bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Buying into Dominant Ideas About Wealth and Poverty: An Examination of U.S. and Canadian Financial Literacy Standards
Authors: Soroko Agata
Published: November 2021

Background

In the wake of the 2007–2008 global financial crisis, calls for financial literacy education increased dramatically. In both the United States and Canada, the financial collapse and its aftermath saw a resurgence of personal finance programs and initiatives in schools. While financial literacy education continues to be introduced in U.S. and Canadian high schools through the implementation of financial literacy standards into social studies curricula, few studies have focused on the content and ideology of these standards. This study is the first to provide a systematic review of all available high school financial literacy standards across the United States and Canada.

Purpose

The purpose of this research was to render visible the hidden ideological underpinnings of financial literacy standards. Specifically, the study investigated what the discourse in the standards implied about individuals’ financial outcomes and what was made invisible about the ways in which people achieve or fail to achieve economic security and wealth.

Research Design

This study employed critical discourse and ideological analysis to examine state-sanctioned financial literacy standards from 43 high school social studies curriculum documents in the United States and Canada.

Findings

The analysis revealed that, overall, financial literacy standards framed financial wellbeing as a personal doing while neglecting to consider the broader social, economic, and political forces influencing financial outcomes. This research demonstrates how financial literacy discourses, rooted in ideologies of merit, often tell an incomplete story about the origins and determinants of both wealth and poverty.

Conclusions

The results from this study offer insight into how deficit thinking about economically marginalized individuals and groups continues to permeate educational discourse. In examining financial literacy standards in particular, this study contributes to existing research problematizing financial literacy initiatives and calling for more critical, inclusive, and nuanced approaches. This research also adds to scholarship unpacking the ideological assumptions embedded in state-mandated academic standards concerning wealth and poverty.
Preservice Teachers’ Professional Vision for and Capacity to Teach Self-Regulated Learning: Effects of Scaffolding Level
Authors: Michalsky Tova
Published: November 2021

Background

Self-regulation in learning (SRL) represents a major topic in educational research. Nevertheless, there remains a gap in the research concerning how teachers can incorporate SRL into the classroom. This study focuses on the Professional Vision for SRL (PfS) method, which aims to bridge the gap between theory and practice so that teachers can teach SRL and students can acquire SRL skills.

Purpose

The goal of the present study was to examine the impact of different scaffolding levels on the development of preservice teachers’ professional vision (PV) for SRL and their ability to teach SRL to students. Participants: Participants were 102 second-year preservice physics teachers at three major research universities.

Research Design

The study included three distinct PV scaffolding levels, in order to examine which types of PV prompts might best scaffold teachers’ progress in mapping and teaching SRL. These prompts included hints for when (time range) to analyze videotaped complex SRL-teaching events, full guidance (popup notifications) for when and what to analyze, and self-guidance (controls) for analyzing without help.

Data Collection and Analysis

I addressed the research questions and hypotheses by performing a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), with posttest performance as the dependent variable and PV prompt type as the independent variable.

Findings

Results showed that over time, all three groups improved on measures of both PV for SRL and SRL teaching. Additionally, we found that hint prompts had a greater positive effect on both measures than guided or self-guided prompts.

Recommendations

The current study recommends broadening the instructional framework of teacher education programs to include PV hints instruction as a means of supporting the practical skills necessary for teaching in dynamic school contexts.
Afterword: “Work that is Real”
Authors: Rodgers Carol R.
Published: November 2021

The author recounts aspects of the collaborative process that gave birth to this special issue as well as elements of teaching, teacher education, and philosophy that cut across the articles. The author focuses on the person, experience and reflection, and belief, purpose, mission, and alignment with practice. She attempts to bring these ideas to life through story.
How Can Preservice Teaching Programs Help New Teachers Feel Prepared to Address Absenteeism?
Authors: Gottfried Michael A. , Kirksey J. Jacob , Hutt Ethan
Published: November 2021

Background

Though policy makers are beginning to hold schools accountable for reducing chronic absenteeism, little attention has been paid to the role of teachers. No known study has examined whether rising cohorts of new teachers feel prepared to address this challenge. This is particularly problematic given that teachers with less experience tend to be less efficacious at reducing students’ absences.

