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<p>Responding to the need for context-sensitive approaches to school improvement, this study examines beyond-school collaborations (BSCs) as social learning spaces (SLSs) in initiatives addressing persistent and complex challenges. Drawing on value-creation cycles (VCCs) as an analytical lens, the study addresses two research questions: (1) What are the defining characteristics of BSCs? and (2) In what ways are these characteristics enabling or constraining collaborative processes for school improvement work within BSCs, as analysed through VCCs?. The empirical material is drawn from 15 Swedish municipalities working in collaboration with a national education agency and includes interviews, observations of project meetings, and field notes. The findings identify three interrelated characteristics—manageability, knowing, and attitudes—that shape how collaboration unfolds across institutional boundaries. Conceptualised as dynamic thresholds, these characteristics operate as practice-based conditions that influence participants’ engagement and mediate movement across cycles of value creation. The findings suggest that collaboration across boundaries is not a fixed design feature but an ongoing accomplishment shaped by relational, organisational, and epistemic dynamics. BSCs appear most generative when they are as flexible as possible and as structured as necessary, with sustained attention to enabling and constraining thresholds in the domains of manageability, knowing, and attitudes. Engagement in VCCs supports expanded learning processes, pushes current knowledge boundaries, and contributes to the development of improvement-oriented cultures. In this sense, BSCs function as generative SLSs capable of addressing complex and “wicked” challenges through shared inquiry and capacity-building.</p>

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Beyond-school collaborations as social learning spaces: thresholds and value creation in school improvement

  • 期刊论文

  • 出版模式：

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  • 发表日期：

    2026年7月3日

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  • Åsa Karlsson Pérez

摘要

Responding to the need for context-sensitive approaches to school improvement, this study examines beyond-school collaborations (BSCs) as social learning spaces (SLSs) in initiatives addressing persistent and complex challenges. Drawing on value-creation cycles (VCCs) as an analytical lens, the study addresses two research questions: (1) What are the defining characteristics of BSCs? and (2) In what ways are these characteristics enabling or constraining collaborative processes for school improvement work within BSCs, as analysed through VCCs?. The empirical material is drawn from 15 Swedish municipalities working in collaboration with a national education agency and includes interviews, observations of project meetings, and field notes. The findings identify three interrelated characteristics—manageability, knowing, and attitudes—that shape how collaboration unfolds across institutional boundaries. Conceptualised as dynamic thresholds, these characteristics operate as practice-based conditions that influence participants’ engagement and mediate movement across cycles of value creation. The findings suggest that collaboration across boundaries is not a fixed design feature but an ongoing accomplishment shaped by relational, organisational, and epistemic dynamics. BSCs appear most generative when they are as flexible as possible and as structured as necessary, with sustained attention to enabling and constraining thresholds in the domains of manageability, knowing, and attitudes. Engagement in VCCs supports expanded learning processes, pushes current knowledge boundaries, and contributes to the development of improvement-oriented cultures. In this sense, BSCs function as generative SLSs capable of addressing complex and “wicked” challenges through shared inquiry and capacity-building.