Introduction

This article explores inter-organisational relationships of collaboration and support between schools. It draws on empirical data from a larger research project investigating school networks and networking in Chile. The study questions the extent, if any, of networks of collaboration and support between schools, the composition of those webs, and the reasons driving schools to connect with others. These are compelling questions when examined in school systems characterised by structural and institutional conditions that promote schools to perform and strive for their own sustainability. This article contributes to a flourishing scholarship in school networking that is mainly committed to studying collaboration and support within the boundaries of formal arrangements where these are supposed to happen. To expand the literature, the study adopts an egocentric perspective, where collaborative and supportive ties are informed by schools. This perspective enables the emergence of relationships of a diverse nature driven by different purposes, which may differ from, exceed, and complement those taking place in bounded settings.

The study adopts an egonet Social Network Analysis (SNA) perspective that elicits the emergence of the complexity of ways schools relate to others. It is informed by a convergent mixed-method design where quantitative and qualitative data are produced simultaneously, analysed independently, and brought together when interpreting them. The data was produced from sixteen primary schools overseen by a newly formed governing body in an urban area in Santiago, Chile. This context represents a notable case of individual responsibility and competition, where it might appear unlikely for schools to work together.

Insights show that schools draw on both mandated and organically formed inter-organisational relationships to collaborate and support each other. They mainly relate to schools that are similar and geographically close to them, and they rarely connect with others outside the boundaries of their middle-tier administrative unit. Networks have been shown to serve various reasons, such as ensuring the sustainability of schools, generating coordinated responses to policy mandates, sharing practice and knowledge, and ensuring students’ schooling trajectories. In the context of the broader school network and networking literature (see, for example, the reviews from Armstrong et al., 2021 and Brown et al., 2024), these insights demonstrate that while formal school networks and governance structures are essential, they are not enough to represent the inter-organisational relationships that schools are involved in fully. These insights also support the significance of geographical proximity and a shared set of values that influence schools’ decisions to collaborate with specific organisations over others. Finally, the study demonstrates that schools simultaneously take part in various networks and maintain diverse connections to serve different purposes. These findings offer a more nuanced understanding of school networks and inter-organisational relationships.

The article is structured as follows. After this introduction, section two introduces the questions on relationships of collaboration and support between schools as studied in the existing literature. It then discusses the case of Chile, a paradigmatic case where deliberate policy efforts to bring schools together take place within a context of privatisation, marketisation, and individual accountability. The methodology informing the study is then presented, highlighting its novel conceptual and methodological approach. Next, primary data is presented to discuss the study’s three core questions, focusing on the networks schools declare, their composition, and the motives these ties serve. Finally, the article concludes with implications and suggestions for further research and understanding school networking.

Background

Collaboration and support within networks

Collaborative and supportive relationships between schools have been a matter of study concerning scholarship in school networks and networking literature. Consequently, references to collaboration and supportive relationships come from a line of study primarily focused on the architecture, functioning, and conditions for the sustainability of the settings or arrangements where inter-organisational interactions are meant to take place. The present study draws precisely on the literature on networks (i.e., the arrangement or setting) (Armstrong et al., 2021) and networking (i.e., the action of relating to others) between schools (De Lima, 2010; Greany et al., 2023). Because of its focus on the scenario where collaboration and support are supposed to occur, definitions of networks vary enormously across the literature. Nevertheless, school networks may comprehensively be understood as ties between two or more organisations endowed with a history and expectations of future interactions, somehow seeking to benefit some or all those involved. This definition makes room for a wide range of arrangements, varying in their purposes, formality, flexibility, mandate, origin, composition, scale, extension, and operation. Conceptually, scholarship on collaboration and support between schools could be divided into three distinct but overlapping domains: (i) Governance networks, (ii) School-to-school collaboration initiatives, and (iii) Organic networks. These distinctions emphasise differences in how school networks are conceptualised, particularly their origin (as mandated or non-mandated), structure, and purposes they serve.