Research Questions

(1) Do newly graduating teachers feel as if they have sufficient knowledge about chronic absenteeism? (2) Do newly graduating teachers feel prepared to address absenteeism? (3) Do these perceptions differ by elementary versus secondary preservice graduates?

Subjects

Our study collected survey data from the 2017–2018 graduating cohort of general education teacher candidates from a statewide university system in California. This system prepares, on average, 800 teaching candidates a year, and all general education candidates participate in teacher licensure. We surveyed the teaching candidates in the 2017–2018 graduating cohort from these campuses and had a response rate of 60%. Survey measures included teacher background data and perceptions of the effectiveness of their preparation programs, knowledge of absenteeism, and perceived ability to address absenteeism.

Research Design

We began with a baseline model in which our outcome measures (knowledge and ability to address absenteeism) were regressed on teachers’ background characteristics and perceptions of the efficacy of their preparation programs. We augmented this model by including university fixed effects, such that we only explore variation within program rather than across universities.

Results

Our findings suggest that preservice teachers who found their programs to be helpful, who felt supported by supervisors, and who found usefulness in their field placements also felt as though they had greater knowledge about chronic absenteeism and how to address it. The results were differentiated by elementary versus secondary candidates.

Conclusions

Given our students’ extreme rate of missing school days, it is of immediate importance to determine if we are preparing our nation's newest teachers to help address the current crisis. Our study fills this gap by looking at the influence that teacher education programs (specifically teacher licensure requirements) might have in contributing to teachers’ perceptions of being prepared to graduate and attend to attendance.
Value-Added Model (VAM) Scholars on Using VAMs for Teacher Evaluation After the Passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act
Authors: Lavery Matthew Ryan , Amrein-Beardsley Audrey , Geiger Tray , Pivovarova Margarita
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

The Race to the Top federal initiatives and requirements surrounding waivers of No Child Left Behind promoted expanded use of value-added models (VAMs) to evaluate teachers. Even after passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) relaxed these requirements, allowing more flexibility and local control, many states and districts continue to use VAMs in teacher evaluation systems, suggesting that they consider VAMs a valid measure of teacher effectiveness. Scholars in the fields of economics, education, and quantitative methods continue to debate several aspects of VAMs’ validity for this purpose, however.

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to directly ask the most experienced VAM scholars about validity of VAM use in teacher evaluation based on the aspects of validity described in the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing and found in a review of high-quality peer-reviewed literature on VAMs.

Participants

We invited the 115 scholars listed as an author or coauthor of one or more of the 145 articles published on evaluating teachers with VAMs that have been published in prominent peer-reviewed journals between 2002 and implementation of ESSA in 2016. In this article, we analyze data from 36 respondents (12 economists, 13 educators, and 11 methodologists) who rated themselves as “experienced scholars,” “experts,” or “leading experts” on VAMs.

Research Design

This article reports both quantitative and qualitative analyses of a survey questionnaire completed by experienced VAM scholars.

Findings

Analyses of 44 Likert-scale items indicate that respondents were generally neutral or mixed toward the use of VAMs in teacher evaluation, though responses from educational researchers were more critical of VAM use than were responses from economists and quantitative methodologists. Qualitative analysis of free response comments suggests that participants oppose exclusive or high-stakes use of VAMs but are more supportive of their use as a component of evaluation systems that use multiple measures.

