bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Discovering Together
Authors: Traynor John , Tully Deborah
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

School–university partnerships, research–practice partnerships, and professional development schools represent three separate framings for the type of work outlined in this case study. These types of partnerships face various challenges as outlined in the literature, for the partnership as a collective and the partners at an institutional level. This case study contributes to this literature and provides potential policy implications through both the successes and challenges that are included.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

The research focused on a partnership that received funding through a grant provided by the state legislature. This study explored the partnership between a local, public K–6 elementary and two private institutions of higher education, their teacher preparation programs specifically. The research focused on ways in which the partnerships improved both student achievement and teacher candidate preparation while also improving the overall school culture.

Research Design

This research design is a mixed-methods case study and analyzes the partnership and the influences that resulted at the school and the institutions of higher education. This discussion draws on anecdotal, qualitative, and quantitative data and observations to reflect on the impact of the work of the partnership.

Data Collection and Analysis

The resulting profile uses several sources of data: interviews and surveys (current and past participants), documents (meeting note summaries, planning documents, etc.), performance data (academic, attendance, and behavior), and participation data (i.e., teacher candidates placed at schools, extended learning opportunity participation, etc.).

Conclusions/Recommendations

The partnership outlined in this article benefited where the personnel were consistent throughout the life span of the project. Challenges were more acute when there were changes to personnel assigned to the partnership. In addition, having additional student supports, either in classrooms during the school day (i.e., math and literacy instructional time) or in the extended learning program after school, met the dual purpose of positively impacting student development (academic and social/emotional) and providing authentic learning experiences for preservice teacher candidates. This is a promising organizing framework on which to build these types of partnerships.
Strategies and Resources for Creating LGBTQ-Inclusive Classrooms
Authors: Sapon-Shevin Mara
Published: November 2021

This chapter focuses on the necessity of strategies for challenging heteronormativity in teacher education classrooms and K–12 classrooms. The chapter explores the silence about this topic that prevents teachers at all levels from engaging in open and effective discussion about how to organize schooling so that is supportive of students who are LGBTQ. It details specific strategies for combating discriminatory practices in school classrooms and teacher education programs and the emotions of teachers accompanying these; these strategies include the use of literature, film, music, and activities. The importance of addressing bullying as a systemic and structural issue rather than as a classroom-management or disciplinary concern is detailed.
Youth at the Intersections of Dis/ability, Other Markers of Identity, and Emotionality: Toward a Critical Pedagogy of Student Knowledge, Emotion, Feeling, Affect, and Being
Authors: HernÁNdez-Saca David I.
Published: November 2021

This chapter concerns dis/ability, emotion, affect, and feelings and how persons with a single or multiple dis/abilities are dis/enfranchised through multiple, intersectional categories in which they are located and provided services in schools. In other words, the author highlights how dis/ability can function together with emotion and affect to exclude people from and/ or include them in social, economic, and educational life. The author explores the relationships among assimilation's intersectional qualities, deficit thinking and ideologies, and the affect and epistemology that foreground teachers’ discourses and emotional connections to their students and profession. This work comes at an urgent historical moment, when low-income students and Black and Brown students with dis/abilities have become the majority population in our nation's public schools, despite our nation's teachers remaining largely non-disabled, White, middle class, and monolingual. This lack of change in the demographics of teachers has brought up an important question of how to go beyond the technicalities of teaching to enable a pedagogy of dis/ability at the intersections of emotion and affect. To this end, the author outlines a critical pedagogy of student knowledge, emotion, feeling, affect, and being to assist teachers in critically examining their own emotions, affects, and beliefs within school systems to work toward enfranchisement with historically marginalized youth with dis/abilities and their families.
“A Vicious Cycle of Disempowerment”: The Relationship Between Teacher Morale, Pedagogy, and Agency in an Urban High School
Authors: Dunn Alyssa Hadley
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

This research is framed by theories of teacher morale and teacher empowerment and contributes to the literature on neoliberal educational policies and teacher burnout and attrition.

Purpose and Research Questions

The purpose of this study is to understand the intersections of teachers’ experiences with neoliberal policies, at one high school in the urban south. The research questions include: (1) How is the morale of exceptional urban teachers affected by the contextual factors of a neoliberal school climate? (2) How does their morale relate to teachers’ reports of their pedagogy?