Governance networks refer to formal and bounded governing structures, usually responsible for funding, oversight, and coordination among surrounding schools (Ball & Junemann, 2012; Russell et al., 2015; Wohlstetter & Gargaro Lyle, 2019; Wohlstetter et al., 2003). This approach differentiates from traditional forms of hierarchies and market-oriented models by recognising not only vertical but also horizontal ties that are key to mobilising resources and legitimation among not fully independent organisations (Ball & Junemann, 2012; Greany, 2022; Provan & Kenis, 2007; Tenbensel, 2005). This approach has gained global popularity due to the increasing trend towards decentralisation and autonomy in school systems and other social services (Russell et al., 2015). Governance networks involve actors—even private actors— displayed in different structures of authority and collaboration to deal with complex issues, such as resource allocation, policy legitimation, communication, accountability and supervision, and collective action (Ball & Junemann, 2012; Caves & Oswald-Egg, 2024; Provan & Kenis, 2007). The literature distinguishes different forms of governance networks, including participant-governed networks, with no separate governance entity; lead organisation-governed networks where a primus inter pares takes the lead; and network administrative organisation, with a separate administrative entity coordinating and sustaining the network (Provan & Kenis, 2007). Studies on networking approaches within Local Authorities (Greany, 2015), School Federations (Chapman, 2015; Chapman & Muijs, 2013), Multi Academy Trusts (MATs) (Ehren & Godfrey, 2017; Greany et al., 2023), Teaching School Alliances (Greany & Armstrong, 2022) in England, Education Collectives in China (Lin et al., 2023; Liu, 2022), and school-district networking approaches elsewhere (Ehren et al., 2017; Nespor, 2002; Russell et al., 2015; Wohlstetter et al., 2003) illustrate these different forms of network approaches to governance in school systems.

School-to-school collaboration initiatives are arrangements where schools and their members come together to work for the benefit of the parties involved or to assist schools in need. School-to-school collaboration has received increased attention in the last twenty years –and across different school systems– as a way to (i) facilitate educational improvement and building capacities among professionals (Brown et al., 2024; Chapman & Muijs, 2014; Pino-Yancovic et al., 2019a; Pino-Yancovic, Gonzalez, Pino-Yancovic et al., 2019a, b; West, 2010), (ii) promote equity and inclusion (Ainscow, 2012; Chapman et al., 2016; Chapman & Fullan, 2007), and, more recently, (iii) cope with and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic (Armstrong & Brown, 2022; Handscomb & Brown, 2022). Commonly, school-to-school collaboration takes place in the form of scheduled and structured meetings summoning professionals representing different schools – although other forms, such as internships, have also been reported (Campbell, 2022). In these meetings, participants are usually encouraged to reflect and share their thoughts and experiences on pedagogical practice (e.g., professional learning communities and research practitioners) (Chapman et al., 2016; Furman & de Podestá, 2013; Madrid Miranda & Chapman, 2021; Pino-Yancovic et al., 2019a), school administration and management (e.g., school leaders’ networks) (Pino-Yancovic & Ahumada, 2020) or exchanging effective practices. The school-to-school collaboration’s label is commonly linked to top-down, policy-mandated, or incentivised collaboration. As such, it has been extensively promoted as a policy instrument for school improvement. In England, for example, policies on school-to-school collaboration have been keenly promoted as they suit a self-improvement school-led system agenda (SISS) characterised by the decentralisation of the school system, promotion of school autonomy, and discourses about self-improvement (Greany, 2015; Greany & Armstrong, 2022; Greany & Higham, 2018; Hadfield & Ainscow, 2018). As such, school-to-school collaboration policies have sought to improve teaching and learning (Hernández et al., 2023), students’ attainment (Armstrong & Brown, 2022; Brown et al., 2024), retention and attendance (Pino-Yancovic & Valenzuela, 2022), effective transitions from primary to secondary schools (Busher & Hodgkinson, 1996), and other larger goals, such as promoting social cohesion in divided communities (Duffy & Gallagher, 2017). Unlike governance networking, where the focus is mainly on aligning schools usually from the same geographical and administrative cluster, mandated school-to-school networks do not necessarily have a locally-rooted component in their formation – although it is a very common one – nor a reference to administrative bodies or the broader surrounding policy context. Instead, school networks often work towards objectives that are primarily network or school-based (Ainscow et al., 2006; Chapman & Muijs, 2013).

Organic networks are the third group of literature and refer to bottom-up school-to-school partnerships. Organic networks are initiated or run without a mandate to do so. Given their nature, these arrangements may vary enormously in their structure and functioning (Chapman, 2019). Founded upon members’ interests, organic networks are usually set to access resources, share costs, develop shared services, learn from others, lobby collectively, and even block competitors (De Lima, 2010; Gallagher et al., 2022; Muijs, 2008; Muijs et al., 2010; Townsend, 2013). In this sense, organic networks are usually highly context-driven, providing the urgencies to be worked on, the resources available, and the policy context that frames them (Ainscow et al., 2023). Organic networks are comparatively less studied than other networking arrangements (Brown et al., 2024) since they may not be visible to researchers and scholars with no insights from the inside. Whereas school-to-school networks are incentivised in line with and within school systems where improvement is meant to happen at the school level, bottom-up networks could be seen as a response to those systems’ limitations or failing characteristics (Townsend, 2013). Equally, as organically initiated and lacking a broader policy structure and discourse of support, their sustainability is rarely seen as a goal. On the contrary, they are even expected to fade away once the purposes driving their formation are met or are of no interest to their stakeholders anymore (Townsend, 2013).

