The capital of cooperation: a resource-based study of school–out-of-school STEM cooperations across phases and professional roles

Abstract Background Amid growing interest in cooperations between schools and out-of-school organizations to enrich STEM learning, questions remain about the actual conditions that enable such collaborations to succeed. Empirical insights are especially scarce when it comes to the perspectives of those directly involved in planning and practice. Existing frameworks are often focused on specific partnership types or lack integration with broader theories of educational cooperation. This study addresses that gap by exploring how actors involved in strategic planning and day-to-day implementation perceive the enabling conditions for successful school–out-of-school STEM cooperation. Grounded in the Educational and Learning Capital Approach (ELCA), we investigate which educational capital practitioners deem essential for successful school–out-of-school STEM cooperations. Specifically, we examine how these forms of capital vary across different phases of cooperation (i.e., initiation, implementation, and maintenance), identify the critical combinations, determine the types of synergies practitioners recognize, and explore the themes and concerns associated with each type of educational capital. We also examine how perceptions of what makes school–out-of-school STEM cooperation successful differ between individuals in strategic leadership roles and those in operational, practice-oriented roles. Results We conducted semi-structured interviews with 18 secondary school educators (principals and STEM teachers) with established cooperation profiles. Using the ELCA as a coding framework, we analyzed how practitioners describe the role of five types of educational capital (economic, social, cultural, didactic, and infrastructural) in supporting school–out-of-school STEM cooperation. The findings reveal phase-specific patterns of resource emphasis (e.g., social capital in initiation, didactic capital in implementation), frequent synergies between capital types, and complementary perspectives across institutional roles. Strategic and operational actors emphasized different enablers but shared a systemic understanding of cooperation as a resource-intensive process. Conclusions The study contributes a resource-based framework for analyzing school–out-of-school STEM cooperation and highlights the importance of role-sensitive and phase-aware support structures. Mapping practitioner insights onto the ELCA framework offers a conceptual and practical foundation for schools, policymakers, and network organizers seeking to build sustainable and strategically aligned school–out-of-school STEM cooperation. To our knowledge, this is the first study to provide a phase-sensitive, resource-based account of school–out-of-school STEM cooperation grounded in practitioner perspectives.