In the Swedish case we are studying a partnership between a municipality and action researchers aimed at improving the quality of work in pre-schools. This partnership involves pre-school teachers (approx. 100), leaders (teacher-facilitators, principals and director) and researchers and the partnership has been in operation part since 2007. From the perspective of practice architectures’ the long-term partnership is viewed as a material-economic arrangement which depends upon a reciprocal recognition of all partners contribution to “the common good” (Honneth, 2010), in this case improving the quality of work. At this moment an imbalance has been identified in this partnership, namely the principals are not always supportive of new practices such as facilitation and collegial learning. As a next step the local authority therefore is setting up a research circle with leaders and researchers. Through studying sayings, doings and relatings in the research circle we will further inquire into the practice of partnership with a specific focus on recognition.