Imagine a world where youth enter K-12 classrooms where critical consciousness, curiosity, and deep joy in learning are cultivated; have access to engaging, abolitionist-oriented, relevant curriculum and assessment systems that support their development as critical and creative thinkers and doers; and who have opportunities to embrace their own and others’ social, emotional, and identity development in brave spaces for the purpose of collaboratively tackling our most pressing personal, community, and world challenges. Imagine what could happen if students had access to teachers who not only stay in teaching in order to support student growth and achievement, but who are fiercely committed to deep flourishing for all youth, especially those who have had to bear the emotional and physical burdens of historical and contemporary racism, violence, and oppressive systems in schooling that mirror larger society; who “go for broke,” (Baldwin, 1963) even early in their careers in order to do what is right/just for youth; and who are effective, well, and thriving themselves.

The literature on school maladjustment is too much engaged with its explicit expressions (e.g., school dropout), while only partially discussing its more implicit expressions. It is arguable that school maladjustment can have many faces. A student’s selection of the way to express maladjustment is a derivation of the person’s characteristics, the environmental characteristics, and the broader context within which the person adjusts (e.g., wartime). Thus, the discussion has to address four general aspects of school maladjustment: (a) silent expressions of school maladjustment, the ones that are commonly addressed by researchers and especially by school teams and parents; (b) indicative expressions of school maladjustment, which are the buds of maladjustment and of major importance in the context of students’ educational flourishing; (c) how both the indicative and the silent expressions can be integrated into a flowchart that summarizes the process of sinking into school maladjustment; and (d) vulnerability to school maladjustment as an additional aspect that deserves a different type of preventive intervention: that is, an intervention that addresses the students’ future adjustment to transitions (e.g., from elementary school to middle school)

This part of the handbook addresses community school partnerships as a vehicle for bringing together a variety of agencies to support students and families. Since their inception, community schools have served to interrupt cycles of inequity experienced by the most vulnerable and underserved student populations. They are intentionally designed to provide all students access to equitable learning opportunities, regardless of their life circumstances or obstacles associated with living in marginalized communities. The significant role community schools play was articulated by the Community Schools Forward project which offers the following definition: “The Community Schools strategy transforms a school into a place where educators, local community members, families, and students work together to strengthen conditions for student learning and healthy development” (Community Schools Forward, 2023, para.1). With this definition in mind, authors framed their discussions around the ways in which SUPs engage with community schools to leverage both school and community resources and strengthen educational systems.

In these troubled times for our education system, we believe that school–university partnerships can provide shining examples to help alleviate these identified issues as well as meeting – and exceeding – policy discourse. This chapter provides embodied examples from four diverse school–university partnerships in Australia that showcase contextually sensitive resolutions to these identified problems. The cases demonstrate how school–university partnerships can enhance experiences for pre-service teachers, promote meaningful and relevant professional learning throughout a teacher’s career, deeply engage teachers and teacher educators in research and evidence-based practice, and encourage collaborative practices within and between institutions. Through these cases, connections between school-university partnerships and the recommendations from the QITE Report are explored in this chapter. School–university partnerships have far-reaching opportunities and implications for the teaching profession and can (and should) be an integral element of educational reform – not just for initial teacher education, but for the teaching profession as a whole.

The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) call to “turn teacher education upside down” was a catalyst in teacher candidate preparation to center clinical experiences and increase collaboration between schools and universities (NCATE, 2010). We argue that clinical practice can do more than prepare quality teachers; it has the potential to transform the systems of education that comprise the School–University partnership. In answering the question, what is the function of teacher candidate supervision in creating and sustaining School–University partnerships, we offer a reconceptualization of supervision as praxis, taking a knowledge-of-practice (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999) approach supervision. To actualize this approach, supervisors of candidates must develop inquiry as stance (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999) and support the development of an inquiry stance within the candidates, mentors, and other supervisors. Teacher candidate supervision could generate a simultaneous renewal of P-12 schools and institutions of higher education in School–University partnerships if actualized as praxis.

Grounded in the belief that teachers are central to the task of educating young people, the chapters in this part posit that the improvement of any system of education will necessitate attention to the role, position, and training of teachers. Though emanating from a unified position, the chapters in this part offer a variety of lenses through which it is possible to view the work of teaching and learning to teach within partnership settings.

