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- The projects/programs were focused in schools in low socio-economic areas of
metropolitan, regional and remote parts of Australia. - The preservice teachers were ‘immersed’ in the school/community while under-
taking the project/program. - The projects would lead explicitly to enhanced school student learning.
- The preservice teachers were required to negotiate the specific foci and expected
learning outcomes with school/community personnel. - The preservice teachers were required to make connections between their learn-
ing and competence as related to the Australian Professional Standards for
Teachers at the graduate level and between practice and theory and relevant
national and/or state curriculum. - There was an expectation that the preservice teachers would document their proj-
ect activity and outcomes would be made available to the school, community and
the university. - It was expected that the preservice teachers would continue to develop an under-
standing of what social justice, inclusion, equity, poverty, aspirations, multicul-
turalism, diversity, access and success mean for these schools, the students and
their local communities. - There was an expectation that preservice teachers would develop a set of ‘profes-
sional skills’ as a result of working in these projects/programs (e.g. project and
time management, negotiation, leadership, research, evaluation, teamwork, com-
munication, planning, capacity building and reporting).
These unique initiatives are all supported by the university as a collaborative
partnership. There are a range of other similarly targeted projects in the extant lit-
erature. Some involve a third-party organization: e.g. the Smith Family, the Western
Bulldogs Football Club, Scouts Victoria, Northern Territory Government and
Netball Australia. Community partnerships of this type are complex and multidi-
mensional with the partnership values of trust, mutuality and reciprocity underpin-
ning the innovations. A previous study by Kruger, Davies, Eckersley, Newell and
Cherednichenko ( 2009 ) of effective and sustainable university-school partnerships
confirmed that effective and sustainable partnerships are based on: - Trust: the commitment and expertise that each of the main stakeholders – preser-
vice teachers, teachers, teacher educators – brings to the partnership in the
expectation that it will provide them with the benefits each seek. - Mutuality: the extent to which the stakeholders recognize that working together
does lead to the benefits each esteems. - Reciprocity: each stakeholder recognizes and values what the others bring to the
partnership (p. 10).
B. Eckersley et al.