Despite policymakers’ continuing emphasis on school-university partnerships in initial teacher education (ITE) and at least two decades of international research about partnership models of teacher education (e.g., Furlong et al., 2006; Reynolds, Ferguson-Patrick & McCormack, 2013; White, Timmermans & Dickerson, 2022) they remain problematic in their development and implementation. Lynch and Smith (2012) suggest that the term ‘partnership’ is often used as if there is consensus about its meaning, however without clarity about the roles and responsibilities of those involved, tensions and anxiety about the expectations and perceived potential changes can surface. Allen, Butler-Mader, and Smith (2010) in their research of teacher education partnerships, found that teachers and academics claimed to be generally unaware of the responsibilities of the other. Similarly, White et al. (2022) emphasise the complexities of working across institutional borders with multiple stakeholders. These 2 examples of empirical studies undertaken 10 years apart show the durability of the problem of understanding what partnership means in reality. Tensions can be further exacerbated when partnership models are policy-driven as part of major educational reforms.
Our research focused on the development of a partnership between a university offering teacher education and schools during a period of intense education reform across Wales. Given the continuing emphasis on partnership in ITE across European countries and beyond, it is relevant to those researching or developing school/university partnerships in other countries. There is an urgent need to understand more about how partnerships can be better negotiated during the early stages of their creation. In particular, how relationships can be developed and sustained in ways that enrich teacher education and reduce the anxiety and emotional labour that can distract attention and energy from the aims of a partnership model.
Our study explored the perceptions and experiences of individuals working as teacher educators across a university-school partnership during a national programme of education reform, which involved significant systemic change in ITE. We investigate how professionals working within the context of ITE have, negotiated what Furlong (2016) described as cultural change within the system. The research project has three phases; phase 1 data were generated from face-to-face discussion groups. To understand more about the agency of all involved in negotiating and implementing partnerships, data were analysed using the theoretical frame of agency presented by Emirbayer and Mische (1998). They argue it is possible to understand: ‘human agency as a temporally embedded process of social engagement, informed by the past (in its habitual aspect), but also oriented toward the future (as a capacity to imagine alternative possibilities) and toward the present (as a capacity to contextualize past habits and future projects within the contingencies of the moment)’ (p963).
Phase 1 findings, disseminated at ECER 2021, surfaced the relationship between the perceptions and experiences of agency of those involved in the partnership model and the emotional labour exerted. The mandated nature of partnership creation, resulting from policy directive, associated with the fast pace required, meant that agency was not afforded to teacher educators in the university to the same extent as those in schools. This situation led to markedly different experiences of emotional labour for these groups, not least because the stakes were significantly higher for teacher educators in the university than in schools (Livingston and Waters in press). This paper reports the findings of Phase 2 of the project in which survey data were collected to explore perceptions and experiences of ‘partnership’ and ‘joint responsibility’, 18 months into the enactment of mandated partnership working in ITE. During our presentation we will critique and discuss the implications for international research and practice in relation to negotiating teacher education partnerships.

Specifically, our research questions ask what are the perceptions and experiences of staff working in an ITE partnership about: RQ1. their professional roles and responsibilities during a period of culture change? RQ2. how changes in professional roles and responsibilities are negotiated? RQ3. partnership working and joint responsibility? To address these questions our aim was to gather rich data, recognising multiple social constructions and perceptions of reality across our participant groups (Flick 2018). This positions our research in an interpretivist research paradigm. Three data collections points were planned over the four-year project. For the purposes of this paper, we focus on addressing RQ3 and the findings of the second data collection, which took place during the second year of the partnership model, following the start of newly accredited programmes of ITE. In Phase 2, the data were collected through an online survey, in which we specifically sought experiences and perceptions of partnership working, and the associated requirement, according to the accreditation criteria, ‘joint responsibility’. A link to the survey was made available, in Welsh and English, via an email from the partnership’s administrative office to university and school-based teacher educators who are directly involved in provision of ITE programmes in one accredited ITE partnership in Wales. Participation was voluntary and anonymous, there was no mechanism to track which individuals had responded to the survey. Such visible anonymity was intended to support candid responses from participants. Ethical approval was gained from both authors’ university ethical approval panels and followed BERA (2018) guidelines. We were able to disaggregate the responses into groups, as the survey respondents indicated how long they had been involved in the partnership model and whether they were university- or school-based teacher educators. There were 14 responses, comprising university and school-based staff, representing a response rate of 25%. Respondents ranged from those employed prior to and during the re-accreditation of ITE programmes and those appointed since the changes in ITE provision. English and translated Welsh responses were aggregated into a single dataset for analysis. The data were analysed in two stages, the first adopted the same predetermined coding frame as that used in Phase 1, based on the chordal triad of agency (Emirbayer and Mische, 1998). The second stage involved a reflexive thematic approach (Braun & Clarke, 2019) to identify emerging themes clustered around perceptions and experiences of partnership working and joint responsibility.

Experiences and perceptions of partnership working varied according to whether the respondent was based in a school or the university. While this may not be surprising it indicates that ‘partnership’ is still differentially experienced and perceived by the different partners involved in the mandated ITE partnership, even after 18 months of partnership. Experiences and perceptions of partnership also appeared to vary according to how long the respondent had been associated with the ITE provision. While the data were somewhat limited in this regard the university-based respondents reported gain and loss in their experiences of partnership compared to the past, whereas school-based respondents reported only gain. Importantly, all respondents referred positively to a specific joint activity in which some, but not all, university- and school-based staff are required to implement a co-constructed set of experiences for ITE students in which theoretical and practical knowledges are explored in praxis. Respondents referred to this being an example of partnership working, as well as a site for their own professional learning. Perceptions of joint responsibility were similarly varied, though implicit within many was a hierarchical structure in which the university was still deemed to hold ultimate responsibility for student outcomes. This is an interesting finding given the mandated requirement for joint responsibility for ITE students to be held across the partnership and will require further research during next Phase 3 data collection to consider more deeply. The data show a small number of respondents had experiences and perceptions of teacher educators engaging in instances of partnership activity where ‘relational agency, which involves working alongside others on complex problems towards negotiated outcomes’ (Edwards 2010) was evident. However, not all respondents shared these experiences and perceptions. These findings, relevant to international research, form the main part of the discussion following the presentation of the paper.

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