Cultivating community: detailing school and community engagement under complex conditions

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Accepted Manuscript (AM)
Author(s)
Hardy, Ian
Grootenboer, Peter
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2016
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This article reveals the nature of actions, discussions and relationships which helped forge school-community partnerships for engaged student learning and wider community participation for students and families living under difficult socio-economic circumstances. Specifically, the article draws upon interviews with key personnel and staff involved in the establishment and enactment of a 'Community Partnerships' programme to help improve the opportunities for students attending a primary school serving a low socio-economic urban community in south-east Queensland, Australia. Drawing upon Kemmis et al.'s (2014) notion of ...
View more >This article reveals the nature of actions, discussions and relationships which helped forge school-community partnerships for engaged student learning and wider community participation for students and families living under difficult socio-economic circumstances. Specifically, the article draws upon interviews with key personnel and staff involved in the establishment and enactment of a 'Community Partnerships' programme to help improve the opportunities for students attending a primary school serving a low socio-economic urban community in south-east Queensland, Australia. Drawing upon Kemmis et al.'s (2014) notion of educational practice as a product of ongoing interactions between particular actions ('doings'), discussions ('sayings') and relationships ('relatings'), which both constitute and are responsive to particular conditions or 'architectures' for practice, the article reveals how the conceptualisation, establishment and consolidation of the Community Partnerships programme was dependent upon specific 'relatings' between key district and school personnel, the actions/'doings' of these personnel, and ongoing 'sayings'/dialogue about their work. Collectively, these 'doings', 'sayings' and 'relatings' all helped to stimulate new conditions - 'practice architectures' - for improved opportunities for students and their families. Teacher education informed by such theorising of community-partnerships as the product of specific actions, dialogue and relationship-building is vital for developing improved understandings of such interactions and partnerships over time.
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View more >This article reveals the nature of actions, discussions and relationships which helped forge school-community partnerships for engaged student learning and wider community participation for students and families living under difficult socio-economic circumstances. Specifically, the article draws upon interviews with key personnel and staff involved in the establishment and enactment of a 'Community Partnerships' programme to help improve the opportunities for students attending a primary school serving a low socio-economic urban community in south-east Queensland, Australia. Drawing upon Kemmis et al.'s (2014) notion of educational practice as a product of ongoing interactions between particular actions ('doings'), discussions ('sayings') and relationships ('relatings'), which both constitute and are responsive to particular conditions or 'architectures' for practice, the article reveals how the conceptualisation, establishment and consolidation of the Community Partnerships programme was dependent upon specific 'relatings' between key district and school personnel, the actions/'doings' of these personnel, and ongoing 'sayings'/dialogue about their work. Collectively, these 'doings', 'sayings' and 'relatings' all helped to stimulate new conditions - 'practice architectures' - for improved opportunities for students and their families. Teacher education informed by such theorising of community-partnerships as the product of specific actions, dialogue and relationship-building is vital for developing improved understandings of such interactions and partnerships over time.
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Journal Title
Teaching Education
Volume
27
Issue
1
Copyright Statement
© 2015 Taylor & Francis (Routledge). This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Teaching Education on 20 Apr 2015, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10476210.2015.1034683
Subject
Curriculum and pedagogy theory and development
Specialist studies in education
Other education not elsewhere classified