| The purpose of this study was to identify and describe strategies for creating and sustaining school-university partnerships for K–12 science education. This descriptive study focused on the science partnership experience of two research universities and their K–12 partner schools. The study utilized a theoretical approach of “appreciative inquiry” and examined the following questions: (1) What are the characteristics and processes of school-university science partnerships that enable them to develop and sustain the partnership? (2) What are the characteristics and process of school-university science partnerships that hinder and limit the partnership?; The researcher made on-site visits to each university to collect survey and interview data from a total of forty-nine participants within six school-university science partnerships. This study was not designed to be generalizable to other partnerships.; Participants' responses were analyzed according to three partnership themes generated from the literature in order to frame this study: governance, collaboration, and change. Three key school-university science partnership strategies emerged from this analysis: linking science partnerships with the academic mission of the university, with the student services mission of the university, and with school reform efforts.; Core research results included: participants concurred science is more peripheral than reading, language arts, and math content areas in current K–6 curriculum; the majority of respondents reported faculties' participation in school-university partnerships is sustainable when tied to their academic and research interests and rewarded with credit toward tenure; most participants reported science partnerships are sustainable when they create an aggregate for change.; This study concludes that: Current school reform efforts need to focus on teaching more science, especially in the K–6 curriculum. For science partnerships to be sustainable, faculty participation needs to be tied to the academic mission of the university. Both schools and universities will need to approach science partnerships as an aggregate for change for sustainability.; Recommendations for further research include inquiry into the root cause for science being perceived as more peripheral in current K–6 curriculum, exploration of strategies to retain minority and female undergraduates in science and engineering, and exploration of strategies to recruit undergraduate students into science teacher education. |