Research Design

This study utilized a qualitative case study design and, in addition to traditional analytic methods used in case studies, drew on grounded theory methodology. I collected quantitative data from approximately 30 staff members in the form of two surveys and qualitative data from eight focal participants. These participants were all (1) veteran teachers, (2) recognized as strong/exceptional teachers according to both neoliberal and non-neoliberal indicators, and (3) represented a diversity of other identity markers. My analysis here focuses on the qualitative data, and I use the quantitative results as a way to contextualize the data of my eight focal participants. Types of qualitative data include: interviews (semi-structured), a focus group, participant observations (of meetings at the district and school level), document analysis (of district-produced documents, school newspaper articles, local newspaper articles, and teachers’ written reflections), and researcher journals and memos.

Findings/Results

Results indicate that: (1) Morale is influenced by a variety of contextual factors at multiple levels, and being in a “good” school or being labeled an “exceptional” educator is not enough to keep one from feeling the effects of disempowerment brought about by top-down mandates, and (2) Teachers overwhelmingly reported that low morale impacted their view of their own pedagogy, contributing to a “vicious cycle” of low morale, disempowerment, and less effective pedagogy. The focal participants, even though they were hailed as successful educators, felt discouraged and unable to maintain quality pedagogy because of restrictive educational policies. Thus, I argue that educational policies at the school, district, state, and national level significantly decrease teachers’ morale and have a negative influence on their perception of their pedagogy. In a vicious cycle, low morale makes them feel like less effective teachers, and their belief that they are less effective lowers their morale.
STEM for All: Student Identities and the Paradox of STEM Democratization
Authors: Cipollone Kristin , Stich Amy E. , Weis Lois
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Calls to increase participation in and access to STEM education have been loud and frequent. These democratizing efforts have targeted the aspirations and expectations of non-dominant students attending U.S. secondary schools, promising pathways to college and opportunities for social mobility, yet the results have been mixed. While some exemplars exist, recent research has identified a number of social and structural challenges that undermine the stated goals of policy initiatives and fail to yield positive student outcomes.

Purpose

Drawing upon the authors’ notion of shadow capital, an extension of Bourdieu's theoretical framework, and Holland, Lachincotte, Skinner, and Cain's theory of figured worlds, this article explores how high-achieving students from non-dominant backgrounds construct their academic identities amid limited STEM material and discursive structures in two urban, non-selective, public, STEM-focused schools. In so doing, we aim to extend and complicate the literature on STEM reform and its ability to provide opportunity and improve outcomes for non-dominant students.

Research Design

The findings reported herein are part of a larger ethnographic, longitudinal, and comparative study of eight non-selective, urban public high schools serving primarily economically and racially non-dominant students. Data consist of interviews with multiple stakeholders, sustained participant and non-participant observation, and document analysis. In this article we focus on two STEM-focused schools, STEM Academy and Broadway Science Academy (BSA), and primarily draw upon interview data given our emphasis on student identity development.

Findings/Results

As a result of a mismatch between the intention and outcome of STEM reform as it plays out in this study, each school provided students with shadow capital. Given the different school contexts, the effects of this shadow capital on students’ STEM identities vary across site. In the case of STEM Academy, students develop conflicted STEM identities amid the school's own conflicted institutional identity as both STEM-focused and college preparatory. In the case of BSA, students are provided opportunities that are seen as more “connected” to student-lived experiences, resulting in vocational pathways devoid of the elements that truly bridge home and school in ways that create opportunity, complicating students’ ability to actualize their college and career aspirations.

Conclusions/Recommendations

In order to create authentic and meaningful connected STEM opportunities that allow students to draw from their own stores of capital and nurture STEM identities, we need to reevaluate and re-envision the “good intentions” undergirding the democratization of education and ask whether efforts to democratize STEM are plausible within our deeply stratified system.
Metropolitan Public School District Segregation by Race and Income, 2000–2011
Authors: Richards Meredith P. , Stroub Kori J.
Published: November 2021

Background

Recent work has documented declining public school racial/ethnic segregation, as students have become more evenly distributed across schools and districts since the turn of the century. However, we know little about how declines in school racial/ethnic segregation have affected students of different levels of economic resources. While some evidence suggests that class may be supplanting race as the defining force in structuring residential segregation, it is unclear whether this trend toward spatial assimilation is mirrored in schools.

