While educational theory has often seen collaboration and competition as incompatible, there is increasing evidence that collaboration persists in educational markets characterized by competition. In this paper, we use the theoretical lens of "coopetition", a relationship between organizations involving competition in some segments and…

Background: Networks play an important role in today's societies. As a consequence, changes are apparent in the political, economic, cultural, educational and social agendas. Purpose: The main goal of this article is to map the situation of school networks in Spain. The research questions are focused on what forms collaboration and networking take…

The principle of schools collaborating to improve is one that has seen growing interest in recent years, and there is emerging evidence that in particular collaboration between high and lower performing schools can be an effective school improvement method. However, this evidence relates primarily to secondary schools, and little research has been…

In England, federations are defined as groups of schools that have a formal agreement to collaborate with the aim of raising achievement and promoting inclusion and innovation. This paper presents a number of findings from the case study strand of a 3-year study investigating the impact of 37 federations (see Lindsay et al., 2007). Maximum…

In recent years, the principle of networking and collaboration has become more prevalent and more widely studied in education. Most research to date has been carried out in urban contexts. However, it can be argued that, for school improvement in rural areas, their specific circumstances make collaboration imperative. In this article, we discuss a…

Recent years have seen increased emphasis on the idea of schools working together. However, there is very little research that demonstrates how and when such approaches lead to positive outcomes, particularly in respect to those schools facing challenging circumstances. Reflecting on the evidence from six case studies, this article identifies…