Conclusions

These findings suggest that scholars and stakeholders from different disciplines and backgrounds think about VAMs and VAM use differently. We argue that it is important to understand and address stakeholders’ multiple perspectives to find the common ground on which to build consensus.
“Distressing” Situations and Differentiated Interventions: Preservice Teachers’ Imagined Futures with Trans and Gender-Creative Students
Authors: Blair Elizabeth E. , Deckman Sherry L.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Teachers can help ensure trans and gender-creative students’ opportunity for, and equal access to, education, yet the field of educational research has just begun to explore how teachers understand trans and gender-creative students’ experiences and negotiate their responsibilities to protect these students’ rights.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

This article aims to address this essential gap by exploring preservice teachers (PSTs’) understandings of, and preparation for, creating supportive educational contexts for trans and gender-creative students, guided by the following research question: How do PSTs construct their responsibilities as future teachers to support trans and gender-creative students? Ultimately, this study aims to inform the development of effective teacher education curricula and related policy on trans and gender-creative identities.

Participants

Participants were 183 undergraduate preservice teachers enrolled in 10 sections of an educational equity course.

Research Design

We conducted a qualitative, inductive, thematic online discourse analysis. Using a queer, social justice teacher education framework, we qualitatively analyzed 549 online PST-authored posts.

Findings/Results

Three themes emerged: (1) PSTs voiced discomfort negotiating conflicting values and roles in supporting trans and gender-creative students, and PSTs suggested (2) individualized, differentiated interventions, and (3) community education approaches to promote comfort for trans and gender-creative students—strategies that may reinscribe normative, institutionalized views of gender identity.

Conclusions/Recommendations

Findings suggest the pressing need for innovative teacher education on gender identity and fluidity: PSTs need more opportunities to learn about supporting trans and gender-creative students, to critically consider constructs of gender and sexuality, and to explore how systemic gender oppression intersects with other forms of oppression through schooling practices.
“I Didn't Have a Lesson”: Politics and Pedagogy in a Diversifying Middle School
Authors: Freidus Alexandra
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Despite its emphasis on pluralism, empirical research on asset-based pedagogies has typically focused on culturally, linguistically, or racially homogeneous groups of students. The rise of interest in culturally relevant pedagogy in the 1990s coincided with the resegregation of many school districts. As a result, few scholars have considered what it might look like to decenter whiteness in classrooms that include a significant number of white students.

Purpose

I strive to understand the tensions between a diversifying school's efforts to create an antiracist school community and a classroom pedagogy that frequently marginalized the experiences, knowledge, and questions of students of color. I use the school's response to the 2016 presidential election as a window into the challenges involved in developing asset-based pedagogies in racially and culturally diverse classrooms. By exploring the texture of teaching and learning in a school that endeavors to sustain its racially and culturally diverse students, I complicate widely held but often underexamined, assumptions about the benefits of diversity in the classroom.

Setting

Data collection took place in a politically active, racially and socioeconomically diversifying middle school in New York City. The school, which had previously served almost exclusively low-income children of color, now included a growing number of children from white and professional families.

Research Design

Data collection took place over the course of the 2016–2017 academic year. The unit of analysis was one focal cohort of sixth-graders. Data included participant observation in sixth-grade classrooms and other school spaces, interviews with school staff, interviews with students, and document analysis.

Findings

The school's response to the presidential election illustrated not only teachers’ dedication to developing students’ cultural competence and critical consciousness, but also their struggles with tying these goals to students’ academic learning. Many teachers made instructional moves that—often inadvertently—centered whiteness in the classroom. Tensions between teachers’ political, relational, and academic goals and practices led to multiple missed opportunities for both students and staff.

Conclusions

In almost every interaction outside of the classroom, educators centered their advocacy for and relationships with their students of color. At the same time, their instructional choices pushed these students’ experiences and concerns to the margins of academic spaces. I explore implications for school leadership, teacher professional development, and teacher preparation, as well as future research.
Art as a Point of Departure for Understanding Student Experience in Learning to Code
Authors: Dahn Maggie , Deliema David , Enyedy Noel
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Computer science has been making its way into K–12 education for some time now. As computer science education has moved into learning spaces, research has focused on teaching computer science skills and principles but has not sufficiently explored the emotional aspects of students’ experiences. This topic warrants further study because learning to code is a complex emotional experience marked by intense periods of success and failure.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

The purpose of our study is to understand how reflecting on and making art might support students’ emotional experience of learning to code. We focus our efforts on students’ experiences with debugging, the process of figuring out how to fix broken code. Our research questions are: How did students reflect on their experiences and emotions in the context of art making about debugging? How did students describe the potential for making art to shape their coding practice?

