In the wake of a Swedish negative trend in international school measurements (for example PISA; OECD, 2013) during a ten-year period (2006-2015), many Swedish municipalities felt the urge to make substantial changes to improve the outcomes of student success. Consequently, several development projects throughout the country were implemented. One such initiative was “From Great to Excellent” (here further referred to as FGTE); a three-year long collaboration project carried out between four Swedish municipalities and a small Swedish university. The main purpose with FGTE was to reduce the gap between the student’s potential (what they could achieve) and their actual school achievement. This overall purpose referred to all forms of schooling (pre-school, primary school, (upper) secondary school and adult education), which face the similar kind of challenge in students’ ability to reach their optimal capacity and goal fulfillment in learning, hence the project participants came from three school levels: pre-school, primary school and (upper) secondary school and adult education. Furthermore, the project's organization consisted of a steering group (with people in leading positions from the participating municipalities), an operational process group (with school representatives from the participating municipalities), and a research group (consisting of three researchers from a small Swedish university). In order to enable progression and create conditions for change, the project participants consisted of different kinds of functions within the schools, such as school leaders, policymakers, and practitioners, so not just teachers.

Research points to the beneficial aspects of school-to-school collaboration in school improvement (Ainscow et al., 2006; Sammons et al., 2007; Cox-Petersen, 2011; Muijs et al., 2011; Muijs, 2015; Hargreaves & O’Connor, 2017). For example, according to Hargreaves and O’Connor, (2017) there is evidence that collaborative relationships benefit schools and Cox-Petersen (2011) indicate that there are great many benefits of creating partnerships among schools, businesses, universities, families, and other community groups, as well as many examples of professional partnerships to enhance the education of. Partnerships in education in the FGTE project emphasize the collaboration between schools, rather than on businesses, families, and other community groups (social contracts).  

This presentation is drawn from our chapter; Coming to Terms with Feedback from Critical Friends: Reflections of Risksin a Swedish Regional Collaboration Project, in a forthcoming book by Springer about risks in partnership. In our chapter we discuss the difficulties that arise when professionals from separate school organizations and from different hierarchical levels within these organizations come together in joint collaborative development work, guided by two questions: 1). What distinguishes the partnerships in the FGTE project between the four municipalities regarding their individual research questions? and 2). What type of risks present themselves in the FGTE project, in regard to the four municipalities as well as to the small university? The aim of this presentation is to recaptualise and summarize the primary results of the collaboration that developed within the FGTE project, to shed some light on what partnerships in education could mean in terms of obstacles and opportunities and its potential implications for school improvement.

The basic idea of the project was that instead of different schools working individually with their respective school development projects, they were brought together in a larger, common entity where they were given the opportunity to share each other's thoughts and ideas and give each other constructive feedback. Therefore, an important part of the project was the expectation of knowledge transfer between different schools and municipalities and the over-arching theme that organisations learn from each other and make each other better. Professional learning of teachers was considered crucial for improving the quality of education. Collaboration in professional learning communities contributes to the effectiveness of professional development efforts (Prenger et al., 2018). However, research on schools illustrating the establishment of productive working relationships with each other is relatively scarce (Townsend, 2013; Watson & Drew, 2017; Townsend, 2019), and this area of interest is a significant gap in the existing literature as school-to-school partnerships are becoming increasingly important (Townsend, 2019). There is also research that points out the difficulties of partnerships in schools (Sammons et al., 2007; Stoll, 2015; Jopling & Hadfield, 2017; Watson & Drew, 2017;). In the FGTE project the participants from the four municipalities worked collaboratively in different school development activities over time. During the project’s duration, the researcher group collected different types of data material to follow the project scientifically. For example, an annual survey, recordings of participants discussions and analyses of the participants school development activities. This follow-up research and/or practical research was conducted in close dialogue with the process group for FGTE. Follow-up research as a concept involves a research-based ongoing evaluation of a project or process within an organization, company, or authority. It does not primarily have a controlling function but should primarily contribute to development and learning for all parties who collaborate in the project. As the evaluation contributes to learning, it becomes process-supporting while forming the basis for planning, control, and decisions about implementation (Hallin & Jakobsson, 2017). Based on this, the purpose of the research has been to contribute to organizational and pedagogical learning and development. For this purpose, different types of data collection were motivated.

Theoretically, we link collaborations and partnerships to the concept of communities of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998). Lave and Wenger (1991) view learning and community as a social activity that develops from multiple experiences and different types of participation (from peripheral to central participation), entitled “situated learning”. Wenger (1998) discusses the concept of community of practice on the basis that successful learning is the result of an increasingly central participation in a collective and productive activity. Participation is thus described as something that is about a process in which the individual progresses from a peripheral position to a more central position. Therefore, informal learning can often be seen as a progression from peripheral to central participation (ibid). Communities of practice are formed by people who engage in a process of collective learning in a shared domain of human endeavor. In the present case, it has an identity defined by a shared domain of interest which consists of the participants’ partaking in each other’s collegial development work, as well as their joint experiences of the educational practice. In this specific context, the participants in the FGTE project were part of a community of practice to enhance and sustain partnerships within education. The concept of communities of practice can therefore be used as a lens to examine the collaborative interactions of the participants. The learning that takes place within the framework of the project is thus also situated. Our results points at how competence development can be organized to enable individual and organizational knowledge transfer and competence increase from one context to another. Teacher professional learning is considered crucial for improving the quality of education, and also, teacher collaboration in professional learning communities contributes to the effectiveness of professional development efforts (Prenger et al., 2018).

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