Background and Objectives

The interplay between social background, educational attainment and life chances has long been an issue across Europe (d’Addio, 2007). Country-specific policy reform aimed at addressing inequities has largely failed to narrow educational gaps (Bénabou et al, 2009), which have become further entrenched by the socio-educational uncertainty engendered by national responses to Covid-19 (Blaskó et al, 2022). Social-reform policies have largely remained unchanged since the pandemic (Zancajo et al, 2022), causing concern for educational stakeholders who place equity at the heart of their practice.

However, there is cause for hope, where place-based approaches and local multi-disciplinary partnerships are developing in ways that prioritise equity in education. We refer to these approaches as research-practice partnerships (RPPs), a growing international movement (Coldwell et al, 2017; Farrell et al, 2022). RPPs tend to be situated within defined local contexts and grown through prolonged contact between school leaders, other educational stakeholders, local policymakers and researchers (Ainscow, 2023). Hence, they are well positioned to shape local enactments of national policy, and generate local policy endogenously, through sustainable relationships and mutual trust.

This paper presents an illustrative case of a developing RPP in NB, a defined area within a post-industrial town in the North of England. Poverty is high in NB, with 50% children living in low income families. It has therefore been identified as a site for a ‘cradle to career’ approach, emulating aspects of the Harlem Children’s Zone in the USA (Whitehurst & Croft, 2010) by ‘joining-up’ local service infrastructure in ways that holistically support local children’s educational journeys in their home, school and community contexts. The NB RPP is currently working with eight local schools, a multidisciplinary team, and multiple voluntary/community sector organisations.

Our objectives in presenting this case are to understand intra-/inter-organisational relationships within the complex socio-educational landscape of NB, and to evaluate to what extent, and how, these might need to be redefined for the future.

We argue that RPPs are well-positioned to reimagine community relationships in ways that cohesively unite community members, including families, schools and other education-related services and stakeholders. This entails blending local, endogenous knowledge of neighbourhoods and communities with researchers’ more exogenous knowledge. In so doing, we directly address the Network 14 call for contributions on school-community relationships, considering how RPPs can be initiated and sustained to foster the development of more inclusive communities, especially at a time of change and uncertainty.

Research Questions

• What are the educational opportunities and challenges in NB? 
• How do local schools and education-related organisations work together within the NB cradle-to-career approach to address these educational opportunities and challenges?

Theoretical Framework

We draw upon Putnam’s (2000) conceptualisation of social capital as the ‘connections among individuals … social networks, and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them’ (p. 19). These connections can be (i) bonding: the connections between local residents or intra-organisational actors, or (ii) bridging: the connections across and between diverse community members and inter-organisational actors. Mulford (2007) further proposes that social relationships can be understood as a resource to forge local policy and practice pathways, where reform agendas are filtered and enacted through the active participation of stakeholders in the local socio-educational landscape. He introduces a third form of social capital, that of linking: a relational pathway that unites communities, institutions and wider professional bodies in the creation of local, regional and national policy and practice. This is exemplified by the RPP (see also Ainscow, 2015, p. 3). Taken together, bonding, bridging and linking social capital provide a lens through which to understand the complex dynamics of NB’s socio-educational landscape.

Our research design, developed in conjunction with the multidisciplinary steering group in NB, aligns with the principles of design-based research approaches (DBRA), referred to as theory of change (ToC) (Kerr & Dyson, 2019). Our aim is to understand the ‘theory’ underpinning the initiative, before mapping this out and tracking its processes and outcomes over time within an RPP structure. The data reported here within our illustrative case were generated in the first stage of the ToC evaluation approach that we were commissioned in 2023 to conduct in NB, in order to explore the potential for collaborative, multi-disciplinary relationships based on current realities and future hopes. Data Collection We conducted 15 first-stage, scoping interviews, adopting a semi-structured format to enable robust, comparable data to be generated, while still allowing the researchers some flexibility to follow up emergent themes (Robson, 2011). Overall, our interviews were structured as follows: • how do local professionals characterise the socio-educational landscape in NB; • how do they feel the cradle-to-career approach is working and how might it be improved; • what are future possibilities, hopes and priorities for the approach and the local area? Interviewees were purposively sampled from a list of participating schools, charities, and other education-related, youth organisations. These included: local school leaders, special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) coordinators, charity and social workers, as well as key members from the steering group and community organising team. Interviews were conducted by the six-person research team, working in pairs. They took place online or face-to-face, at the convenience of the participants. All research instruments and schedules were approved by the University Ethical Committee. Data analysis Data were analysed thematically. The interview pairs engaged in initial work of transcription, digitising and first-cycle coding to analyse data in relation to concepts from the literature. This created the foundations for the entire research team to engage in second-cycle coding, i.e. a less formalised grounded analysis, incorporating more open descriptive coding, within a discussion-group format (Cohen et al, 2011).

Strong bonds in a close community: Marked by intergenerational unemployment through the demise of the shipping industry, a cornerstone of the local economy, NB is characterised as a socio-economically disadvantaged area across all measures. Nevertheless, bonding social capital between residents appears high, and there is a strong sense of community pride. Interviewees also mentioned a contradiction between deficit narratives around low aspiration, and their observations of families having high aspirations for their children, while being constrained by structural barriers, and resentful of the stigma attached to their community. Successful literacy interventions offer only a partial solution: Local schools have focused heavily – with considerable success – on improving literacy to improve access to curricula and career pathways. However, literacy is not considered a priority by some community organisations, where children’s mental health, especially following Covid-19 lockdowns, is considered more urgent. The lack of bridging social capital between organisations and individual actors results in different perceptions of educational, social and community priorities and of how the needs of the next generation can best be addressed. Implications for the RPP: Building bridging social capital that unites school and non-school actors is a crucial next step in the development of this RPP. Improving inter-organisational dialogue, facilitated by the research team, might enable consensus on how diverse stakeholders in the RPP might collectively shape a shared understanding of local policy enactment in holistic and joined-up ways. Doing so may pave the way towards linking social capital in the future and accord greater certainty to intra-/inter-organisational relationships in NB. This might begin the work of breaking the complex, and deeply entrenched, cycles of poverty and marginalisation that have blighted this community over time and have been exacerbated by the pandemic, offering a pathway to community autonomy, empowerment, and the fulfilment of high local aspirations.

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