Setting

The setting is a two-week computer programming workshop at a non-profit organization focused on computer science education.

Population/Participants/Subjects

Participants are 5th through 10th grade students attending Title I schools or with demonstrated financial need.

Intervention/Program/Practice

Students participated in a visual arts class for an hour each day of the two-week workshop, in addition to three coding classes.

Research Design

Design-based research anchored our study. Data sources included students’ written artist statements, artifact-based interviews about artwork, and in-process conversations with the researcher-teacher leading the art class. We used a storytelling framework to make sense of how elements of our curriculum and instructional design supported student reflections on obstacles in coding, how they talked about debugging events over time, and the range of emotions they expressed feeling.

Findings/Results

Findings suggest that making and reflecting on art can support students in offering descriptive accounts of learning to code and debug. Students’ stories highlighted the range of ways they experienced failure in coding, the causes of those moments of failure, the flow of events through failure (what was disrupted, how the experience changed over time, and whether it was resolved), and the emotions (about emotions) that framed failure. Moreover, students described the ways that art making shaped their coding practice, including transforming how they understood themselves, set goals, relaxed after a stressful coding class, approached problem solving, and set expectations.

Conclusions/Recommendations

Our results have implications for the redesign of our intervention and more broadly for the design of learning environments and computer science pedagogy.
Exploring the Links Between Student and Classmate Chronic Absenteeism
Authors: Gottfried Michael A. , Kirksey J. Jacob , Ozuna Christopher S.
Published: November 2021

Background

In efforts to address chronic absenteeism, educational stakeholders have begun to focus on which school factors might link to how and if students miss school. One underexplored area within school is the context of the classroom and, namely, the spillover effects of peers. This study examined whether students were more likely to be chronically absent when they had a chronically absent classmate.

Research Questions

(1) In elementary school, does having chronically absent classmates in the fall influence individual students’ absences in the spring of that same year? (2) Does this differ by the classroom proportion of chronically absent classmates?

Subjects

This study used administrative data from an urban school district in California. The district consisted of 13 public elementary schools. From these schools, the analytic sample contained N = 14,891 student observations from 2011 to 2014.

Research Design

This study examined whether a student was more likely to be chronically absent in the spring semester of the school year if they had a chronically absent classmate in the fall. We employed linear probability models with multiple fixed effects and time-varying covariates. Errors were clustered at the classroom level.

Findings

We found that students were more likely to be chronically absent in the spring when their classmates were absent in the fall. This finding was consistent across model specifications.

Conclusions

This finding supports previous research, highlights the value of promoting fall attendance, and aligns with current national, fall-based attendance-boosting policies and programs. When taken together with the idea that absences affect not only the absent child, but also raise the chance of other students being absent, it becomes even more crucial for administrators and policymakers to make informed decisions to address chronic absenteeism.
Developing and Using Indicators for Continuous Improvement
Authors: Ming Norma , Kennedy Alec I.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Amidst the complex and fast-paced demands in schools and classrooms, identifying what most deserves educators’ attention can pose a challenge. Indicators help focus attention by highlighting key features that signal important outcomes or opportunities to take action or learn.

Purpose

Informed by multiple literatures, we offer a conceptual framework that elaborates on the connection between an indicator's development and use. Specifically, the framework proposes that how to develop indicators depends on the answers to several questions about how they will be used: the intended use (why), timing (when), content (on what), and threshold (how much).