Objective

In this study, we provide initial evidence linking racial/ethnic and socioeconomic segregation in schools. First, we disaggregate patterns and trends in metropolitan segregation by student race/ethnicity and household income to examine how changes in racial/ethnic segregation are experienced by students of different income levels. Second, drawing on theories of spatial assimilation and place stratification, we examine the relative importance of race/ethnicity vis-à-vis income in structuring patterns of segregation.

Research Design

We use unique data on the joint distribution of student race/ethnicity and family income from the National Center of Education Statistics’ Education Demographic and Geographic Estimates (NCES EDGE) system. For each U.S. metropolitan area, we calculate measures of between-district segregation from 2000 to 2011. We compute measures of racial/ethnic and socioeconomic segregation using the dual-group index of dissimilarity and the rank-order information theory index. We focus on two key comparisons: the segregation between non-White and white students in the same income quintile, and the segregation between non-White students in each income quintile and all White students.

Findings

We find that recent declines in racial/ethnic segregation were unevenly distributed across the income distribution. For example, while Black students of all income levels experienced declines in segregation from Whites, decreases were particularly pronounced for affluent Blacks. In addition, poor White students became more segregated from non-White students of all income levels. We also document shifts in the contributions of race/ethnicity and income to segregation: While income is increasingly implicated in Black–White and Hispanic–White segregation, Asian–White segregation is increasingly attributable to race/ethnicity.

Conclusions

Findings highlight the complexity of student experiences of segregation by race/ethnicity and income. Focusing exclusively on declines in racial/ethnic segregation or increases in income segregation may lead scholars to neglect phenomena such as the worsening segregation of poor White students, or improving segregation among affluent non-Whites. In addition, while racial/ethnic segregation remains high, segregation between non-Whites and Whites is increasingly attributable to income differences between racial/ethnic groups (i.e., spatial assimilation), with the exception of Asian students.
Cracks in the Continuum: A Critical Analysis of Least Restrictive Environment for Students with Significant Support Needs
Authors: Mccabe Katie M. , Ruppar Andrea , Kurth Jennifer A. , Mcqueston Jessica A. , Johnston Russell , Toews Samantha Gross
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Federal laws require equitable access to education for students with disabilities through educational placement in the least restrictive environment (LRE). However, research has determined students with significant support needs (SSN) are overrepresented in segregated educational placements.

Focus of Study

This study explores justifications of LRE placement decisions for students with SSN through a critical qualitative analysis. We evaluated how individualized education program (IEP) teams interpret LRE and justify placement decisions for students with SSN. Additionally, we sought to understand how the interpretation of LRE permits or restricts access to general education for students with SSN.

Population

Students with SSN are those who require support across multiple domains and often have disabilities in the categories of autism, intellectual disability, multiple disabilities, and deaf-blindness.

Research Design

We used a qualitative methodology situated in a critical geography framework. Data were derived from the LRE statements found in IEPs of students with SSN. Each statement included in this study was used to identify the three power relationship spaces derived from critical geography theory: utopia, dystopia, and heterotopia.

Findings

Three types of placement decisions were identified. Students with SSN were most often offered conditional placements and less frequently closed or open placements. Rationales for LRE decisions revealed barriers to accessing general education contexts related to hidden power dynamics, attempts to maintain social norms, and the use of ambiguous terminology. Data analysis also revealed that LRE justifications generate special education heterotopias that create illusive access to the general education context and content for students with SSN.

Conclusions/Recommendations

The application of critical theory assists in understanding the continued overrepresentation of students with SSN in placements that limit access to general education. Findings from this study suggest the discontinuation of the continuum of special education placements to dismantle the inequitable structures of special education for students with SSN.
A Decade of Research on K–12 Teaching and Teacher Learning with Social Media: Insights on the State of the Field
Authors: Greenhow Christine , Galvin Sarah M. , Brandon Diana L. , Askari Emilia
Published: November 2021

Background and Context

The increasingly widespread use of social media to expand one's social connections is a relatively new but important phenomenon that has implications for teaching, learning, and teachers’ professional knowledge and development in the 21st century. Educational research in this area is expanding, but further investigation is necessary to better determine how to best support teachers in their professional development, collaboration, and classroom teaching. Prior literature reviews have focused extensively on higher education settings or particular platforms or platform types (e.g., Facebook, microblogging). This article provides needed insights into K–12 settings and encompasses work from a variety of social media types. We describe a systematic review of more than a decade of educational research from various countries to present the state of the field in K–12 teachers’ use of social media for teaching and professional learning across various platforms.

