Exceptional research for school-university partnerships

The School-University Partnerships journal aims to publish rigorous research and cutting-edge scholarship related to school-university partnerships (SUPs). Now into our second year as the editorial team for the journal, we would like to reflect on that goal and what we can do moving forward.

In this editorial, we remind ourselves and our readers about the role of inquiry in SUPs and why we publish scholarship on SUPs. After reviewing several key systematic reviews of the literature, the 2007 framework for research on professional development schools (PDSs) and a 2023 research agenda for PDSs and similar SUPs, we introduce a framework for thinking about research in, into and about SUPs. Our framework emerged from conversations with doctoral students, school-based teacher educators and early career scholars doing SUP work and seeking an entry point into SUP research. Our intent in sharing this framework is to highlight the approachability, feasibility and need to conduct high-quality SUP research across multiple scales. With practitioner research at the center of PDSs, all partners should have access to the process of engaging in systematic inquiry.