It is with gratitude and humility that I safe spaces for partnership learning.
ulty learning too. The act of working
acknowledge the manner in which re-
in a socioeconomically disadvantaged
search participants allowed me to nego-
urban community and the equally vis-
PERSPECTIVES ON URBAN EDUCATION SUMMER 2010 | PAGE 79
Kami M. Patrizio, Ed.D. is an
Assistant Professor of Instructional
Leadership and Professional Develop-
ment at Towson University in Mary-
land. Her research interests focus
on adult learning in organizations,
urban education and qualitative re-
search methodology. Patrizio’s work
has been published in Qualitative Re-
search and the Association of Teacher
Educator’s Yearbook XVII: Teacher
Learning in Small-Group Settings.
ENDNOTES
1All names of people and places used in this article are pseudonyms.
2All names of people, organizations and locations used in this research are pseudonyms.
3The website is not included in order to maintain the confidentiality parameters of the research.
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