Research Questions

To define social media's potentially beneficial roles in teaching and learning, we must first take an in-depth look at teachers’ current social media practices. Toward this end, we approached our review with the following research question: How are social media perceived and used by K–12 teachers for their teaching or professional learning, and with what impacts on teachers’ practices?

Research Design

Guided by Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) established standards for rigor and quality in systematic literature reviews, this article reviews empirical research to examine how social media are perceived and used by K–12 teachers with what impacts on teachers’ practices.

Findings

We find that social media features offer several benefits for helping teachers fulfill their goals for classroom teaching, including enhancing student engagement, community connections, and teacher–student interactions, but these affordances come with challenges that must be navigated. The literature also suggests that social media features provide benefits for teachers’ professional learning within both formal professional development programs and informal learning networks.

Conclusions

Implications of this literature review for future research and the design of educational practices are discussed in the final section. Among our conclusions are calls for more data triangulation between teachers’ and students’ learning and experiences on social media, more attention to teachers’ observational behaviors on social media, and further exploration of how social media facilitates interplay between teachers’ formal and informal learning.
“Say What you Really Believe”1: Freedom Schools, Youth Empowerment, and Black Power in 1960s Milwaukee
Authors: Suchor Katerina
Published: November 2021

Background

The historical literature on the civil rights movement has tended to underemphasize the movement's educational activities, while literature on the civil rights and Black Power movements has overemphasized ideological and tactical differences between these chapters in the struggle for Black liberation. A few studies have examined Freedom Schools—educational projects established as part of larger civil rights campaigns—but these studies have focused almost exclusively on Freedom Schools in the Southern context.

Purpose

Focusing on Freedom Schools organized as part of a school desegregation campaign in Milwaukee during the mid-1960s, this article explores the pedagogical purpose and philosophy of the Freedom Schools, as distinct from other protest activities undertaken as part of the campaign, as well as the legacy of the Freedom Schools after the campaign's conclusion.

Research Design

This historical analysis examines materials such as lesson plans, flyers, and correspondence from the archives of the Milwaukee United School Integration Committee (MUSIC), the organization responsible for the school desegregation campaign.

Findings

This article shows that core components of the Freedom School curriculum, which sought to challenge deficit-oriented policies and empower youth to create social change, foreshadowed key tenets of Black Power ideology.

Conclusions

These findings suggest that the Freedom Schools, as important sites of ideological development, highlight continuity between the civil rights and Black Power movements and situate the Freedom Schools as part of a longer tradition of education for liberation and self-determination.
“Hay poder en numeros”: Understanding the Development of a Collectivist Latinx Parent Identity and Conscientizacao Amid an Anti-Immigrant Climate
Authors: Fernández Érica , Rodela Katherine C.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Given our current anti-immigrant context, it is pertinent that we understand how (un)documented parents who are members of a parent-organized and parent-initiated group come to develop a collectivist Latinx identity within oppressive and marginalizing structures and policies.

Purpose/Objectives

This study analyzes the processes and actions of a Latinx parent group that led to the establishment of a collectivist identity and the activation of a collective conscientizacao/critical consciousness amid an anti-immigrant climate.

Research Design

Based on a 2.5-year critical ethnography, we analyzed data that included in-depth interviews, participant observations, photographs, and documents. In doing so, we were able to center the experiences of a parent organizing group in an elementary school in the Midwest during a period of heightened immigrant surveillance and anti-immigrant legislation.

Findings/Results

Our research suggests that critical consciousness was activated among this group in three stages: (1) Stage 1 describes the actions/strategies FUV took to develop a collective critical consciousness; (2) Stage 2 details the ways in which FUV members activated (i.e., enacted) their collective critical consciousness; and (3) Stage 3 discusses FUV's ongoing efforts to nurture a collective critical consciousness.

