Collaborative work is increasingly encouraged in all levels of teaching and research, from kindergarten to university, as well as in the social, political and economic fields. School is not immune to this strong academic, social and political demand. Like creativity, critical thinking, communication or problem solving, collaboration is regularly presented as one of the key skills of the 21st century, these skills being likely to change or even transform education systems. The implementation of collaborative work in school is certainly desired and more or less supported, but it is not without raising new theoretical and practical issues and recurring pitfalls. This contribution tackles the problem of collaboration as a new element which is introduced into an educational system largely organized in compartmentalized disciplines. This inclusion questions the conditions that allow or hinder collaboration at all levels in the school establishment: between specialized teachers, between teachers and students, with the school administration, politicians or parents. To anchor this widespread problem in a more local context, we draw on the results of two research studies conducted in Switzerland, mainly in public and private primary schools. Through a mixed methodological device (interviews, questionnaires, observations, etc.) involving the actors directly concerned (headteachers, teachers, students), collaborative and interdisciplinary dynamics, as well as the devices that activate them, are studied. The schools all follow the official curriculum, but differ in their pedagogical choices: on the one hand, public schools with rather ‘traditional’ pedagogies, on the other, private schools inspired by so-called progressive pedagogies (Montessori, Freinet, etc.). This comparative analysis between different and complementary systems offers the advantage of thinking about the challenges of collaboration in diverse and differentiated contexts, considering different professional cultures and different ways of thinking about education, leadership, participation, living together, interculturality, etc. To fully understand and analyze the multilevel complexity of interdisciplinary collaboration, we use an integrated theoretical framework. This crosses three main fields of research: a) inter- and transdisciplinary studies which allow a fine deciphering of the collaborative dynamics that are built between and beyond school disciplines; b) studies on teamwork, strongly inspired here by the team science (TS) and Science of team science (SciTS) which aims to understand and improve the processes and results of team collaboration, and c) research on organizational and educational innovation who study the institutional and pedagogical conditions which favor or disadvantage the success of collaborative strategies.

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