As shown in this section, networking perspectives are widely present in various areas of the schooling endeavour: as a model for administrating and overseeing schools, an approach to promote locally based school improvement and professional development, as a medium to maximise and transfer resources, and even to cope with broader community-wise matters and contingencies. The expansion and integration of networking perspectives within various school systems, and for multiple purposes, has facilitated collaborative and supportive inter-organisational relationships between schools (Armstrong et al., 2021). Diverse empirical evidence from various school contexts highlights the value, satisfaction, and benefits of participating in networks to collaborate and support each other (Armstrong & Ainscow, 2018; Díaz-Gibson et al., 2022; Pino-Yancovic et al., 2019b). However, less has been documented on the structural and compositional characteristics of the networks in which schools engage, although it has been reported that factors such as geographical proximity (Ainscow et al., 2023; Armstrong et al., 2021) and educational stages are relevant to understanding some of the forms partnerships take (Greany et al., 2023).

The case of Chile

A case of autonomy, competition, and individual performance

The Chilean case may be considered paradigmatic for studying relations between schools. It has been characterised as a low socially cohesive system (Pino-Yancovic et al., 2022), a model that incentivises autonomous, competitive, and performative-driven schools. At least three intertwined structural processes and institutional conditions are instead propelling schools apart: (i) an extensively privatised system that exacerbates the autonomy of schools; (ii) a highly marketised system promoting competition; and (iii) a robust central accountability scheme that encourages individual performance.

The privatisation of the school system in Chile dates from the early 1980s as part of broad reforms at the macroeconomic and public service levels. In the education sector, privatisation involved an exogeneous privatisation of the supply by removing the State from its role as solely responsible for education and school sustainability, allowing private interests to establish schools. It also involved an endogenous privatisation (Ball & Youdell, 2008) that promoted a business-like management model for schools, decentralising teaching, staff management, and financial sustainability decisions (Bellei & Orellana, 2014; Bonal & Bellei, 2019). Privatisation –especially endogenous privatisation– provides schools with a high level of autonomy, making them the fundamental units of the system.

Although conceptually distinguishable, marketisation is hardly detached from privatisation processes. In Chile, the withdrawal of the State as the main school education provider was accompanied by the introduction of a voucher scheme: the establishment of a per capita subsidy that comprised the principal source of funding for both newcomer private (or semi-private) and public schools equally. The introduction of a voucher was intended to improve the quality and variety of educational offerings. This was further emphasised when private schools were permitted to levy additional fees. The voucher system was meant to remove guarantees of schools’ sustainability and encourage competition to attract students and funding (Bellei & Orellana, 2014; Carrasco, 2022; Dupriez et al., 2023; Villalobos & Quaresma, 2015; Zancajo et al., 2022).

Pushed by the regressive effects of privatisation and marketisation in educational attainment and segregation (Bellei, 2008; Mizala & Torche, 2012; Torche, 2005; Valenzuela et al., 2014), a performative accountability structure encompassing test-based assessment policies and institutional infrastructure was introduced in the 1990s. Further enforced in the 2010s, this structure was in charge of measuring, inspecting, auditing, rating and sanctioning schools based on their performance (Falabella, 2016, 2020b; Parcerisa & Falabella, 2017). Nowadays, standardised test results are heavily ingrained in the daily life of schools, shaping their identities and used to differentiate from others (Falabella, 2020a). Accomplishing external standards has forged an individualised performative culture, both by prioritising what schools must focus on and by setting the individual responsibility of school members. In this regard, recent reforms aiming at professionalising headteachers’ work and appointments explicitly highlight their individual responsibility for enhancing school-level targets, such as increasing students’ enrolment and performance in standardised tests (Montecinos et al., 2015), prescriptions that do not mask where the borders for school staff’s performance are.

Despite recent reforms, the underlying structure and performative-oriented institutional arrangement have remained arguably unaltered. Consequently, the Chilean system is loosely articulated and individually oriented, with little tangible incentive for schools to engage positively with others.