Conclusions/Recommendations

This study combats oppressive, marginalizing, and prevailing academic and public parental involvement discourse, thus having direct implications for how school officials center and support (un)documented Latinx parents and families in schools.
The Better Book Approach for Education Research and Development
Authors: Stigler James W. , Son Ji Y. , Givvin Karen B. , Blake Adam B. , Fries Laura , Shaw Stacy T. , Tucker Mary C.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Despite advances in the learning sciences, a persistent gap remains between research and practice.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

In this project, we develop and try out a new approach to education research and development in which researchers, designers/ developers, and instructors collaborate to continuously improve an online interactive textbook.

Intervention/Program/Practice

Using a “learn by doing” strategy, we first created a highly instrumented online textbook for introductory statistics. The design of our online book is based on the practicing-connections hypothesis: Instead of learning individual “bits” of information and then hoping that learners end up with transferable knowledge, we designed a curriculum to engage students in repeated practice of the connections—between core concepts, representations, and the world—that make knowledge transferable. The textbook includes more than 1,200 formative assessments, generating large amounts of data relevant to both the process and outcomes of college students learning of statistics. Using the affordances of technology, we then began working to apply routines and practices from open software development (Git) and improvement science (Toyota Kata) to build an improvement community focused on continuous improvement of the online book. We also are building a technology platform (CourseKata) to publish the book from markdown files stored on GitHub; distribute the book through widely used learning management systems; collect detailed student data and deliver it back to instructors and, in a de-identified form, researchers; and manage experiments that randomly assign different versions of content to different students within a single class, and then assess the effects on students’ learning.

Research Design

Our research design is a mixed-methods design research and improvement study. We gauge success through measures of process, outcome, and transfer.

Conclusions/Recommendations

We are at only the beginning of what we see as a lengthy project. We are encouraged, however, by our progress, and invite others—including researchers, designers/developers, and instructors—to join us in our improvement community focused on improving the transferable learning of basic statistical concepts at scale.
Crystallizing Coaching: An Examination of the Institutionalization of Instructional Coaching in Three Educational Systems
Authors: Woulfin Sarah L.
Published: November 2021

Background

Instructional coaching has gained popularity as a reform instrument, yet it varies widely across contexts. This variability plays a role in weak implementation or even rejection of coaching within schools. Further, there are gaps in our understanding of how coaching is adopted and accepted in different educational systems. Purpose: This article uses concepts from organizational institutionalism to gauge the legitimacy and taken-for-grantedness of coaching in two charter-management organizations and one public school district. It surfaces the processes as well as the outcomes of the institutionalization of coaching.

Research design

I collected qualitative data for this study in three systems to draw out comparisons in the structures, practices, and norms regarding coaching: This included 38 interviews, over 20 observations, and over 30 documents. I coded and analyzed the interview, observation, and document data to answer questions about how and why coaching was institutionalized in each system.

Findings

My findings reveal that coaching was more highly institutionalized in the two charter-management organizations than in the public school district. In particular, coaching was deemed appropriate and desirable by most educators in the charter systems. Additionally, coaching was embedded in system-level policies and school-level routines in the charter systems. My findings also indicate that organizational structures, actors’ role definitions, and artifacts were associated with the institutionalization of coaching.

Conclusions

This study sheds light on how and why coaching, as a counternormative lever for instructional reform, is institutionalized in various educational systems. It points to the importance of system and school leaders’ routines for increasing the legitimacy and taken-for-grantedness of coaching.
Opportunities to Study, Practice, and Rehearse Teaching in Teacher Preparation: An International Perspective
Authors: Hammerness Karen , Klette Kirsti , Jenset Inga Staal , Canrinus Esther T.
Published: November 2021

Background

Around the world, policy makers and teacher educators are paying increasing attention to how teacher candidates learn to study and enact teaching and to grounding preparation more deeply in teachers’ classroom practice. Evidence from the United States and the Netherlands suggests that efforts to tie preparation to practice may significantly impact pupils’ learning. However, the nature of teacher candidates’ opportunities to study, practice, and rehearse teaching remains underexplored, especially in international studies.

Purpose

Our research analyzes opportunities to study, practice, and rehearse teaching in teacher education coursework in five different programs in five countries. We focus specifically on the degree to which campus coursework provides candidates with opportunities to study, practice, and rehearse actual teaching practices. What kind of opportunities exist in these international programs’ coursework to study, practice, and rehearse teaching? Are there any typical patterns and connections that teacher education students encounter more often than others?

