A practitioner’s view of a research-practice partnership: “Things seen from there”

Research-Practice Partnerships (RPPs) aim at transcending the divide between research and practice and have emerged in recent years as a new paradigm in educational research. Studies have shown that situating educational research within the context of an RPP can increase the likelihood that it will have a positive real-world impact. Yet most of what we know about RPPs reflects how they are perceived by academics; what these collaborations mean to practitioners requires further investigation. This chapter draws on ethnographic methods to explore the meaning of an RPP from the point of view of a principal and a group of teachers who took part in the LAB RPP initiative during the 2022–2023 school year. Field notes and observations collected over the course of the year showed the practitioners’ motivations to participate in the RPP and their understanding of it were tied to their professional identities and experiences. Based on these findings, academics are advised to be cautious when making assumptions about what the RPPs they are engaged in mean to the practitioners with whom they partner.