Building Beneficence: School-Academic Research Partnerships in the Study of Adolescent Lives After Migration to America (SALaMA)

In this article, we reflect on an eight-year partnership we established between a public school system and a university-based research team for the interdisciplinary Study of Adolescent Lives after Migration to America (SALaMA), including perspectives from both the research team and school partners. The study used qualitative, quantitative, and participatory approaches to assess the mental health and psychosocial wellbeing needs of high school students resettled to the U.S. from conflict-affected countries in the Middle East and North Africa region. Such a complex study with a potentially vulnerable population required close and flexible collaboration between school-based staff and the research team throughout the project. This article recounts the story of this collaboration, discusses its predominant challenges and tensions, and identifies the principles we used to overcome them to achieve more effective school-academic partnerships. Throughout, we make the case for research partnerships guided by (1) building engagement and trust from day one, (2) balancing rigor and adaptability, and (3) creating relationships that extend beyond data collection. What braids these principles together, we argue, is a commitment to beneficent research that gives back to partners and participants in meaningful ways that can be used to advance their goals. By juxtaposing school and researcher perspectives over the course of SALaMA, this article offers insights about the values, costs, tradeoffs, and potential rewards at play in participatory applied research aimed at building beneficence.