Abstracts - Earli

interventions. The five papers highlight the actions which have been empirically observed in eachinterventionist project and from which transpire the contradictory nature of the process ofinnovation. Particular emphasis in given to the relation between the material actions performed bythe participants in each case and the formation of dialogue and collaboration between the differentparties. Scientific and educational relevance History has shown that major attempts to introducenew ways of teaching and learning in schools have very often been rejected by the schoolpersonnel, become isolated, and died. Eminent examples are found both in alternative schools andin activities aimed at changing schools from within. Mutual connections and interactions betweenthe innovative practices and the consolidated teaching tradition in school can take the shape ofbenign neglect, failure to engage, reluctance, withdrawal, criticism, or open conflicts. Thissymposium analyzes what might be done, creatively, to support the uptake of innovations,acknowledging the many real barriers, beyond perceived resistance. In other words, in addition toa critical analysis of the problem, the symposium also suggests creative approaches to change.What is educational innovation? A case study of long-term university-school collaborationMonica Nilsson, School of Management, SwedenThis paper asks and discusses the general question: what is educational innovation? We examine aten-year case study investigating a long-term relationship between an elementary school and auniversity in Sweden. The relationship is jointly constructed and mediated by local, national andinternational projects. We consider these jointly constructed and shared projects as innovations forboth the school’s and the university’s pedagogical practices. Significant actors in the differentprojects have been teachers, undergraduate and graduate students, pupils, and researchers. Thecollaboration – which still exists— started in 1996 and has gone through stages that vary inintensity and scope. This relationship may be metaphorically described as a thin string—occasionally almost invisible, yet strong enough to sustain long-lasting collaboration aimed ateducational innovation. A historical analysis of the trajectory of the collaborative process will bepresented. The analysis is aimed at explaining why this collaboration exists and what makes itsustain itself. The data consist of interviews, e-mail messages, meeting minutes, field notes,project plans, project reports, syllabi, and student reports. The study contributes to ourunderstanding of sustainable educational innovation and to the development of researchmethodologies for the study of long-term collaborative intervention efforts.School time and researcher time: Temporal contradiction in collaborative school researchHonorine Nocon, University of Colorado and Health Sciences Center, USAThe sustainability of research-based innovations in schools is constrained not only by systemicinstitutional barriers and inherent contradictions between the activities of schooling and research,but also by related issues of time and presence. As hypothesized by Lemke (2000) the case studyanalyzed in this paper suggests that relative timescales, e.g., the collective activity of schoolingover decades versus the individual actions of researchers over a semester, appear to determine theprobability of interdependence that enables the coordination of schooling and research processes.Using a conceptual framework based on cultural-historical activity theory (Engestrom, 1999) andheterochrony - the concept of long timescale processes that produce effects in much shortertimescale actions (Lemke 2000), this paper presents an analysis of data collected over a four-yearperiod in which a university research team was actively engaged with school personnel incollaborative development of an innovative literacy and technology club. Several related researchprojects emerged from the club. In spite of active coordination, cooperation, and communicationamong school-based and university-based individuals and the institutional partners, temporal– 500 –