Coexisting efforts to bring schools together

However, efforts to bring schools together exist within this framework of over 30 years of privatisation, marketisation, and centralised accountability. The Nueva Educación Pública (New Public Education) reform – which seeks to enhance public schools through a new scheme of district-level management and locally-based teaching and learning support (Bellei, 2018; Villalobos et al., 2019) – sets a precedent as the first deliberate mandate to promote a network governance approach in the administration of public schools. Before this reform, there were no guidelines for municipalities – responsible for schools’ administration and financial sustainability – to encourage schools to get together. Until 2005, there was even no mandate to support schools at all (Raczynski, 2012; Raczynski & Salinas, 2008). Nevertheless, some municipalities did consider networking approaches to work with schools under their administration, although these were rather locally decided approaches (Roman & Carrasco, 2007). In this vein, evidence shows that some municipalities led and promoted networks with school leaders and school management teams, and others for school curriculum coordinators, teachers of certain subjects, or aimed at primary or secondary schools. These networks mainly aimed to align and monitor goals, practices, experience sharing and methodologies, as well as support school management and leadership skills among school leaders (Raczynski & Salinas, 2008). However, these experiences were unevenly reported, being more common among comparatively more affluent municipalities (Raczynski, 2012). The private sector presents an even more striking picture, with schools being owned and operated by individual entrepreneurs who, on average, control 1.2 schools, and 80% of them own only one school (Bellei & Muñoz, 2023). Sharing no governance structure nor incentives to do so, most of these single-provider schools tend to have no connection with others (Carrasco et al., 2019).

Several centrally designed policies in the last 30 years have encouraged schools and their communities to take part in networks with either a school improvement or a CPD focus, resulting in more deliberate efforts to bring schools together. For instance, the MECE Rural programme in the early 90s encouraged rural schools to work along with others around challenges proper from rural schooling. Redes Pedagógicas Locales, between 2001 and 2007, and Red de Maestros de Maestros, since 2003, aimed at bringing teachers from different schools to work together. In 2015, the Redes de Mejoramiento Escolar policy (School Improvement Networks) installed the idea of networks on a national scale for the first time (Fuentealba & Galaz, 2008; Pino-Yancovic, Gonzalez, Pino-Yancovic et al., 2019a, b; Portales, 2017). More recently, as part of the New Public Education, the formation of thematic networks has also been encouraged. Research mainly on School Improvement Networks (SIN) and New Public Education (NPE) has shown that despite barriers to effective collaboration, participating school leaders value and are willing to work collaboratively with other professionals and schools (González et al., 2020; Pino-Yancovic & Ahumada, 2020; Pino-Yancovic et al., 2022; Pino-Yancovic, Gonzalez, Pino-Yancovic et al., 2019a, b). Other rather local-scale models of networking, led by third-sector organisations and encouraging schools and school communities to work together, have also been reported (Madrid Miranda & Chapman, 2021; Pino-Yancovic & Valenzuela, 2022).

Overall, the Chilean school system emerges as a paradigmatic case to question the capacity of schools to engage with others positively. On the one hand, it is characterised by exceptionally constraining structural and institutional conditions that could make voluntary encounters with others unlikely, and on the other, constant policy efforts promoting networks to improve schools and a more recent and promising notion of network governance gradually taking place in the public system. In this puzzling scenario, characterised as a low social cohesion system with high social regulation in place (Pino-Yancovic et al., 2022), the way schools organically, purposively, and simultaneously relate to others –from a perspective that concerns declared relationships rather than determined networks or arrangements – has not been yet addressed.

The study

This study aims to characterise inter-organisational collaboration and support networks between schools in a privatised, marketised, and competitive school system. To achieve this, the study draws on an exploratory and descriptive design that analyses the length, composition, and content of all inter-organisational relationships, if any exist. This study is part of a larger investigation independently conducted with primary schools from a local area in Santiago, Chile. This research project seeks to interrogate schools’ capability to build relationships of mutual benefits with others, the structure, history, and content of those ties, and the role that policies encouraging schools to work together play in facilitating their encounter.

Methodological approach

The research is underpinned by a Social Network Analysis approach (SNA), a conceptual and methodological framework concerned with the social relations and structures in which actors are embedded (Bellotti, 2014; Blau, 1982; Borgatti et al., 2018; Borgatti & Halgin, 2011; Marsden & Lin, 1982; Prell, 2012; Wasserman & Galaskiewicz, 1994). Fundamentally, Social Network Analysis (SNA) assumes that actors are interdependent and in constant interaction, creating opportunities and constraints when addressing behavioural, performative, and structural questions (Bellotti, 2014).

The present study is primarily concerned with giving an account of the web of social worlds (Strauss, see Crossley, 2010) schools are assumed to be part of – an endeavour that has only partially been addressed by the literature. By adopting an SNA approach, this study assumes that building inter-organisational relationships is contingent and should not be taken for granted but problematised. At the same time, this design implies shifting the spotlight from schools to networks – stressing the relevance of the other(s), their characteristics and the dynamics that characterise the interactions between two or more schools.

