Understanding Community Partners’ Motivations to Participate in Academic Outreach Douglas Barrera, Ph.D. University of California, Los Angeles IARSLCE Annual Conference Baltimore, MD September 24, 2012

Social Responsibility of Higher Education History of purposes extending to the public good Need to expand access to postsecondary education The role of outreach programs 2

Literature on Outreach Programs Most studies focus on student outcomes (Gándara & Bial, 2001; Gónzalez & Moll, 2002; Tierney & Jun, 2001) Need research that focuses on the relationships with school partners Hearing directly from community stakeholders The effects of current economy on outreach What it means for the university meeting its diversity and social responsibility goals 3

Theoretical frameworks Why do the school partners participate? Resource Dependence Power differentials (Emerson, 1962) Organizations dependent on resource-rich partners (Jacobs, 1974) Desire to reduce dependencies (Emerson, 1962) Interdependence Collaboration (Hall et al, 1977; Lundin, 2007) Beyond material reasons (Johnson, 1995) Civic Interdependence 4

Research Questions 1. 1.Why do community partners participate in college preparation outreach? 2. 2.How does the university articulate its commitment to social responsibility and diversity, and how does participation in college preparation outreach affect community partners’ views of the university’s commitment? 5

Case Studies University of the Public University Outreach System-wide program Works with schools throughout region Criteria for underrepresented students College advising for select group Open to rest of school when available 6

Case Studies Science & Math Outreach Statewide program Works with schools in narrow geographic area Open to all students in the schools Goal to prepare students to be STEM majors Prepares students for annual competitions 7

Data Collection Document Analysis Service agreements Advertising material (web content & brochures) Interviews School partners Program staff Two directors, two coordinators for UO Standardized protocol Interviews lasted average of 45 minutes 8

Sampling Science & Math Outreach Only high school partners Interviewed 4 teachers & 2 counselors Interviewed program director at UP University Outreach Only high school partners Interviewed 15 counselors (at 14 schools) Interviewed program director and 2 site coordinators at UP 9

Analysis Documents Document analysis by case Interviews Divided data by case & constituency First cycle coding within case looking for converging and diverging data Second cycle coding within case looking for categories Clustered categories across the cases 10

Analysis Developing Themes Partitioned and clustered the data (both interview & document data) Developed emergent themes across cases Civic interdependence emerged from themes on motivation 11

Findings 12 MUTUAL RESOURCE DEPENDENCE Providing Task Support Technical Assistance University Prestige Access to Students IDEOLOGICAL MOTIVATION Need to Increase Access for URMs Social Responsibility Commitment Motivations to Participate

Findings Mutual Resource Dependence Task support Technical assistance University prestige Access to students 13

Findings Ideological Motivation Need to increase access Social responsibility Commitment 14

Conclusions Budget cuts have small impact on how partners view the programs Civic interdependence explains partners’ participation Mutual need for resources Mutual responsibility to address access gap Shared commitment to increase access Shared desire to increase engagement 15

Conclusions 16 CIVIC INTER- DEPENDENCE Mutual Need for Resources Mutual Responsibility Shared Commitment Shared Desire to Increase Engagement

Contributions Understanding the motivations of school partners to participate in academic outreach Both resource dependency and ideological motivations Better understanding of what actions lead to good relationships between schools and universities in the context of academic outreach Effects budget cuts have on these relationships Addition of community voice to research on institutional civic engagement 17

Questions? Contact Information: Doug Barrera UCLA Center for Community Learning