Research Design

Our multiple case study design uses data from surveys of program candidates, observations of methods courses, and interviews with program faculty and students. We highlight our inclusion of observation of methods courses, which are relatively rare in studies of teacher education. We collected these data in five programs in five countries: Chile, Cuba, Finland, Norway, and the United States.

Findings

Analysis of all data revealed frequent opportunities for candidates to analyze artifacts from teaching and to do work that pupils will do. Candidates had some opportunities to plan, to rehearse teaching strategies, and to experience their teacher educator modeling teaching practices. Despite a growing focus on student learning in the United States and in other countries, there were few opportunities for teacher candidates to analyze student learning or to examine samples of students’ work. The dearth of opportunities for candidates to examine and analyze student learning was especially surprising: We underscore this finding as critical for teacher education.

Conclusions

These findings about opportunities to study, practice, and rehearse teaching can provide helpful lenses for teacher education programs to examine where and how they offer these opportunities. Teacher educators may wish to consider the balance of learning opportunities within programs. The programs offered ample opportunities to plan for teaching, for instance. However, substantial experiences may come at the expense of others, especially when compared with the few opportunities to examine student learning.
Time to Teach: Instructional Time and Science Teachers’ Use of Inquiry-Oriented Instructional Practices
Authors: Kolbe Tammy , Steele Caitlin , White Beth
Published: November 2021

Background

There have been repeated calls for more widespread use of inquiry-oriented science instruction in K–12 education. At the same time, questions have been raised regarding whether the amount of time in school schedules for science instruction is sufficient to support inquiry-based teaching. This study investigates the relationship between the time available for science instruction and the extent to which eighth-grade science teachers used inquiry-oriented instructional practices in their teaching.

Research Questions

We consider two research questions: (1) To what extent is teachers’ use of inquiry-oriented instructional practices related to the time available for science instruction during the school week? (2) To what extent do differences in teachers’ professional training to teach science impact the relationship between instructional time and science teachers’ use of inquiry-based instructional practices?

Research Design

We use data from the 2011 NAEP Grade Eight Science Assessment and multilevel linear modeling to analyze the relationship between instructional time and science teacher practices. Our analyses include approximately 11,520 eighth-grade teachers in 6,850 public schools.

Findings

The extent to which science teachers used inquiry-oriented instructional practices in their teaching was related to the amount of time available for science instruction. Teachers with 5 or more hours per week were more likely to use inquiry-oriented instructional practices, and the extent to which teachers engaged in reform-oriented science instruction increased with more time for instruction. The relationship between instructional time and teacher practice was largely independent of teacher qualifications, suggesting that instructional time impacts teacher instructional practice regardless of teachers’ educational background, training, or science teaching experience.

Conclusions

Identifying optimal allocations of instructional time is a relevant consideration in efforts to promote the types of reform-oriented science teaching called for by the National Research Council's Framework for K–12 Science Education, the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), and other national and state science assessments. Although investments in teacher training and professional development are also necessary and important investments, with insufficient time, even the most qualified or best trained science teachers may struggle to use inquiry-based instructional approaches.
Early Warning Indicator Systems in Action: Considerations from Identification to Supports
Authors: Baharav Hadar , Sipes Laurel
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

School transitions pose a variety of social-emotional and academic challenges to students, especially those who are more vulnerable due to home, health, or academic challenges. With this awareness, a growing number of school districts have developed and implemented early warning indicator systems (EWISs) aimed at early identification of and support to vulnerable students.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

While a growing body of research has documented EWISs use objective criteria to identify vulnerable students, there is scant scholarship about student identification using subjective tools, the processes that facilitate information sharing and collaboration between sending and receiving schools, and effective student supports. Our study aimed to narrow the gaps in the literature by providing insight about EWI identification, between-school communication, and student supports through the case study of one school district that implemented both objective and subjective EWISs. Our research questions were as follows: (1) Which students have been identified through the district's objective and subjective EWISs?; (2) How have school staff shared information stemming from the EWISs?; and (3) What supports do school staff offer students identified by the objective compared to the subjective EWISs?