The study adopts an egonet approach. Egonet focuses on the network formed around a single social actor—in this case, a school—in opposition to whole-network approaches, which focus on web(s) within certain boundaries. An egonet approach is particularly informative in revealing subjective accounts of the different layers or intersecting social circles where actors are embedded (see Simmel in Bellotti, 2021).

The study relies on both quantitative and qualitative methods. While a quantitative approach provides the compositional characteristics of networks schools are part of, a qualitative outlook raises the origin, content, dynamics, and evolving nature of relationships, as well as symbolic distinctions, values, and nuances among alters (or groups) for the understanding of networks and the social worlds they depict (Crossley, 2010; Crossley et al., 2015).

Context

This research project draws on primary data produced along with primary schools in a recently installed Local Public Education Service (SLEP) in Santiago, Chile. The SLEPs are new middle-tier administrative bodies that have progressively taken control of public education as part of the NPE reform (Montecinos et al., 2020). The SLEP where this research was conducted was set up in 2020, and it comprises fifteen nurseries, two special education schools, one prison school, twenty-one primary and ten secondary schools. Three adjacent urban municipalities previously ruled all schools and nurseries. The SLEP is responsible for more than 12,000 school students, which in 2022 was 29.6% of the total of school students in the area, meaning more than 70% attended semi-private (66.5%) or fully private schools (3.9%). The ratio of public school students is smaller than ten and fifteen years ago, when they represented 38.6% and 37%, respectively. This tendency towards the constriction of the enrolment in public schools is a characteristic of the Chilean school system as a whole and, to a large extent, one of the issues that the NEP and SLEPs look to tackle (Bellei & Muñoz, 2023).

Data collection, participants, and analytical approach

Before the data collection, this study was reviewed and approved by the university’s ethics committee in the UK, where the author is based. This involved a comprehensive review of the research design, methods, and procedures for data management, collection and analysis, and dissemination.

Primary data was produced using a Concentric Circles method (CC). CC is an interview-based data collection method that allows the co-construction of ego networks with participants (Waes & Bossche, 2019). Essentially, CC encompasses an image with concentric circles that is utilised as a map where other schools perceived as collaborators (i.e., alters) are placed on/within one of the circles (three were used in this project) depending on the degree of closeness: the closer the alter is to the centre, the stronger the relationship with ego (Bellotti, 2014). CC allows for the simultaneous collection of quantitative and qualitative data. On the one hand, quantitative data is retrieved from the map itself, including the number of alters (i.e., size of networks), their dispersion, and composition. On the other hand, qualitative data is generated from the interview accompanying the production of the map. This process places the interviewee as both a producer and an observant of their own relationships, eliciting accounts and reflections on the network and nuances between alters (Molina et al., 2014).

Interviews were conducted face-to-face with sixteen primary school headteachers between November and December 2022. They took place in the participants’ workplaces and were supported by Network Canvas, a tablet-based software designed for collecting network dataFootnote 1. Interviewees were encouraged to take over the tablet when maps were produced and manipulated by the interviewer only when asked for assistance. Interviews lasted between 20 and 45 min. To initiate the conversation, participants were asked to name other schools theirs have had any recent – and prospect of future – collaboration with or support from. They were prompted to refer to four broad areas: (i) Sharing or developing teaching-learning practices and students’ socioemotional support strategies; (ii) Sharing or providing/receiving resources (economic, material, human, etc.) or administrative and managerial support; (iii) Holding an agreement for students transitions to/from primary education; and (iv) Organising, inviting or being invited to extracurricular activities such as school trips, sports, culture, and leisure events, or community engagement. Importantly, no restrictions in terms of geographical location or modality (in-person or remote) were set for potential partners, which was verbally stressed to participants when this prompt was introduced. The produced data encompasses both maps and audio recordings. Mapping data was stored as images and transferred into numeric matrices, while audio recordings were transcribed in their original Spanish language.

Since quantitative and qualitative data were simultaneously collected with no particular interest in one over the other, this aligns with a convergent (also known as concurrent) mixed-method research design (Clark et al., 2021; Creswell & Plano Clark, 2007). Data analysis involved descriptive statistics for quantitative data and descriptive and interpretative analysis following a Codebook Thematic Analysis for qualitative one (Braun & Clarke, 2006, 2021; Braun et al., 2019). Themes were developed in the early stages of analysis. Quantitative and qualitative insights were later integrated during the phase of data interpretation (Bryman, 2007; Creswell, 2009; Tashakkori & Teddlie, 2016) in a process informed by a completeness rationale (Bryman, 2006; Clark et al., 2021), where insights are brought together to provide a comprehensive view of networks and school networking.

