School/business partnerships have become prevalent in our society. There is, however, limited research on why some partnerships at the elementary school level are successful while others are not. This study examined one elementary school's program which was deemed successful to determine how school/business partnerships work in an elementary school. The factors that make an elementary school/business partnership successful were identified. The study also examined the source of leadership in the selected partnership program to determine how the leadership impacted the effectiveness of the program. For the purposes of this study, a successful partnership was one in which the school and business had worked together for at least three years and had documented improvement in student achievement during the partnership years. This school was selected based on the longevity of the partnership and the positive impact the collaborative effort between the school and business has had on the school's program. An in-depth case study was conducted in the elementary school to determine why the program worked. Participants were interviewed through qualitative inquiry to gather the factors that led to the successful implementation of the school/business partnership program. Prior to studying the school's program, a review of the literature was conducted to compare the literature-based success factors to the factors determined in this study. The informants identified several factors that contributed to the success of the partnership. They were: (1)Having a strong steering committee that met on a regular basis; (2) Communicating consistently with group members and encouraging members to express themselves openly; (3) Having the principal actively participate in the partnership; (4) Securing adequate human and financial resources; (5) Gaining support from top level leadership in the business; (6) Providing opportunities for volunteers to work directly with the students; (7) Having the partnership well organized and structured for efficiency; (8) Obtaining committed and dedicated people in both the school and the business; ( 9) Sharing a vision with identified goals; (10) Giving recognition to volunteers, school staff and the corporation (11) Evaluating the partnership on a regular basis. There was congruency between success factors from the informants and the success factors identified in the literature / Ed. D.

The School-to-Work Opportunities Act of 1994 provided seed monies to educational institutions, if they were willing to form collaborative partnerships with members of the business and employer communities. The goal was to build learning opportunities for students that would facilitate their seamless transition from the public school system into adult work-settings and/or places of post-secondary education, training, and skills acquisition. An historical case study of school reform was conducted, using qualitative research methods that included extensive field observations, participant interviews, document analysis, narrative inquiry strategies, phenomenological reflection and data reduction. The lived experiences of 23 students and 14 community partners were juxtaposed against the recollected memories of the teacher-researcher, and analyzed in the context of complex change theory (Ambrose, 1987). The point was to distill the essential themes that could shed light on the research question. Those factors that were deemed to be influential in the development, delivery, or efficacy of the learning opportunities that were created as curriculum interventions, in support of this one piece of federal legislation, are discussed analytically, so as to make recommendations for similar practical programs with a career-education or work-based learning focus.

<p>The national curriculum and the School Act emphasize the importance of establishing partnerships between schools and local businesses. The formation of partnerships was expected to be facilitated by the decentralization reforms that took place in the beginning of the 1990’s. These reforms gave schools and municipalities greater scope for adjusting education to meet local circumstances. However, central government has not made financial resources available for stimulating the establishment of school-business partnerships, nor does it penalize municipalities that do not set up such partnerships.</p><p>The questions in focus in this study are: why do partnerships arise, how are they organised and what factors are important in achieving a partnership which can function in practice? Urban regime theory is applied to explain why collaborations occur and policy network theory is used to analyse how they are organised. A further aim of the study is to examine whether the partnerships can be defined as urban regimes.</p><p>The study was based on case studies of four upper secondary schools in Sweden, each in a different municipality. These municipalities are all industrialized, but the structure of their industrial base varies. Two are dominated by one or a few major companies whereas the others are characterized by the predominance of many small businesses. The study focuses on how three vocational study programmes – industry, electricity and building - collaborate with local businesses.