ABSTRACT
Inclusive education (IE) promotes democratic processes that aim to represent and include multiple diverse perspectives and enable genuine collaboration. Many of the challenges of inclusive education fall outside the boundaries of the school building requiring new ways of thinking and collaborative actions that involve multiple systems and professionals. University–school collaboration in research provides an opportunity for professional learning and for finding creative and evidence-informed solutions to these challenges in local contexts. Collaborative participation in practice-based research empowers many voices to be heard and valued. This chapter outlines some of the benefits and challenges for teachers combining their efforts with professionals across sectors, in practice-based research. It draws real examples from two large-scale university-system partnerships in a network of schools, in Victoria, Australia. The teachers, in collaboration with university researchers, health professionals and school community members were engaged in practice-based participatory research and various collaborative arrangements to redress differences in schooling that arose because of disadvantage or disability. This chapter addresses the following questions:
In what ways can universities involve teachers in schools in collaborative research related to school change?
What can be learned from teachers about building sustained collaborative partnerships with teachers in university/partnership schools?
In what ways can universities make school-based collaborative research a central part of their work?