Research Design

We used a mixed-methods approach, including statistical analysis of student-level administrative records, interviews with district staff, a survey of school staff, and multiple interviews with site staff at a sampling of schools.

Conclusions/Recommendations: Identification

Our study found that subjective criteria may be more effective in identifying students who are more likely to be missed by automated identification systems, such as “internalizers.” Moreover, stakeholder perception of specific indicators may have an impact on the selection of indicators in use.

Sharing of information

The practices that schools use to share information about transitioning students is an area ripe for future research. Our study revealed the importance of designing information-sharing mechanisms with the end user in mind. Developing a standardized rubric and incorporating a scale measure for relative urgency could increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the process. We also identified a tension between the need to share information and the will to protect students’ privacy. We see value in localized efforts to mitigate the unintended effects of such tension.

Supports

A primary consideration in an EWIS is its alignment to the district's model for the distribution of resources to support students.

EWIS design considerations

We identified the existence of tradeoffs between site-level autonomy and system-level coherence in the design of EWISs.
An Exploratory Study of how to Use RPPs to Build Trust and Support the Use of Early Warning Systems
Authors: Kochanek Julie R. , Scholz Carrie , Monahan Brianne , Pardo Max
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Emerging experiences suggest that research-practice partnerships (RPPs) can benefit both research and practice. As researchers and practitioners become part of the same social network, they also can become trusted sources of information for one another. By modeling the research use process, practitioners can incorporate what they learn into their own research acquisition and interpretation processes and researchers can gain a better understanding of how their work can be designed and conducted so that it is directly relevant to practice.

Purpose/Focus of the Study

Prior literature on research-practice partnerships has identified common challenges of these partnerships such as turnover, trust, common language, and complex systems. The study follows a grounded theory approach to better understand challenges and dynamics within research-practice partnerships.

Setting

The study included members of eight research-practice partnerships including two focused primarily on the use of early warning indicators to reduce high school dropout. Partnerships were diverse in their location and maturity. Five partnerships were located in the Midwest, one partnership was located in the South, and two partnerships were located in New England. Half of the partnerships were less than two years old at the time of the interviews, and the oldest partnership was 8 years old.

Research Design

Using a grounded theory approach to better understand challenges and dynamics within RPPs, we analyzed qualitative interview data inductively to identify common themes discussed by respondents.

Data Collection and Analysis

The study team conducted telephone interviews with two researchers and two practitioners from eight RPPs, for a total of 31 interviews – one researcher was interviewed for two different partnerships. The team used semi-structured interview protocols aligned to the four research questions. In analyzing the interview data, we identified themes, categories, and theories that emerged from the data and confirmed or refuted our initial impressions.
The Centrality of Critical Agency: How Asian American College Students Develop Commitments to Social Justice
Authors: Museus Samuel D.
Published: November 2021

Context

Systemic oppression is one of the most pressing problems in U.S. society. However, relatively little is known about the process by which college students become committed to social justice agendas. In addition, systematic empirical inquiries that examine how Asian American students, in particular, develop such commitments are difficult to find.

Purpose/Research Question

This inquiry was focused on understanding the process by which Asian American college students develop commitments to social justice. The following overarching research question guided the inquiry: How do Asian American college students cultivate a commitment to social justice?

Research Design

Using a qualitative approach grounded in a critical paradigm, individual interviews were conducted with Asian American college students involved in social justice activism and advocacy.

Data Collection and Analysis

A single, semistructured 60-minute face-to-face individual interview was conducted with each participant. The data were analyzed in three phases, using line-by-line, focused, and axial coding. Memos were also used throughout the data analysis process to capture thoughts, make comparisons, and clarify connections across data points.

Findings

The analysis shows how environmental threats that create a sense of urgency, sources of knowledge that foster collective critical consciousness, and models of critical agency contribute to students developing their own critical agency, which ultimately leads to social justice commitments.

