Collaborative Relationships in Teacher Education: A Personal Narrative of Conflicting Roles

Abstract

The author raises issues about collaborative work throughout her eight years in teacher education in two different higher education institutions. Her experiences as a graduate student, faculty member, and administrator give her insights about teacher education and the struggle for change within institutional systems. Her preference for working with schools has been to work from a collaborative model, one that values consensus building and an approach that is less hierarchical and topdown rather than the model that implies that the university should define the scope and breadth of the relationship between schools and universities. While discussing her insider/outsider position in collaborative relationships, she describes crossinstitutional roles that are problematic in practice. Using the context, roles, and problems she has encountered working collaboratively, she reflects about the notion of equality and parity in school-university partnerships. Her difficulties in working with schools and universities and negotiating the boundaries in these institutions are detailed. The author raises unanswered questions about the scope and nature of differences that could possibly be vehicles for change instead of the current popular belief that equity and collaboration across the board are necessary for school-university partnership change. Her experiences have caused her to revisit her thinking about shared language, purpose and mission of collaboration, and contrived collaboration. These questions have caused her to revisit her notions of school-university partnerships and collaborative efforts to promote systemic change.