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Brabeck, M., Walsh, M. and Latta, R. (Eds.) (2003). Meeting
at the Hyphen: Schools – Universities – Communities – Professions in
Collaboration for Student Achievement and Well Being.
102nd Yearbook of the National Society for the Study
of Education, Part II. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago
Press.
pp. ix + 226
$37 ISBN: 0-226-06976-1
Reviewed by Elsie M. Szecsy
Arizona State University
August 19, 2004
It is generally accepted that students in urban poverty
require more than teachers and schools are able to address on
their own. For this reason, health care and other human services
have become part of the educational landscape in urban schools so
that students will be best prepared to take advantage of
educational opportunities available to them because their
physical, emotional and social needs have been met.
Interprofessional collaboration (e.g., educators, social workers,
and health care providers working together in partnership to
support children’s learning) is one strategy toward
improving students’ achievement and well being in urban,
high-poverty environments. The National Society for the Study of
Education’s 102nd Yearbook is a timely
contribution to furthering our understanding of this concept as
it relates to the full-service schooling movement (also known as
community or comprehensive schooling) that has begun to take root
in many low-income, urban communities in the U.S.
Research Considerations
In Chapter 1, Mary Brabeck and Rachel Latta remind us of a
shift that has occurred in the delivery of educational and health
and other human services in urban schools. No longer are they
delivered in isolation from each other. More often than not,
networks of services are being institutionalized in the schools
through “the development of infrastructures that integrate
service delivery with evaluation, dissemination, public
engagement, professional capacity building, and education and
knowledge development” (p. 1, as quoted from Weiss &
Lopez, 1999). There are also oftentimes unresolved conflicts
associated with these arrangements. Various disciplines and
professions follow differing ethical codes, speak different
professional languages, and define and solve problems
differently. Disciplinary borders are not easily crossed by
outsiders. Also, there are the borders between research, theory,
and practice, which may foster conflict within disciplines
between those who “do” and the researchers and
theorists who dialogue with them.
In Chapter 2, Mary Walsh and Jennie Park-Taylor discuss the
convergence of theory, research, and practice of
interprofessional collaboration in community schools.
Darling-Hammond asserts (2000) that half of the achievement gap
between higher and lower socioeconomic class students could be
reduced by improving classroom instruction. Stallings (1995)
points out that paying attention to non-academic factors in the
school (i.e., health, social welfare, juvenile justice, extended
day learning opportunities, and community participation) can
reduce the other half. The community school, also known as a
comprehensive school or full-service school, is a place where
both factors can be addressed, for students and their
families.
Walsh and Park-Taylor acknowledge that research on the
interprofessional collaborations is not widely available, though
evaluation research data can prove useful in providing compelling
empirical data in support of interprofessional collaboration in
comprehensive schooling. Because of the mobility of the student
population and the cumulative effect of multidisciplinarity in
comprehensive schools, Walsh are Park-Taylor argue for flexible
research designs that incorporate a variety of perspectives to
capture the entire story. In short, comprehensive schools require
comprehensive evaluations that are responsive to all ethical
standards represented by all stakeholders. Comprehensive school
evaluation must be “grounded by a theoretical framework
that honors the complexity and flexibility” (p. 32), rather
than merely focus on the program content of the institution, a
perspective echoed by Bruner (2004) with respect to evaluation of
family strengthening models. Ideal comprehensive evaluation
designs would also speak in terms of risk and resilience, rather
than the former and not the latter.
Collaboration defined
In Chapter 3, Hal Lawson focuses on the definition of
collaboration, how it manifests itself institutionally and
organizationally, and implications for change at all educational
levels when real collaboration is happening.
Lawson first posits a development progression that leads to
collaboration. Collaboration encompasses connecting and
communicating, cooperating, coordinating, community building, and
contracting. It is more than the sum of them, and it will not
evolve automatically from them. Other design or intervention
factors compel collaboration.
Collaboration is both process and product (Corrigan, 2000) and
results from special designs (or interventions) that acknowledge
that no one person, group, family, profession, organization can
achieve its goals autonomously. Complex problems with roots in
multiple settings (e.g. a low performing school located in urban
poverty, with highly mobile students, and environmental health
hazards) also invite collaboration. Finally, where there is
uncertainty about the effectiveness of the status quo and
a beginning awareness of the need for organizational or
institutional change, the field is ripe for collaboration.
