The Complementary School-University Partnership through the Lens of a Learning Community

Abstract

The paper includes the results of a descriptive case-study in which a university-based Hungar- ian practice school is compared to the model of Professional Development School. Data sourc- es include school teachers (N=102), university educators of subject methodology (N=20) and pre-service teachers doing their group practice at the university’s practice school (N=22). The data were collected via a set of questionnaires and analyzed with descriptive and mathemati- cal statistics. The open-ended questions were content analyzed with an open coding process of the answers. The results proved that teachers and university educators in complementary university-school partnership are very far from the core concept of Professional Development School. Cooperation of teachers and university teachers does not take privilege in any par- ties’ beliefs. The main goal of the school practice is to improve candidates’ individual skills, but those of enhancing collaboration are not developed adequately. Furthermore, the lack of cooperation is a relevant issue among school teachers concerning their beliefs related to the teaching-learning process.