An analysis of co-construction and cultural models in an urban school: The year 2 study of a school-community-university partnership

The challenges surrounding urban education in the United States are seemingly insurmountable for some schools and school districts. As a result, many engage in partnerships for educational reform. Co-constructive school-community-university partnerships represent a new model for education that bring resources and support by each of these groups to create interventions and support that are sustainable and effective. Unfortunately, the complexity of each entity creates challenges within the partnership that thwart effectiveness and threaten the endurance of the partnership long enough to create the desired impact.;The process of co-construction serves as a tool to create dialogic relationships and collaborative structures within these partnerships to engage all partners and stakeholders in the school transformation process. This study examines the use of co-constructive processes within the 2nd and 3rd years of a school-community-university partnership while the entities work together to transform an urban school. The study focuses on the processes, including co-construction, that are used to sustain the partnership in the first 2 years of operation. The study also examines the capacity of partnerships to create settings that support a cultural model of high student achievement.