Collaboration between schools has been recently promoted by policy and policy discourses as a central component for the improvement of Chilean schools. In fact, it is at the core of national-scale policies mandating public schools to take part in school–networks as a way to promote the encounter between different actors, and the emergence of locally-based collaborative work. However, these endeavours take place in a highly-privatised school system, where 55% of schools are privately owned (MINEDUC, 2022), and privately driven throughout (Bellei and Orellana, 2014). Moreover, schooling provision is highly marketised (Zancajo, 2019), and schools are individually liable for their performance through centrally designed schemes of accountability (Parcerisa and Falabella, 2017), conditions which would seem to make school-to-school collaboration unlikely.

One of these reforms is the New Public Education (NPE), a policy aiming at enhancing the quality and equity of the depressed Chilean public-school education. This reform implies the transference of schools from municipalities to school districts, new meso-level institutional arrangements provisioned with resources and staff supporting the administration and teaching and learning processes at the school level. One of the key principles of the NPE is the promotion of collaboration between schools, encouraging them to exchange information and educational practices, offering opportunities for professional development, and promoting collective strategies to address shared challenges (Bellei, 2018; Villalobos et al., 2019).

The abovementioned informs and frames my doctoral research project, which aims at exploring, describing, and understanding relationships of support between Chilean schools, and reflecting on the capacity of ongoing policies to fit or enhance these ties or create meaningful new ones. This project supposes that examining the way schools relate to others, delving into the characteristics of those that are more likely to build trustworthy relationships, and understanding the dynamics of those interactions may shed light on key worldwide educational issues in at least three ways. First, by informing to what extent building collaborative relationships is possible within highly privatised school systems. Second, intends to inform ongoing policies with school-to-school collaboration at its core. And third, to propose a relational perspective that may illuminate the understanding of wider questions regarding the work schools daily do.

In particular, this paper aims at exploring and describing how school leaders are navigating and making sense of new school-to-school collaborative arrangements as part of their transition to the New Public Education (NPE) system.

This research project is underpinned by a Social Network Analysis (SNA) approach (Borgatti and Halgin, 2011; Crossley et al., 2015), a conceptual and methodological framework concerned with the social structures (Marsden and Lin, 1982; Wasserman and Galaskiewicz, 1994) schools and their communities are embedded in. Empirical data was yielded through Ego-centric Network Map interviews (Altissimo, 2016) with a sample of public school headteachers. Interviews aimed at collecting data on relationships schools forge with others to support the work they daily do, acknowledging features of the networks, drivers, and the content of these bonds. Data was both quantitatively and qualitatively analysed, and show that schools relate to others as part of mandated and non-mandated networks, both encompassing different purposes. Whilst mandated networks are focused on facilitating school improvement processes by promoting the reflection and exchange of good practices between leadership teams, non-mandated networks are key to getting access to resources that schools need on a daily basis, but also to support other schools in crisis in the area. Findings also highlight some characteristics of schools and leadership teams that make them more prone to establish supportive and collaborative relationships with some and not others. 

This study is carried out utilizing an innovative Mixed-method Social Network Analysis approach (MMSNA) (Bellotti, 2014; Froehlich, Rehm and Rienties, 2020), suitable for providing insights into social structures, interdependent entities, and the content, history and motives behind these bonds. Empirical data was yielded using Ego-centric Network Map interviews (Altissimo, 2016), a visual method that allows mapping networks at the same time eliciting a reflection on the nature and the content of the interactions taking place within them. Networks are operationalized as the structure of support and collaborative relationships schools have established with other schools. The latter acknowledges support and collaboration as salient and accountable ways of identifying recurrent patterns of engagement with others, and therefore, social structures, that are theorised to be built on trust. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with sixteen primary school headteachers from one recently established school-district in an urban area of Santiago, Chile. Interviews aimed at collecting data on other schools that participants identify as recurrent collaborators, along with a description of the history and nature of these bonds. Participants were interviewed face-to-face between November and December 2022. Interviews were divided into two parts. The first was assisted by the Network Canvas software, a tablet-based computer programme that allows participants to easily produce relational maps. The second was a semi-structured conversation on the map and the relationships depicted on it. Data was both quantitatively and qualitatively analysed in order to characterise the structures schools are embedded in, and the history and rationale behind the bonds.

Preliminary findings on the question guiding this paper on how school leaders are navigating and making sense of networking in times of institutional changes show that schools are actively engaged in both mandated and non-mandated collaborative networks. On the one hand, mandated networks focus on supporting school improvement processes by promoting shared reflection and the exchange of good practices. On the other hand, non-mandated networks aim at making sense of policies, sharing resources, supporting schools in crisis, and ensuring a smooth transition of students to secondary schools. Moreover, these findings show that school leaders are more prone to engage with schools similar to theirs and form smaller hubs within the school-district. More generally, this study supposes that examining the way schools relate to others may shed light on key educational issues for both research and practice. First, by reflecting on the capacity of building supportive relationships in highly privatised school systems and by stressing sociological concepts concerned with social structures instead of isolated entities, this study seeks to acknowledge the role that networks play in maintaining socially cohesive school systems. The latter is a scarce view in educational research worldwide, predominately focused on investigating isolated actors taking place in the educational field. In addition, it also seeks to inform ongoing policies (the NPE) conceiving school-to-school collaboration as a key driver for school improvement. In particular, this study takes a step back from existing research that predominately has produced information on policy, initiatives, or mandated arrangements encouraging schools to work together, by focusing on the phenomenon of collaboration itself. This approach has the potential to address gaps between non-mandated and mandated networks, and to provide insights into how both are expressions of the way schools inhabit the territories they are part of.

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