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Abstract Research has affirmed the importance of asset-based family partnerships, yet it does not often recognize the complementary roles of multilingual caregivers and teachers to enact culturally sustaining mathematics education. Our theoretical framework brings together the perspectives and tools of positioning theory and community solidarity through a lesson study that integrated the participation of caregivers. Our research questions explore ways that caregivers, teachers, and university facilitators participate in and position each other and themselves for learning throughout a mathematics lesson study and how hierarchical positions are disrupted. Using positioning theory, we analyzed the discourse from a year-long study group with teachers and caregivers of multilingual children ages 7–10 in the USA. Our findings describe four events that underscore moment-to-moment interactions between participants in which they situate themselves and their work within racialized storylines and disrupt typical power hierarchies that might have emerged. We find several ways the principles of community solidarity, which undergirded our lesson study model, created new opportunities for educators and multilingual caregivers to be positioned as witnesses, advocates, partners, and co-designers to work towards culturally sustaining mathematics education for multilingual students. We conclude with implications for future mathematics education partnerships to co-construct mathematics learning opportunities that affirm multilingual students’ cultural and linguistic identities. 

Effective researcher-coach relationships need reciprocal learning, which allows practitioners to share valuable contextual knowledge while researchers share evidence-based ideas. Nevertheless, these collaborations encounter obstacles due to power imbalances, which frequently establish researchers as authorities and reduce the role of practitioners as co-creators. Therefore, this study examines power dynamics in researcher-coach partnerships within educational contexts, emphasizing equitable collaboration strategies. Using Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) as a framework, this study analyzes video data from a writing intensive to explore interactions between two participants, Ashley and Russell. Findings reveal that initial tensions foster deeper understanding through negotiated power exchanges. The study underscores that openness, mutual trust, and reflective dialogue are essential for sustainable partnerships, advancing the understanding of power dynamics in researcher-coach collaborations. 

Abstract: The objective of this research was to explore how educators and researchers can collaborate to create research-to-practice briefs that make research accessible for classroom implementation. Specifically, we examined the benefits, opportunities, and difficulties of working together. While there were challenges, our findings suggest that both researchers and teachers can benefit from collaborating. This pilot research is shaping future work to further bridge the gap between research and practice.