Research Design

To explore this conceptual framework, we present two cases on the construction and use of indicators for continuous improvement in the San Francisco Unified School District. In the first case, we applied statistical process control (SPC) theory to create control charts that visualize district-level outliers on student achievement outcomes to examine potential causes of variation among schools. In the second case, we combined SPC with more basic statistical methods to develop indicators highlighting areas of potential promise across multiple measures and student subgroups within a school. In our exploration of the two case studies, we present the statistical methods applied to construct the indicator, an example of the visualizations created, and descriptions of how central office leaders interpreted and used the results. We document how the intended use informed the indicators’ design, and the ramifications of those decisions for educators’ subsequent use of the indicators for improvement.

Conclusions and Recommendations

In learning from these cases, we highlight the importance of constructing indicators from the perspective of their intended use and linked with specific conditions and potential actions. This requires including more useful process data in the development of those indicators, as well as more follow-up analysis of the effectiveness of the actions taken based on those indicators, contrasted against alternative actions. We also underscore the importance of developing indicators that distinguish between the need for systemic versus targeted improvement efforts, based on SPC. We believe that combining approaches across disciplines and methodologies holds great promise for the development and use of indicators for continuous improvement in education.
Complexity and Transformative Learning: A Review of the Principal and Teacher Preparation Literature on Race
Authors: Roegman Rachel , Kolman Joni , Goodwin A. Lin , Soles Brooke
Published: November 2021

Background:

Racial inequities are a persistent reality in K–12 schools in the United States. There is a need for consensus and coordination between principals and teachers if they are to address the harm of racial inequities in education. Yet, despite this need and the interdependence of teachers and principals in schools, their preparation is profoundly distinct.

Purpose:

Although teacher and principal preparation practice and research are distinct, addressing racial inequities in K–12 students’ schooling experiences is central to the work within both professional arenas. In this literature review, we bring together these bodies of literature as we think about ways that preparation supports principals and teachers in developing skills, knowledge, and dispositions to counter racial inequities in their schools. We focus our review around one central question: In what ways does the teacher and principal preparation literature address candidates’ transformative learning around race?

Research Design:

This review focuses on peer-reviewed literature on race within teacher and principal preparation published between 2001 and 2018. We reviewed studies here that are: (1) empirical, (2) focused on principal or teacher preparation, (3) focused on preparing candidates around issues related to race or racial inequity, (4) published between 2001 and 2018, and (5) based in the United States. We ultimately identified 79 articles, 24 related to principal preparation and 55 related to teacher preparation. We drew on critical transformative learning theory to guide our analyses.

Findings:

Overall, we identified more commonalities between the two literatures than differences. Our review suggests that race is understood in three main ways: in terms of “difference,” “power,” and “racism.” Race-as-difference focuses on differences between individuals related to race or culture. Race-as-power emphasizes that these differences result from systemic oppressions. Race-as-racism centers racism and/or white supremacy. This review reveals complexities of transformative learning across three areas: how candidates’ backgrounds inform their learning; how clinical experiences present opportunities and constraints for learning; and how emotions influence learning.

Recommendations:

Preparation programs must educate teachers and principals about race-as-racism. Candidates need to come to understand the role of systemic racism in society and in schooling, beyond understanding individual differences. Critically, teacher and principal preparation faculties must work together across courses and experiences. Finally, there is a need for those who educate educators to receive preparation for this role.
“Not Present in Our Ranks”: Exploring Equitable Representation in Student Voice Efforts for Policy Change
Authors: Holquist Samantha E. , Walls Jeff
Published: November 2021

Background/Context:

Increasingly, K–12 students are seeking to influence educational policies that directly affect their lives. As student intervention in policy increases, it is important to understand the composition of these groups and how they seek to exercise power and influence over policymakers.

Purpose:

This study sought to examine how two state-level student voice groups for policy change sought equitable representation in their composition. As student voice groups expand beyond school, city, or district level groups to focus on state- and national-level advocacy, the character of their composition takes on additional importance as they claim to speak on behalf of larger numbers of students.

Setting:

This study draws on interview, document analysis, and observation data from two student voice groups working to influence state-level legislative action on K–12 educational policy. Research Design: We combine secondary data analysis of data from state-level student voice groups with elements of duoethnography to explore how participants thought about, strived for, and fell short of equitable intra- group representation.