</p><p>The study shows that the main explanation of why a partnership arises is that both partners believe that they can gain something by collaborating. For schools, the main reason for establishing a partnership with business is a belief that this will make the vocational education programmes more attractive for pupils. Through partnerships, schools can get access not only to practical experience for their pupils, but also help from business with developing the content of courses and some financial contributions. However, the economic benefits are of limited importance compared with the perceived gains in terms of the development of the educational content of the courses. This goes against results from studies in other countries.</p><p>For business, it is particularly important to be able to influence decisions about the content of local education. By doing so, they hope to ensure that the pupils, after having completed their education, will enter the local labour market with more relevant qualifications.</p><p>My research shows that several requirements have to be present for a successful partnership to be established. First, there must be a commitment and firm intentions from both partners. Second, size of the businesses involved in the partnerships is important for how they are organized. Larger businesses tend to see the partnership from a more long term perspective. However, it is also possible to organize collaborations with smaller businesses if they can be united under a common organisation. Third, specific actors make a difference in the partnerships. Devoted and interested key actors who are closely associated with the partnership are very important for the continuity of the partnership</p><p>The study suggests that urban regime theory and policy network theory are useful for understanding why and how partnerships between schools and businesses are established and retained. However, it can not be concluded that these collaborations in themselves are urban regimes at a more local level. This would require that their focus was much more long-term.</p>

Submitted by Natalie Mendes (nataliermendes@gmail.com) on 2015-11-11T23:58:04Z No. of bitstreams: 1 DISSERTA??O FINAL V?NIA - 20.06.2013.pdf: 1101732 bytes, checksum: d7700f97eb4585cc16f42880eb68f6ff (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-11-11T23:58:04Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DISSERTA??O FINAL V?NIA - 20.06.2013.pdf: 1101732 bytes, checksum: d7700f97eb4585cc16f42880eb68f6ff (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-06-20 / This research discusses the involvement of the business community in educational policies undertaken in the municipal education Feira de Santana - BA, in the period 2001-2008. For this study elected as central research question: what are the guidelines for entrepreneurship education and how they materialize in educational policies for the municipal education Feira de Santana? The insertion of the business while educational policy makers, through their social organizations, dating back to the processes of administrative reform of the 1990s, and has as argument the alleged inability of the state to guarantee social rights, shifting this role for public non-state actors. Aim sought to analyze the concepts and actions of partnership programs between business and the municipal government of Feira de Santana. The research was based on qualitative content analysis, and sought to articulate the political analysis of educational policies proposed by the business and accepted by the city government, through partnership programs between 2001-2008, taking as main categories of analysis the concepts of State and Corporate Social Responsibility. The corpus of the study consisted of official documents, print and digital, which indicated guidelines of the educational policies of the municipal government of Feira de Santana; newspaper reports indicated that print and digital aspects of education and municipal; documents programs resulting from partnerships between the Municipal Education Feira de Santana and companies in the period 2001-2008. It was found that between the years 2001 to 2004, partnerships were characterized by actions more specific programs, intensifying their actions in the second administration of Mayor Jose Ronaldo de Carvalho, from 2005 to 2008, when the partnership strategies and interventions entrepreneurs took new shape, becoming more refined and enduring. The focus became the management and efficient educational programs focused on the environment and social inclusion have become more comprehensive. The study concluded that the interventions of entrepreneurship in education policy under the umbrella of corporate social responsibility (CSR), hereby becoming an important vector for the promotion of corporate image as promoters of social services, having as theme the implementation of a model efficient and standard productivity found in business management. / Esta pesquisa problematiza a interven??o do empresariado nas pol?ticas educacionais empreendidas na rede municipal de educa??o de Feira de Santana ? BA, no per?odo de 2001 a 2008. Para isso, o estudo elegeu como quest?o central de investiga??o: quais s?o as diretrizes do empresariado para a educa??o e como elas se materializam em pol?ticas educacionais para o sistema municipal de educa??o de Feira de Santana? A inser??o do empresariado enquanto formuladores de pol?ticas educacionais, atrav?s de suas organiza??es sociais, remonta aos processos de reforma administrativa da d?cada de 1990, e apresenta como argumento a suposta