The Influence of School Culture on School-University Partnerships

Much of the research literature on school-university partnerships has focused on the actions of university staff (Gutierrez et al., 2019; Manton et al., 2021; Rust, 2019). In contrast, this chapter reports on data from a multiple-case study that prioritised the perspective of teachers and school leaders involved in school-university partnerships (Green, 2021). This chapter will particularly focus on the substantial role that school culture has to play in motivating teachers and school leaders’ involvement in school-university partnerships. To examine the impact of school culture, each case’s leadership, context, philosophy, and interest in research is explored. These elements of four heterogenous Australian school-university partnerships are presented to demonstrate the possible diversity (rather than prescribing necessary actions) for schools and universities working in partnership. In this study, participants made clear that the identified aspects of their schools’ culture enabled and motivated their decisions and actions regarding school-university partnerships. This chapter uses these examples to offer insight into how school culture can support and amplify the work of other school-university partnerships.