Lawson then describes various form of collaboration:
Interprofessional collaboration involves multidisciplinary
professional teams (e.g., educators, social workers,
psychologists, and nurses). Youth-centered and Parent-centered
collaboration invites youth and parents, respectively, as
experts and partners in developing partnerships. Intra- and
inter-organizational collaborations involve others within and
between organizations to secure shared results for students and
their families. Community collaboration may partner the
school with a neighborhood organization to secure improvements in
the community. Intra- and inter-governmental collaboration
secures the engagement, mutual accountability, and co-production
capacity within and between government entities. International
collaborations secure the engagement, shared responsibility,
mutual accountability, and co-production capacities of educators
and schools serving students and families who migrate back and
forth between the U.S. and Latin American nations.
Collaboration exists when the following are present: (1)
Interdependent working relationships, collective action, and
shared resources; (2) A shared, collective identity; (3) Sound
intervention logic; (4) Equitable relationships obtained through
negotiations; (5) Benefiting from conflict and competition; (6) A
collective voice and unity of purpose (one voice created from
many—e pluribus unum); (7) Shared language; (8)
Accepting diversity; (9) Shared responsibility and
accountability; (10) Trusting relationships; (11) Governance
structures and processes; (12) Inclusion of the relevant
stakeholders; (13) A coherent design for school improvement; and
(14) Data-driven, result-oriented evaluation and improvement
systems. Collaboration does not belong to one partner; it
belongs to all partners.
Lawson also reminds us that collaboration changes
institutions, and there are two change frameworks: the industrial
bureaucratic and university interprofessional work framework and
the institutional redesign framework. Lawson cautions against the
former, which tinkers toward Utopia (Tyack and Cuban,
1995) under the assumption that children come to school ready to
learn and with all necessary supports in place, which is not
necessarily the case. Because of its deficit-model orientation,
in the industrial bureaucratic framework, interprofessional
collaboration is limited to a problem solving mode, and the
problem is invariably located outside of the school or school
district, leaving teachers outside of the process. Consequently,
problems residing within the school that may contribute to or
exacerbate the symptoms remain unexamined and intact. This
pattern also continues to operate in schools of education, where
typically little effort is made to engage with other professional
human services disciplines.
The institutional redesign framework aims to “create and
support new-century school communities” (p. 64).
Relationship thinking incorporates relationships between the
school-community and the university, including, but not limited
to the college of education. The “interprofessional
development school” (Corrigan, 2000), where learning,
teaching, policy development, and knowledge generation are
intertwined, is an example of the institutional transformation
that Lawson proposes. In this model, the university accepts joint
responsibility and some accountability for results of P-12
schools.
Community empowerment and interprofessional
collaboration
In Chapter 4, Robert Crowson focuses on the importance of
community empowerment to support interprofessional collaboration.
His historical overview of community empowerment begins with the
welfare rights movement of the 1960s as a “rebellion of the
poor against circumstances.” Through aggressive and
confrontational community organizing in the style of Saul Alinsky
(1946). During the 60s milder strategies for achieving community
empowerment were replaced with activism and confrontation. The
1970s saw the demise of confrontational activism, due, according
to some, to the isolation of the underclass in the U.S. and
abandonment of the poor in the country’s urban and rural
centers of poverty. “The poor were no longer central to our
nation’s political consciousness just a decade after the
welfare rights movement” (p. 76). At the beginning of the
21st century community empowerment is once again up
for debate, but strategies are far from the unidimensional models
practices in the 1960s and 1970s.
“Today’s empowerment models incorporate a range of
alternatives stretching from a new array of nonconfrontational
alliances/partnerships in place of old-style mobilization to
community-based economic empowerment, to an extension of concepts
around the cultures of communities into empowerment
opportunities, and even to choice and individual preferences as a
form of empowerment.” (p. 76)
These newer approaches to community empowerment have
implications for schools, professionals, and collaborative
support systems for children.
One area with implications for educational arrangements for
children is the conceptualization of neighborhood as a center of
production and not merely a center of consumption. The
consumption model is complicit with interprofessional
collaborations that respond to neighborhoods needs and
deficiencies and that ignore the neighborhood’s productive
capacities. The Empowerment Zone/Enterprise Community (EZ/EC) is
an example of neighborhood revitalization that includes both the
production and consumption models, instead of assuming that the
consumption model is the only option. At the heart of the EZ/EC
effort is self-determination instead of government largesse. The
school, in this environment, operates differently, as an
enterprise school. Partnership building is an essential feature
in this environment, and little research has examined activities
of educators engaged in community-based partnering. Also, there
is little research evidence on how the community’s
day-to-day activities produce political power and the
relationship between community empowerment and the choices people
make to opt out of the system or work with it to effect
change.
