Building Effective Quadruple Partnerships Across Families, Schools, Communities, and Universities

The dual capacity-building framework created by Mapp and her colleagues (i.e., Mapp & Bergman, 2019; Mapp & Kuttner, 2013) lays a foundation for an extended partnership beyond families and schools. In this article, we explore how to extend the value of the dual capacity-building framework to a larger partnership that includes communities and universities. Our analyses are centered on the four essential components of the capacity-building framework—challenges, opportunity conditions, policies and program goals, and capacity outcomes—in the context of quadruple partnerships. Adding examples of successful university–community partnerships to the existing dual capacity-building framework will better support families’ and schools’ efforts to promote students’ academic success. Because the capacity-building framework is grounded in rigorous research and thoughtful analyses, higher education outreach and engagement programs can adopt it to foster more effective partnerships with families, schools, and communities, and positively transform K-12 education.