#27: Designing for Affective Equity in Partnerships

Research-practice partnerships (RPPs) have become central to the learning sciences as infrastructures for addressing educational challenges. While much scholarship emphasizes their design principles and effectiveness, less attention has been paid to the affective life of partnerships. This paper advances a conceptual argument that RPPs function as pedagogical sites of affectivity. They not only rely on dispositions such as trust, humility, or perseverance but also cultivate, normalize, and organize which affective orientations become legitimate forms of participation. I call this the ontological goodness of RPPs – the assumption that collaboration is inherently moral and transformative which imbues partnerships with affective demands that shape who can participate fully and on what terms. Reframing purpose as an affective terrain highlights a hidden curriculum of partnership and raises new learning and design questions: what would it mean to design RPPs for affective equity where multiple orientations are legible and recognized as legitimate forms of participation?