Reframing School Partnerships

I hope I'm on the right path now!


School-Community Partnerships

Although community is an “imagined” concept, today’s schools and district lines reveal a real and troubling division, as illustrated by education sociologists La Paperson (2010), Anyon (1997), and Kozol (1991). Iris Marion Young argues that “much of the identity of community comes from excluding certain others” (Merz & Furman, 1997, p. 29). Young (1990) explains that community as a concept “privileges unity over difference,” which in turn acts as an exclusionary force that constructs borders between individuals (p. 300). Young argues that the notion of community is often ideal, yet it is a notion seldom defined explicitly and partially undergirds ethnocentric, classist and racist desires for commonality and connection. There is an “othering” which takes place for a community to exist—those inside the community and the others (Young). Young challenges “radical theorists and activists” who herald community as “an alternative to the oppression and exploitation” existing in society without questioning the exclusionary nature of community (p. 301). As opposed to community as the ideal, Young suggests that efforts should be made to move society toward being “unoppressive” and accepting of difference (p. 317).

Similarly, school-community partnerships are promoted as the solution to school and societal ails, often without challenging the ontological understandings of community. Popkewitz (2004) explains that partnerships resonate with a secular salvation theme which offers “the deliverance of the nation through the education of the child” and “collective progress through promoting civic participation through individual and group involvement in the local agencies” (p. 27). Moreover, the rhetoric of partnerships resound with the “state’s collective obligation to promote justice and equity through the schools” while simultaneously establishing the “responsibility of the community and individual to participate as agents of progress” (p. 27). However, Popkewitz argues that partnerships with schools exist within a cultural and educational narrative of “who the child is and should be” (p. 29). Similarly, within the school-community partnership rhetoric, I argue that there exists a similar cultural construct delineating what constitutes a “community” and which communities count as ideal or desirable.

School-community partnerships are discussed within educational research and practice upon a broad spectrum of scenarios, from partnerships with parents and guardians to partnerships with local or national agencies or businesses to complete community schools, in which schools serve as a community center often open well before and beyond school hours. Moreover, school partnerships with the local community (or a larger community) have taken various forms with differing purposes, driving motivations, and openness to the geographical community in which the school resides. Yet, little attention is given to understanding and challenging the ways in which community and partnerships are discussed. However, I argue that how community is conceptualized or idealized underpins the goals and types of reforms offered through partnerships.

While the dream of a democratic and equitable school system may have captured the heart of educational reformers and advocates, the extent to which these goals are evident within the academic literature is scant. For example, Sanders (2006) groups the purposes of school-community partnerships within four rationales: effective school functioning, economic competiveness (which includes building a future workforce), student well-being, and community health and development. While individual studies and partnerships might aim at reducing the marginalization of students or promoting a multicultural or multilingual school environment, the language in these broad rationales appears limiting. Moreover, these overarching goals can be positioned under the “salvation theme” explained by Popkewitz (2004).

In considering the salvation narrative we should return once again to Fanon (1963), Freire (1970), and La Paperson (2010). If school-community partnerships are imbued with a sentiment of salvation, we must question who is being “rescued,” who are the “saviors,” and to what end is salvation to take place. Is there evidence of continued segregation and postcolonial practices? Are the “saviors” imparting charity as penance for guilt? Are discriminatory district lines or policies being challenged, or as La Paperson explains, is mercy being distributed in disregard to the cultural interests of those under subordination? To surmise, we might consider whether or not the politics within school-community partnerships are imposing on certain community members a particular way of being in the world.

Using these questions as a guide, I found much of the literature on school-community partnerships to embrace an idealized notion of community without addressing diversity within communities. Is there some injustice in drawing a distinction between communities that are different economically, culturally, or racially? Moreover, is it racist or classist or oppressive to distinguish between community members? Much as in the way we trouble colorblind policies, blanket assumptions of community for school-community partnerships must be challenged. The literature appears to fold along the line of community as an ideal place and space and community as a problem, oftentimes embodying both conceptualizations within the same discussion. Who are the “problem” members of community or the “troubled” spaces around a school? And who is not? It seems that within education, we want community—but whose community is it that we want? In the discussion to follow, I briefly outline how community is discussed in educational partnerships as existing in tension. At the danger of setting up a false dichotomy, I narrate the tension along the tear between utopian and dystopian constructions of community, both which are fallacious. Then, I examine some of the ways in which advocates of school-community partnerships have traversed the divide between a dominant ideal motif with charity and salvation choruses and a call for just schools, sometimes landing in between with a pragmatic negotiation of student academic success and community reform.