Findings:

We found that the members of both groups were personally committed to equity both in terms of group composition and advocacy. Additionally, group members had structures and policies—such as remote access and low barriers to entry—that encourage equitable representation. Participants reported a relational climate of inclusion. Despite these assets, outcomes were mixed: the groups successfully achieved racial and ethnic proportionality with the state, but remained predominantly urban and able- bodied in their composition.

Conclusion:

Despite the groups’ best efforts, group members’ challenges with distributed recruitment and emphasis on certain skills such as public speaking limited equitable outcomes in representation. This research makes clear that who is involved in the group at the outset and their network will shape representation. It also indicates that although technology can lower barriers to entry, it is not a panacea. Finally, this research reinforces the notion that students engage in self-policing of the group in order to gain greater legitimacy in the eyes of policymakers.
One Size Fits All? Gender, Race/Ethnicity, and Happiness in Schools
Authors: Davis Laura , Whiteside Jasmine L. , Cherng Hua-Yu Sebastian
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

While an abundance of evidence demonstrates how unequal conditions in schools contribute to unequal learning outcomes, the extent to which students’ affective experiences of schooling reflect similar incongruences warrants further inquiry. Framing this discussion are empirical accounts and popular narratives of schools as socializing institutions that ascribe particular gendered, racialized, and otherwise socially defined identities to young people. These intersections form the basis of their experiences as students and likely shape their individual happiness in schools.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

This article examines, from an intersectional perspective, whether there are group differences in self-reported happiness in school. Our findings challenge the broad argument that girls are happier in schools because this pattern only holds when comparing levels of happiness between White girls and boys.

Research Design

Using data from the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) study, we provide descriptive averages of levels of happiness by sex and race/ethnicity. Given that these patterns are likely shaped by classroom (and teacher and school) conditions, we next use classroom fixed effects models that predict levels of happiness. This modeling strategy makes comparisons only among students in the same classroom who are taught by the same teacher and housed in the same school.

Findings/Results

We found that the argument that girls are happier than boys in schools only applies to White students. In contrast, there are no gender differences among Latinx and Asian American students, and we found that Black girls are less happy than their male counterparts.

Conclusions/Recommendations

Overall, our article's findings challenge widespread notions that there are universal gender differences in happiness in schools. More broadly speaking, our work speaks to the socializing function of schools and indicates that the gendering process cannot be interpreted without an analysis of how schools also construct race and ethnicity. Future work can build from our study to examine whether the patterns revealed in this study hold true in older grades, given that one of our secondary findings is that older students seem less happy in schools than their younger peers. Research should also examine how interactions with key social actors, such as peers and teachers, shape student happiness in school.
Requiring Civics Then and Now: Potentials and Pitfalls of Mandated Civics Curriculum
Authors: Lo Jane C. , Kisa Zahid
Published: November 2021

Background

In recent years, the United States has seen a resurgence in calls for mandating civics coursework across the country. For decades, scholars have identified classroom practices that help make civics courses more impactful to students’ civic engagement and knowledge. As more civics courses are required of young people, one begins to wonder if these courses include the kinds of curricular goals and pedagogical practices that can support students’ understanding of politics and promote their engagement with the system.

Purpose

With increasing calls for mandating middle school civics coursework across the country, it becomes necessary to better understand what happens in these courses. To gain insights into a mandated civics curriculum, the study presented in this article examined students’ experiences in a mandated middle school civics course and how the course influenced students’ civic knowledge and engagement outcomes.

Research Design

We used a fully mixed concurrent triangulation design to develop a robust understanding of how a mandated middle school civics course was implemented. We collected and analyzed quantitative and qualitative data simultaneously to confirm, cross-validate, and corroborate findings. The qualitative portion of the study looked to understand quantitative trends by examining these relationships through in-depth interviews and classroom observations.