Insights

The insights offered in this section are structured according to the three aims guiding this study, namely, (i) accounting for the length and volume of collaborative and supportive networks if any exist; (ii) characterising the schools participants collaborate with; and (iii) exploring the content of those ties. Quantitative insights are intentionally presented in their original disaggregated form to emphasise the uniqueness of the egonet approach used in this study.

Do schools turn to others?

The first question this study explores is whether participating schools relate to others collaboratively and supportively. As introduced earlier in this work, formal mandates to engage in networks of different sorts have been extensively promoted in Chile. Although a reasonably large number of these arrangements may be expected, it might not necessarily align with the perceptions of participating headteachers regarding what a collaborative or supportive relationship entails, nor be sufficient to illustrate a potentially more intricate panorama. Without exception, all the participants report that they collaborate with or support (or are supported by) others. Figure 1 below shows the sixteen participating schools declared between 4 and 50 partners (10 out of 16 report less than ten partners) they are or have recently worked along with, and they anticipate continuing to do so in the future.

Fig. 1
figure 1

Number of partners declared by participating schools

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The wide range of collaborators declared is explained by the inclusion of others they primarily work with as part of formal networking arrangements taking place at the SLEP scale. For instance, schools 1 and 2, in Fig. 1, declared all schools and nurseries from the SLEP as partners (school 1 has an additional partner that is not part of the SLEP), and School 3 declared as partners those to whom they are connected in formal arrangements, including all regular schools from the SLEP and others from the municipality to which they used to belong. On the other hand, some schools declaring a smaller number of partners did not consider others they were formally encouraged to work with. As a primarily qualitative inquiry informed by school headteachers, this reveals different interpretations of what collaborators and supporters entail and how inclusion thresholds are set. More substantively, it shows that formal networking is necessary but insufficient to explain the inter-organisational relationships that schools are part of.

What others?

The second objective of this study is to explore who schools seek help from. The question for the other(s) is not commonly addressed in studies on school-to-school collaboration but is pivotal for SNA (Bellotti, 2014). Two main subjects explored in this section are the similarity and valuing of collaborator and supporter/d schools.

Figure 2, below, provides an overview of three compositional characteristics of identified partners: (i) their public or private nature, (ii) whether they collaborate with others offering the same educational stage (e.g., primary and/or secondary education), and (iii) their governing dependency, which includes considerations of whether they are related to others within the SLEP, or beyond.

Fig. 2
figure 2

Compositional characteristics of declared partners

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The data suggests that similarity and proximity play a significant role in defining the partners of schools, consistent with findings from other studies (Greany et al., 2023; Greany & Kamp, 2022). Except for a few exceptions, the declared partners are mostly other public schools, largely primary ones, and have a history of institutional connection. This highlights an important issue in network studies, known as homophily, which refers to the tendency of social actors to engage with others who are similar to them (Borgatti & Halgin, 2011).

However, homophilic tendencies could stem from either individual preferences or opportunity constraints (Borgatti, 2003). In other words, the composition of networks could simply reflect the schools working with others they have access to rather than their preferences. To address this concern, exploring participants’ thoughts on the value of their connections may be helpful.

Qualitative data suggests that headteachers value structural similarity and proximity. Schools appreciate working with others that they perceive as similar organisations in terms of sharing administrative and financial dependencies (for example, public schools from the same SLEP), similar size in terms of the number of students and staff, number of classes, and level of education they offer (such as other primary schools). Moreover, headteachers argue that similar and local schools face similar managerial and operational issues that can be managed together or from which they can learn. These insights would help alleviate concerns about limitations and preferences for working with others who are similar.

Qualitative data not only corroborates the importance of similar schools that were quantitatively raised but also adds insights into other valued features. For example, participants value working with other organisations that have similar educational philosophies, namely, schools that they consider they share values and visions with. In other words, participants value working with schools that do things the same way they do and are driven by similar ends. Tightly connected, personal leadership styles propel schools and school leaders to connect with others they aspire to be like.

And for what reasons?

The third and final aim pertains to the purpose of school networks. The prompt used in interviews included four broad categories, encouraging participants to classify their relationships. These categories referred to: (i) instructional and student-centred, (ii) administrative and managerial, (iii) schooling transitions, and (iv) extra-curricular based ties. The categories were developed using revised literature and insights from the pilot study of the larger project this study is part of. These categories were included to capture a wide range of potential connections that schools could have rather than excluding ones that did not fit them. The study was not biased towards any particular type of relationship as long as they were organisational rather than personal connections. All such links were welcomed for inclusion.