The first two chapters in this part focus on the preparation of future teachers with an explicit emphasis on developing teachers who are connected to the communities they serve and committed to a stance of social justice and equity. Cross and colleagues use a critical lens to explore the foundations and evolution of teacher residencies as a form of teacher preparation. Their chapter summarizes four reports about teacher residencies published between 2008 and 2022 and exposes the underlying structures that contributed to some teacher residencies perpetuating the very inequities they were designed to alleviate. This emphasis on critical pedagogies and justice-oriented education highlights the importance of classroom teaching that is progressing towards equity, contextually grounded, and responsive to the local community.

This chapter explores the transformative potential of pre-service teachers (PSTs) partnering with community activist organizations (CAOs) as part of their teacher preparation program. Through summer internships with CAOs, PSTs gain insights into community cultural wealth, systemic oppression, and issues facing marginalized communities. This engagement enables PSTs to develop a racial and social justice lens and understand their future students’ strengths and challenges. The chapter presents how these experiences inform curriculum development, leading to community-responsive pedagogy. It highlights enduring understandings PSTs gain from CAO partnerships, emphasizing the wisdom of local communities, collective action, diverse forms of activism, the joy of community engagement, and integration of community issues in curriculum. Policymakers are encouraged to support such partnerships to equip educators for socially just teaching. Further research is suggested to explore long-term impacts and best practices in CAO engagement.

Many, especially school students themselves, would wonder what the connection is between school attendance and personal flourishing. This chapter advocates that students’ flourishing is a major goal of any educational system around the globe, and that the importance of flourishing is rooted more in its psychological – character-wise – aspects and not only in its intellectual aspects. There are many definitions of being in a state of flourishing (e.g., self-confidence, mental and emotional well-being, positive emotions, positive social behavior, cognitive and academic development, curiosity, a sense of meaning and purpose, etc.). The primary claim of this book is that school adjustment is a springboard to personal flourishing and a satisfying life as an adult. Two crucial issues emerge: (a) to what extent school settings enable it and (b) whether teachers’ training programs (e.g., in higher education) devote time, resources, and opportunities to training candidate teachers in supporting school students’ flourishing

In contemporary education, the role of teachers as leaders has gained prominence, particularly within school–university partnerships (SUPs) and professional development schools (PDSs). Teacher leaders play a critical role in improving teaching and learning in schools and in establishing and maintaining partnerships. In this chapter, we explore the multifaceted dimensions of teacher leadership within the context of SUPs and PDSs, including its historical underpinnings and evolving nature. We acknowledge the challenges associated with teacher leadership and assert that teacher leaders in a SUP are essential to a partnership’s success. We discuss the ways in which teacher leadership should, and can, be supported as a professional, impactful and important role in schools. In addition, issues of diversifying the teacher leader workforce and why that is important are also addressed.

Community schools, an equity-oriented reform strategy, has expanded significantly in recent years. To achieve their goals, community schools engage partners that operate outside the traditional K-12 realm. School–University partnerships are one key example of collaboration that have a transformative potential to impact the effectiveness of community schools. While these partnerships hold great potential to advance the vision and mission of community schools, there are also many barriers to the development, sustainability, and growth of meaningful partnerships between universities and community schools. This chapter provides an overview of the community school strategy, outlines both opportunities and challenges in partnerships between universities and community schools, and highlights examples from the field to illustrate some key learnings to establishing sustained partnerships. This chapter aims to contribute to a more open and honest discussions around community school and university partnerships for education equity.

As hybrid spaces for enacted practice, school–university partnerships (S-UPs) are complex systems for leadership and educational change. Therefore, in this chapter I explore various educational leadership theories–from a wide perspective encompassing paradigms, conceptual frameworks, and constructs as described in the literature on educational leadership – and work to identify coherence among the complexity in order to provide guiding principles (from theories) for SUP leadership practice and scholarship. Among the discussions of theory and practice in educational leadership scholarship, tensions and even contradictions are identified when considering enacted practice of educational leaders. Embracing tensions to meet complexity with complexity, I highlight a framework with theories as guideposts for leaders in SUPs to engage and live in a dynamic way to best meet the needs and purposes of SUPs through complexity leadership.