incapacidade do Estado em garantir os direitos sociais, deslocando este papel para as organiza??es p?blicas n?o-estatais. Como objetivo buscou-se analisar as concep??es e a??es dos programas de parcerias entre o empresariado e o governo municipal de Feira de Santana. A pesquisa baseou-se na an?lise de conte?do qualitativa, e procurou articular a an?lise pol?tica das pol?ticas educacionais proposta pelo empresariado e acolhidas pelo governo municipal, atrav?s de programas de parcerias, entre 2001 a 2008, tomando como principais categorias de an?lises os conceitos de Estado e Responsabilidade Social Empresarial. O corpus do estudo foi constitu?do de documentos oficiais, impressos e digitais, que indicaram diretrizes das pol?ticas educacionais do governo municipal de Feira de Santana; not?cias de jornais impressos e digitais que apontaram aspectos sobre a educa??o municipal e; documentos dos programas resultantes de parcerias entre a Secretaria Municipal de Educa??o de Feira de Santana e empresas, no per?odo de 2001 a 2008. Identificou-se que, entre os anos de 2001 a 2004, as parcerias se caracterizaram por a??es de programas mais pontuais, intensificando suas a??es na segunda gest?o do prefeito Jos? Ronaldo de Carvalho, entre 2005 a 2008, quando as estrat?gias de parcerias e interven??es do empresariado tomaram novos contornos, tornando-se mais refinadas e duradouras. O foco passou a ser a gest?o educacional eficiente e os programas voltados para o meio ambiente e inclus?o social, tornaram-se mais abrangentes. O estudo concluiu que as interven??es do empresariado nas pol?ticas educacionais, sob a ?gide da responsabilidade social empresarial (RSE), v?m se constituindo num importante vetor para a promo??o da imagem das empresas como promotores de servi?os sociais, tendo como mote a implanta??o de um modelo eficiente e um padr?o de produtividade, encontrado na gest?o empresarial.

The national curriculum and the School Act emphasize the importance of establishing partnerships between schools and local businesses. The formation of partnerships was expected to be facilitated by the decentralization reforms that took place in the beginning of the 1990’s. These reforms gave schools and municipalities greater scope for adjusting education to meet local circumstances. However, central government has not made financial resources available for stimulating the establishment of school-business partnerships, nor does it penalize municipalities that do not set up such partnerships. The questions in focus in this study are: why do partnerships arise, how are they organised and what factors are important in achieving a partnership which can function in practice? Urban regime theory is applied to explain why collaborations occur and policy network theory is used to analyse how they are organised. A further aim of the study is to examine whether the partnerships can be defined as urban regimes. The study was based on case studies of four upper secondary schools in Sweden, each in a different municipality. These municipalities are all industrialized, but the structure of their industrial base varies. Two are dominated by one or a few major companies whereas the others are characterized by the predominance of many small businesses. The study focuses on how three vocational study programmes – industry, electricity and building - collaborate with local businesses. The study shows that the main explanation of why a partnership arises is that both partners believe that they can gain something by collaborating. For schools, the main reason for establishing a partnership with business is a belief that this will make the vocational education programmes more attractive for pupils. Through partnerships, schools can get access not only to practical experience for their pupils, but also help from business with developing the content of courses and some financial contributions. However, the economic benefits are of limited importance compared with the perceived gains in terms of the development of the educational content of the courses. This goes against results from studies in other countries. For business, it is particularly important to be able to influence decisions about the content of local education. By doing so, they hope to ensure that the pupils, after having completed their education, will enter the local labour market with more relevant qualifications. My research shows that several requirements have to be present for a successful partnership to be established. First, there must be a commitment and firm intentions from both partners. Second, size of the businesses involved in the partnerships is important for how they are organized. Larger businesses tend to see the partnership from a more long term perspective. However, it is also possible to organize collaborations with smaller businesses if they can be united under a common organisation. Third, specific actors make a difference in the partnerships. Devoted and interested key actors who are closely associated with the partnership are very important for the continuity of the partnership The study suggests that urban regime theory and policy network theory are useful for understanding why and how partnerships between schools and businesses are established and retained. However, it can not be concluded that these collaborations in themselves are urban regimes at a more local level. This would require that their focus was much more long-term.