In Chapter 5, Lee Benson and Ira Harkavy extend from the
previous chapter by focusing on higher education as an essential
partner in improving schools and schooling systems from pre-K
through college and especially the research university’s
need to change to be a good partner. Informed by Dewey’s
theory of inquiry-based, real-world action-oriented,
participatory democratic schooling for participatory democratic
citizenship, Benson and Harkavy believe that U.S. universities
have had and continue to have harmful effects on public school
systems because of their history of disconnection from the real
world. Higher education has functioned as an elitist,
anti-democratic institution, while the public schools have been
charged with educating everyone. A civically engaged university
that is in touch with its neighbors is more responsive to the
public schools that it serves to improve.
Higher education and interprofessional
collaboration
In Chapter 6, Jacquelyn McCroskey echoes the arguments of
previous chapters (most notably Lawson and Benson & Harkavy).
McCroskey speaks about dissonance at the borders in
interprofessional collaboration. The principles of comprehensive
schooling indicate community-based, family-centered, culturally
competent, strengths-based, and outcomes-driven supports for
children and families. However, these principles may be at odds
with educational practice. Service providers tend to comply with
criteria, guidelines and rules at the expense of being
accountable for outcomes or results (Hogan, 1999; McCroskey,
1999). In higher education, the tendency is toward
discipline-centeredness and professional preparation programs
that do not recognize that caring for others is an essential
component of the social contract (McKnight, 1995).
The Kellogg Commission on the Future of State and Land-Grant
Universities (1999) suggests a seven-part test of university
engagement with community: (1) Responsiveness to community
partners; (2) Respect for partners; (3) Academic neutrality; (4)
Accessibility; (5) Integration; (6) Coordination within the
institution; and (7) Resource partnerships that provide for
staff, faculty, and students’ time and include curriculum
and program costs, which may be effected through a
reprioritization of institutional goals and objectives and
redirection of resources. These seven elements resonate with
Lawson’s definition of collaboration.
Comprehensive schooling and interprofessional
collaboration
In Chapter 7, Joy Dryfoos presents a typology of comprehensive
schooling that sorts emerging models according to the degree of
interprofessional collaboration from a basic level where there is
little interaction between school and human service provider to
the most involved model, where school and human service providers
are inextricably intertwined. It is in the “full-service
community school” (Dryfoos, 1994) that we generally find
the most advanced level of interprofessional collaboration.
The full-service community school is oriented toward the
community, encouraging student learning through community service
and service learning. It includes before- and after-school
learning components to encourage students to build on their
classroom experiences, expand their horizons, contribute to their
communities, and have fun. The school incorporates a family
support center to help families with child-rearing, employment,
housing, immigration, and other issues and problems. Medical,
dental, and mental health services are also readily available.
College faculty and students, business people, youth workers,
neighbors, and family members come together to support and
bolster what schools are working hard to
accomplish—ensuring young people’s academic,
interpersonal, and career success.
Successful implementation of community schools require the
following: (1) Committed people who share a common goal and a
vision of change; (2) Responsiveness to needs as indicated
through a needs assessment; (3) Add-on service components linked
with the whole school environment; (4) Turf struggles between
outsiders to the school and insiders anticipated and resolved;
(5) Consistent use of technical assistance; (6) Selection of a
strong lead agency, such as a Boys and Girls Club, a YM/WCA, a
United Way, or a community-based or other non-profit
organization; (7) Supportive funders; and (8) Effective program
components that increase parental involvement, provide access to
health and social services, employ local people, and provide
transportation so that students can access off-site services and
educational or recreational activities. Emerging research is
showing that students in community schools have registered gains
in academic achievement and school attendance, and they were less
likely to be suspended or referred for disciplinary reasons
(American Association of School Administrators, 2000; Dryfoos,
2000).
Interprofessional collaboration in action
The last three chapters of the book complement the first seven
with practical examples of interprofessional collaboration in
full-service schools.
