A collaborative community education model: Developing effective school-community partnerships

Abstract

Despite school-community partnerships having much potential to provide educational organisations with authentic teaching and learning opportuni- ties through community-based action projects, they remain under-utilised largely due to the structural constraints and pressures faced by teach- ers. This study helps ll a gap in scholarly discourse about the speci c ways in which school-community partnerships can effectively be developed by providing an in-depth account of an 18-month pilot project with the aim to develop a conservation education program (Kids Greening Taupo ̄) through a partnership structure in Aotearoa New Zealand. An evaluation of the pilot project was conducted using an ethnographic approach, which sought stakeholder perspectives about the program’s developmental pro- cess through an interpretive lens. Qualitative data were collected through participant observation, semi-structured interviews and document anal- ysis, and then thematically analysed. The ndings provided in this arti- cle illuminate stakeholder insights and perspectives about the structures established and processes utilised over the three broad stages of pro- gram planning, implementation and maintenance, and the resultant envi- ronmental initiatives and programs. Through this study, a Collaborative Community Education Model has emerged that may serve as a potential framework or starting point for those interested in creating a new school- community partnership or to modify an existing one.