Figure 3 offers an overview of the frequency of each category per case. First, it shows that most schools have relationships that serve different purposes, as most declare two or more categories as the main content of their relationships. Secondly, it reveals a comparatively higher frequency of Instructional or student-centred ties among schools with the highest number of declared partners, which aligns with the focus of mandated networks run by the SLEP’s authorities.

Fig. 3
figure 3

Content of school-to-school relationship utilising pre-set categories

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Participants’ qualitative accounts enable a more complex look at these categories, providing in-depth descriptions and nuances and introducing new ones while challenging others. This also allows for the exploration of multifunctional ties that are not a response to any particular demands. The analysis of the interviews is the source of eight main reasons for establishing inter-organisational relationships. While some align with the predefined categories, each stands alone and is reported in that way.

Schools often collaborate and support each other (i) to access resources and facilities necessary for their sustainability. For example, they may share premises and function in different time slots within the same buildings or share essential resources such as pedagogical materials, furniture, and IT equipment. Participants argue that this approach is more efficient than making time-consuming requests and acquisitions through public sector processes, especially considering that resources are typically limited in the public sector. Moreover, schools aim to connect with others (ii) to provide or access administrative support and contingency response. This is especially important when dealing with administrative tasks or regulations that require expertise and know-how found in other organisations. Often, these encounters are not planned but are triggered by events that prompt headteachers to reach out to peers with whom they already have a bond. Additionally, anticipated events such as planning the academic calendar are reasons for schools to come together and develop coordinated responses. Similarly, schools get together in order to (iii) support schools in need, for example, by aiding leading teams and staff from low-performing schools when they face intense central auditing. In addition, networking is also recognised as (iv) policy sense-making, when school leaders come together to interpret and plan normative and policy guidelines responses; for instance, as a way to cope with central accountability demands.

Among the reasons that resonate with preset categories are v) running joint extra-curricular activities, such as sports and music events, and engaging in vi) learning-centred collaborations that involve sharing ‘effective’ classroom-based practices. These are mainly taking place within SLEP-led networks. However, others are organically arranged, such as teachers providing on-site peer support when innovative teaching approaches are implemented, although this is less common. Also, to vii) ensure smooth transitions to secondary education, a frequent reason primary schools often work with secondary schools is to minimise disruptions in students’ trajectories and ensure continuity in the additional support students receive. Finally, schools also come together to viii) reallocate students and ensure their retention in the system when their circumstances at the current school pose a risk to their long-term schooling, for example, due to a lack of sense of belonging or conflicts with other members of the school community.

While reasons i to iii could be seen as one-sided asymmetric instances of support to overcome temporary situations, reasons iv to viii involve collaborative agreements with a certain sense of continuity over time.

Discussion

This study aimed to investigate the extent to which schools collaborate with and support each other. It used an egonet Social Network Analysis (SNA) approach, which does not take the existence of positive relationships between organisations for granted but problematises them. This is particularly relevant when examining market-driven and competitive school systems. Three aims guided this inquiry: exploring the existence and extent of schools’ networks, characterising the others participating schools turn to, and describing the purposes of these relationships.

First, the data reveal that all participating schools are part of collaboration and support networks. The sixteen cases present networks of diverse lengths and ties with different origins. Formal and mandated networks are the main means of engaging with other organisations. However, most headteachers also declare they have cultivated informal relationships with other schools. These insights suggest that formal networking is essential but insufficient to understand the complex inter-organisational web of relationships that schools are part of. This may be because research on this topic largely stems from the study of mandated school-to-school collaboration initiatives, which overlook other informal relationships schools may have. Accounting for the coexistence of inter-organisational relationships from diverse origins is one of the novel contributions of this study.

Second, this article advances in bringing the question of network composition to the forefront. The data shows that despite the wide range of partners declared, the similarity between egos and their alters is a salient commonality between cases. Namely, schools tend to collaborate mainly with other primary public schools with a previous or current institutional connection. Interviewed schools participate in various networking initiatives mandated by the SLEP, including small-scale local school improvement networks, first and second-year literacy networks for primary schools, and school leaders’ team meetings at the SLEP level. These efforts may help explain the preference for naming public, local, and primary schools, which are nonetheless valued as facilitators for developing inter-organisational collaborative work. However, more research is needed to fully understand the extent to which this tendency reflects a choice to work with similar schools or if it is due to constraints that limit engaging more extensively with, for example, private, secondary schools and nurseries in the local area, or other schools beyond the boundaries of their administrative division.