The Children’s Aid Society Community School
Model
In Chapter 8, Jane Quinn focuses on the Children’s Aid
Society community school model in partnership with Intermediate
School 218 (I.S. 218) in Washington Heights, a low income
neighborhood in northern Manhattan. This partnership incorporates
three interconnected support systems: (1) a strong instructional
program with high expectations for all students; (2) enrichment
activities to support students’ cognitive, social,
emotional, moral, and physical development; and (3) a full range
of social, health and mental health services to safeguard student
well being and remove barriers to learning. The primary
collaborative relationship is a long-term partnership between
educators and social workers, who meet regularly to integrate the
various components of the school. A multi-year evaluation
conducted by an interprofessional team from the Schools of
Education and Social Services at Fordham University documented
improved academic performance; improved attendance; increased
parent involvement; better student-teacher relations; improved
teacher attention to instruction; and the creation of positive,
safe learning environments for students at I.S. 218.
Academic outcomes and interprofessional
collaboration
In Chapter 9, Jacob Murray and Richard Weissbourd document an
academic outcome-based approach to interprofessional
collaboration. They challenge the notion that full-service
schools are the only mechanism for interprofessional
collaboration; clearly defined outcomes-based initiatives can be
an impetus for effective collaboration. Through research on
ReadBoston, a partnership initiative to improve
students’ ability to read in the early elementary grades,
and WriteBoston, a partnership initiative to improved
middle and high school students’ writing skills, they find
that a concerted effort to improve a single academic outcome
(e.g., literacy) can foster interprofessional collaboration
between schools and community partners.
After-school programs and interprofessional
collaboration
Finally, in Chapter 10, Adriana de Kanter, Jennifer Adair,
An-Me Chung, and Robert Stonehill discuss interprofessional
collaboration’s role quality assurance and program
sustainability in after-school programs through public-private
partnerships. A number of local, citywide, state-level, and
national partnerships; each including community-based,
youth-serving, non-profits, governmental, business, school
district, parent organization, and higher education partners are
discussed.
Conclusion
The literature on school-university-community-profession
collaboration is indeed thin, and this Yearbook is a valiant and
much needed and appreciated effort at filling this gap.
Interprofessional collaboration is not a new concept; there have
been instances of interprofessional collaboration for many years,
but, as Dryfoos points out, there are various degrees of
interprofessional collaboration.
This Yearbook provides a clear definition of
collaboration that links well with the definitions of
engaged university, full-service school, and a new
term, interprofessional development school, coined by
Corrigan (2000). The interprofessional development school
leads ongoing interprofessional development work between higher
education and the K-12 arena through professional development
schools (PDSs) (Darling-Hammond, 1994; Levine, 1992) the next
steps. Interprofessional collaborative partnerships equip
everyone to lead efforts to locate root problems associated with
education policy, such as the No Child Left Behind Act and
various statutory requirements for the education of language
minority and special education students, and not merely blame
each other for the symptoms. The authors remind us that evidence
includes both outcome and relationship data. The former may be
easier to assess than the latter.
Another contribution to the educational field is the pause for
reflection that this book provides, when considering research and
evaluation of full-service, community schools and the
partnerships that provide for programs that are responsive to
children’s and their families’ characteristics.
Comprehensive schools require comprehensive evaluation methods.
Evaluating individual program content in absence of its
relationship with other program components is an inadequate
methodology for evaluating full-service schools that rely on
interprofessional collaboration for their success. Evaluation
teams that do not reflect interprofessionalism in team
composition are also poorly suited for evaluating comprehensive
schools.
Meeting at the Hyphen met its goal of engaging readers
critically with a timely, educational issue. Though written by
many and representative of a variety of disciplinary orientations
and fields, its narrative flows as if written by one—a
natural byproduct of interprofessional collaboration. I recommend
without reservation this easily readable, well documented book to
anyone interested in collaborating interprofessionally for
student achievement and well being.
References
Alinsky, S. (1946). Reveille for radicals. Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press.
American Association of School Administrators (2000). An
Educator’s Guide to Schoolwide Reform. Retrieved July
5, 2004,, from http://www.aasa.org/issues_and_insights/
district_organization/Reform/index.htm.
Bruner, C. (2004, Summer). Rethinking the evaluation of family
strengthening strategies: Beyond traditional program evaluation
models. The Evaluation Exchange: A Periodical on Emerging
Strategies in Evaluating Child and Family Services, 10 (1),
24-5, 27.
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education institutions with respect to community-based
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McKnight, J. (1995). The careless society: Community and
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Retrieved July 5, 2004, from
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MI: Kellogg Foundation.
About the Reviewer
Elsie Szecsy is Associate Research Professional at the
Southwest Center for Education Equity and Language Diversity,
College of Education, Arizona State University. Her professional
interests include designing multidisciplinary educational
research approaches to help inform education policy and practice
for Latino and other students of color and their families.
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