This paper aims to highlight challenges and opportunities connected to collaboration between municipal school administrators, principals, teachers and researchers. The current study was formulated in cooperation between researchers and administrators from two rural Swedish municipalities. The study was based on their concern on large gender gap in grades, and on a notion held by some principals and teachers that the motivation for school is low for many students, especially among low-achieving boys.

The project was co-designed in close collaboration between administrators, principals and researchers. The negotiated purpose was thus collaboratively broadened to include not only gender patterns but also other sociological aspects that affect learner identities and motivation. Project information was provided through on-site visits where the project was presented for all staff members at each school in each municipality. During the first year, observations were carried out in grade 6 in five schools, and grade 9 in three schools. Two researchers followed each class one week, by teacher invitation. The focus was on the conditions for learning and motivation offered in class, and on factors supporting and hindering the learning and motivation of girls and boys with different backgrounds and resources. Semi-structured interviews with teachers in the targeted classes (N=18) were held. The interviews focused on the teachers' notions of student achievement and motivation in regard to gendered norms, curriculum and classroom practices. Teachers were also asked to reflect on the possibilities to change prevailing patterns. Semi-structured interviews with students, mostly in pairs (N=70; 39 girls, 31 boys) were carried out. The topics for these interviews were the students' notions of how school, home and peers interplay with their views on learning, motivation and their aspirations for the future. In addition to the practice-based research activities, organizational development and competence building were key ambitions in the cooperation between the two municipalities and the university. The model for this was a one-day workshop for the entire pedagogical staff in the schools at the respective municipality (N=195, N= 65). During these days, local experiences and observations were discussed in relation to presented research concerning study motivation and gender patterns.

Groups of teachers sat together and shared their understandings and reflections. All group conversations were documented in shared online documents for capturing and spreading thoughts and understandings. These shared documents provided a source for further discussions after the actual competence development day. The same model for data gathering will be carried out in year two of the project in order to have a solid foundation for analysis and further recommendations and suggestions. So far, our mutual experience from the range of roles participating in the project, is that the model for co-designing a project combining competence development arrangements with research activities is a fruitful cross-fertilizing process for knowledge creation and professional learning.