Third, schools are motivated by a variety of reasons to engage with others. These reasons exceed the original purposes that mandated networks – the origin of most declared ties – are set for. This includes the sustainability of schools, generating coordinated responses to policy, sharing best practices and experiences, and ensuring smooth students’ schooling trajectories. In some cases, these interactions take place as part of supportive ties, providing resources and assistance when needed, and in others, relationships adopt a collaborative tenor to address shared concerns that are persistent or periodic over time. All things considered, insights indicate that most schools take part in multiple strategic relationships: it is rare for a single partner to serve only one purpose, and likewise, it is rare for a single purpose to be fulfilled by only one partner. From a relational perspective conveyed in the SNA approach discussed here, the evidence suggests that schools inhabit complex, overlapping, and intertwined networks.

These insights are informed by an SNA methodological and conceptual framework emphasising the importance of studying relationships. Conceptually, this framework considers a spectrum where both isolation and being part of complex, dense, multilayered relationships are significant and possible outcomes. Although not dominant, this approach is not new in the study of school networking in other contexts. For example, a body of work underpinned by SNA shows how schools build local relationships with others, the evolution of those networks, and their autonomy regarding other forms of governance networking in England (Greany et al., 2023; Greany & Higham, 2018) and the US (Russell et al., 2013, 2015). However, and to the best of the author’s knowledge, this is a novel approach in the Chilean context. Other approaches have been taken to build up a flourishing scholarship on school networking that has provided an account of the architecture, sustainability in the context of competition, and benefits for school communities participating in policy-mandated school-to-school collaboration initiatives (Ahumada et al., 2019; González et al., 2017; Montecinos et al., 2020; Pino-Yancovic & Ahumada, 2020; Pino-Yancovic et al., 2019a; Pino-Yancovic, Gonzalez, Pino-Yancovic et al., 2019a, b), other arrangements led by third parties and higher education institutions (Madrid Miranda & Chapman, 2021; Pino-Yancovic & Valenzuela, 2022); and to a lesser extent, organic network initiatives (Oyarzún Maldonado et al., 2020). The present study enlarges this corpus of literature by providing an account of the different sorts of networks converging in schools and by expanding our understanding of the purposes those links serve.

Nonetheless, it is also essential to bear in mind that this study provides a cross-sectional snapshot of an ever-evolving phenomenon in a changing educational context. Traditional ways of relating to and between schools are giving way to new governance structures bringing schools together in networks. Inter-organisational ties are made up of history, time, trust, and reciprocity (Armstrong et al., 2021) but are also shaped by political and policy frameworks, external incentives, and evolving horizons of possibilities. These are all factors that are being rearranged in the context where this study took place and should be considered when interpreting the insights presented here.

This study has understood networks as an expression of schools’ social life. This emphasises a certain degree of independence from educational policy, even from those with a networking component. In other words, this study has not sought to identify and assess the capacity of networks to solve educational problems effectively, nor aimed to advocate for a networking approach as particularly suitable for compelling issues. However, it does not dismiss the possibility that networks may indeed be valuable tools for addressing common concerns, at least to some extent. The main suggestion of this study for educational policy is to consider the existence of inter-organisational networks as a possibility, a precedent, part of the history and life of school organisations and their members, and even as an asset for schools. For example, this study has brought attention to significant problems within the Chilean school system, such as student transitions, the risk of dropout, and the shortage of resources, which are addressed through networks. The call is for stakeholders—both at the local and central levels—to consider the existence of networks when designing and evaluating policies or initiatives to address such problems. This does not necessarily mean that these must be addressed through networks, but rather to recognise the inter-organisational space as an additional area where policy efforts could potentially be located.

Finally, this study is exploratory in nature and has mainly contributed by providing new insights and raising new questions that will need further attention. One of these issues is the role of structural and institutional conditions in giving way to relationships between schools. The presented data suggests that structural and institutional conditions play a role in shaping, but not hindering, potential links. Mandated policies, such as school-to-school networks and institutional changes, specifically the networking governance approach adopted by the SLEP, are relevant in understanding the length and composition of school networks. On the one hand, the lack of connection with private schools, which are dominant in the area, the city of Santiago, and the Chilean school system more broadly, suggests –this time from a new organisation-centred perspective– that the well-studied segregation in the Chilean school system, especially in Santiago (Gutiérrez & Carrasco, 2021), plays a part in the way schools establish inter-organisational relationships. Overall, collaboration and support seem to occur neither despite nor thanks to but within a context of privatisation, marketisation, and individual performance. Although further examination is required, the data suggest that schools and school leaders carefully scan and assess the broader context in which they are situated, the stakeholders in the field (Fligstein & McAdam, 2012), their individual needs, and the resources available to them before engaging with others. These factors and circumstances are influenced by or at least informed by the structural and institutional characteristics of the Chilean school system.