Co-production in primary schools: a systematic literature review
| Author | Marlies Honingh,Elena Bondarouk,Taco Brandsen |
| Date | 01 June 2020 |
| Published date | 01 June 2020 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0020852318769143 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
International
Review of
Administrative
Sciences
Co-production in
primary schools:
a systematic
literature review
Marlies Honingh
Institute for Management Research, Radboud University
Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Elena Bondarouk
Universiteit Leiden, The Netherlands
Taco Brandsen
Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Abstract
Co-production is the involvement of citizens in the design and delivery of services. In
primary schools, this involves parents working with teachers to improve the educa-
tional development of their children. In this contribution, we present the results of a
systematic literature review on co-production in primary schools to establish what
research has been conducted and to what extent there is evidence on the effectiveness
of co-production in this context. After three subsequent steps of literature selection,
an initial database of 3121 articles was reduced to 122 articles which were then care-
fully analysed. Generally, co-production in education tends to be aimed at specific
groups, which makes it hard to generalize, but some findings appear more generally
applicable. Co-production does appear to improve students’ knowledge acquisition.
Parent–teacher relationships can be difficult and ambiguous, but teacher training
appears to be an effective tool for improving co-production.
Corresponding author:
Marlies Honingh, Radboud University, Institute for Management Research, Department of Political Science &
Public Administration, Heyendaalseweg 141, 6525 AJ Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Email: m.honingh@fm.ru.nl
International Review of Administrative
Sciences
2020, Vol. 86(2) 222–239
!The Author(s) 2018
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/0020852318769143
journals.sagepub.com/home/ras
Points for practitioners
•Although co-production in schools is increasingly popular, it has been tested
mostly for specific socioeconomic groups. Further testing is necessary to know
whether it would work as a mainstream method.
•Co-production in school requires a tailor-made approach. The evidence suggests
that it is only effective if it is adapted to the specific context. It is therefore
misleading to speak of co-production in schools as a single phenomenon; there
are many different types of co-production in schools.
•Investing in teacher training turns out to be helpful in overcoming ini-
tial resistance.
Keywords
co-production, education, literature review, parental involvement, participation,
primary schools
Introduction
Co-production is the involvement of citizens in the design and delivery of services.
Examples can be found in various areas such as employment, housing, health care
and safety (Brandsen et al., 2018; Verschuere et al., 2012). In primary schools, co-
production involves parents working with teachers to improve the educational
development of their children. In this contribution, we present the results of a
systematic literature review on co-production in primary schools to establish
what research has been conducted and to what extent there is evidence of the
effectiveness of co-production in this context.
Research on co-production has matured considerably in recent years. In its
early days, it consisted of early explorations of the topic – particularly associated
with the work of Ostrom (1996) and later Pestoff (2006) and Alford (2009). In
subsequent years, these were accompanied by a number of mostly small and qual-
itative cases demonstrating the relevance and potential benefits of this type of
participation (for instance, those bundled in Pestoff and Brandsen, 2008; Pestoff
et al., 2012). More recently, there were efforts to make research in this area more
systematic and rigorous, to move from agenda-setting to fact-finding. A number of
methodologically more diverse and sceptical studies emerged examining effects of
co-production, for instance on trust (Fledderus et al., 2014), and motivation (Van
Eijk and Steen, 2016) and inclusiveness (Clark et al., 2013).
However, despite these improvements, general co-production research often still
misses a major source of evidence, in that it is insufficiently informed by specialist
research on services. In many areas, there is already evidence of the effects of
Honingh et al. 223
To continue reading
Request your trial