Conclusions/Recommendations

The current study extends prior knowledge by demonstrating that critical agency is salient in Asian American students developing commitments to engage in social justice agendas. The findings also contribute to existing research by offering some evidence that ongoing opportunities to cultivate critical consciousness and connections to agents who model social justice interact and converge with key environmental threats to shape critical agency. The study also provides some initial evidence that Asian American parents can catalyze students’ critical agency and social justice commitments through serving as sources of knowledge that increase students’ awareness about social injustices and modeling how to contribute to a more just world, while college curricula across diverse disciplines and peer networks that center social injustices also help foster critical consciousness that leads to social justice commitments among some Asian American students.
Expanding Transformative Agency: Learning Lab as a Social Change Intervention for Racial Equity in School Discipline
Authors: Ko Dosun , Bal Aydin , Çakir Halil Ibrahim , Kim Hyejung
Published: November 2021

Background

In the United States, students of color are more likely to receive disciplinary exclusion compared with their White peers. The racial disproportionality in exclusionary school discipline (e.g., office discipline referrals and suspension) marginalizes students from nondominant communities and further aggravates inequalities in academic, social, and behavioral outcomes. As a socially, historically, and geographically situated inequity issue, addressing racial disparities in disciplinary outcomes requires a transformative experiment in which local stakeholders can engage in situated problem identification and problem-solving efforts in response to their specific needs, goals, and local dynamics.

Purpose of Study

This study examined how Learning Lab, an inclusive, collaborative problem-solving process, created a collaborative problem-solving space wherein school stakeholders exercised their collective, transformative agency to bring about a qualitative transformation in the school discipline system at an urban middle school for the creation of culturally responsive and equity-oriented learning environments for all students.

Setting

The research took place at Rogoff Middle School in Wisconsin, which has historically served students from urban, low-income families. The school community struggled with the overrepresentation of Black students in exclusionary school discipline.

Participants

Learning Lab comprised 14 members. Three parents and 11 school staff— administrators, teachers, social workers, an after-school coordinator, and a parent/paraprofessional working in a special education classroom—participated in the Learning Lab.

Research Design

This study used the Learning Lab intervention, taking place at an urban middle school between November 2012 and May 2014, as an instrumental case to explore how the participatory, design-based intervention transformed a schoolwide behavioral support system. Data collected from 14 meetings include observations, ethnographic field notes, school disciplinary data, and photos. All meetings were video recorded and transcribed, then analyzed using a transformative agency framework.

Findings/Results

With the aim of organizing inclusive problem-solving activities for shared, collaborative future-making learning experiences, the Learning Lab encouraged local stakeholders to exercise their collective, transformative agency in order to produce locally meaningful and emancipatory knowledge aimed at reshaping a dysfunctional, punitive system that historically has yielded racial injustice in school discipline.

Conclusions/Recommendations

As a community-driven, scaled-down design process, Learning Lab can be a powerful leadership tool for school leaders to unite school stakeholders by building authentic school–family–community partnerships and leveraging expertise, experiences, and ingenuity for the development of locally optimized solutions to inequity.
Poor Kids versus Bad Teachers: Vergara v. California and the Social Construction of Teachers
Authors: Powers Jeanne M. , Chapman Kathryn P.
Published: November 2021

Background

In the past decade, the laws governing teachers’ employment have been at the center of legal and political conflicts across the United States. Vergara v. California challenged five California state statutes that provide employment protections for teachers. In June 2014, a California lower court declared the statutes unconstitutional because they exposed students to “grossly ineffective teachers.”

Purpose

The purpose of the article is to document and analyze how Vergara was presented in the print news media. It is important to understand how the print news media presents education policy debates to the public, because the print news media shapes the general public's understanding of education and other public policy debates by providing frames and themes for interpreting the issues in question and people associated with them.

Research Design

Using the social construction of target populations and political spectacle as conceptual lenses, we conducted a content analysis of print news media articles on the Vergara case published between June 2012 and November 2014. We provide a descriptive overview of the full corpus of articles published during this period and a thematic analysis of the 65 unique news articles published in the aftermath of the decision. The latter focuses on news articles because they are intended to provide more objective coverage of the case than opinions or editorials.

Findings

In the print news media coverage, the word “teacher” was often paired with a negative qualifier, which suggests that Vergara was an effort to change the relatively advantaged social construction of teachers. Similarly, metaphors and the illusion of rationality associated with political spectacle were used in ways that bolstered the plaintiffs’ claims. While Vergara consumed a substantial amount of philanthropic and public dollars, ultimately it did not change the policies that govern teachers’ employment in California. Vergara may have been more successful in shaping the general public's perceptions of teachers and the conditions of teachers’ employment in the period following the trial.