Findings

Three takeaways were elucidated by analysis of data: 1. Students’ experience of a mandated civics course varied a great deal between the two cases explored in this study; 2. these differences were instigated by the academic pressures associated with an end-of-course exam; yet 3. certain kinds of civics instruction have the potential to promote some desired civic outcomes in middle school. These findings suggest that middle school civics has the potential to promote students’ developing civic knowledge, interest, and engagement. However, these findings hint at a troubling civic inequality that exists as early as middle school.

Conclusions

Our study found that middle school is a good time to introduce students to civics content because they seem to have fairly positive attitude toward civic-mindedness. At the same time, we found that the civic opportunity gap can manifest as early as the middle grades. Specifically, these inequalities are exacerbated by the existence of a high-stakes end-of-course exam, which negatively impacts students who are already considered low academic performers.
Cross-Racial Agency: Exploring a New Form of Collaborative Practice to Support Men of Color in Higher Education
Authors: Lott Joe , Perez Dalya , Yeh Theresa Ling
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Men of color have been the focus of a growing number of research studies, as educators and policy makers attempt to address educational equity gaps along the P–20 pipeline. Compared with other educational settings, less attention has focused on how to increase persistence and graduation rates of men of color pursuing baccalaureate degrees. Yet national statistics over the past two decades show that men of color in colleges and universities graduate at lower rates than all other populations, including their same-race women peers. Interventions and supports for men of color in higher education often rely on siloed programmatic efforts that focus on the student as the primary unit of change. Little is known about how to create organizational change that addresses institutional barriers to equity.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

This research examines a collaborative, equity-based inquiry approach to respond to equity gaps for men of color in college. The purpose of this article draws on the theory of relational agency to understand how practitioners of color worked together to design an institution-wide intervention that would benefit students and simultaneously drive institutional change. Guiding questions are: (1) How did relational agency manifest itself in the collaborative process of creating a cohort-based framework for undergraduate men of color at a predominantly White institution? (2) What is the impact of the collaborative process on the practitioners who were involved?

Research Design

This study uses a social design experiment (SDE) approach to examine what happens when staff of color on a predominantly White campus come together to address educational inequities for men of color. Pursuing this investigation through an SDE framework enabled us to apply a holistic perspective to real-world activities and our observations of them as researchers who co-constructed an intervention with participants.

Conclusions/Recommendations

We propose the concept of cross-racial agency as a unique form of relational agency in which practitioners of color use design-based approaches to work across professional and racial boundaries toward a shared goal. We suggest that developing communities of practice through this approach could lead to more enriched and comprehensive responses and to systemic organizational change.
Leveraging the Power of Play in Rehearsals: Supporting Complex Practice in Literacy Teacher Education
Authors: Husbye Nicholas E.
Published: November 2021

Context

There is an ever-growing body of work continuing the argument for play as a pedagogical resource that supports the learning of the youngest learners; despite this, there continues to be little evidence play has been considered as such in teacher education.

Research Focus

The study sought to understand the role of play and playful pedagogies in a school-based literacy education course within a teacher educator program.

Setting

Research was conducted in a school-based literacy education course housed in an urban school in the Midwest.

Participants

Preservice teachers enrolled in literacy education coursework at a midsized urban institution of teacher education.

Research Design

Data utilized in this study comes from a multiple case study using a practitioner inquiry lens.

Data Collection and Analysis

Data collection occurred over five semesters (Spring 2016-Spring 2018). Types of data included mid- and end-of-semester interviews, audio and video recordings of rehearsals, video recording of enactments, and a variety of artifacts produced by preservice teachers within the course.

Findings

Play, utilized within the context of a literacy education course, promoted the development of complexity tolerance: an ability to entertain the variables that may impact their teaching, even those they had not thought of.

Recommendations

This complexity tolerance supported preservice teachers in being able to respond to student learning in the moment, deviate from instructional planning when necessary, and interrogate their own educational histories. It is a powerful pedagogical tool to support preservice teacher development when intentionally invoked in teacher education coursework.
Reframing School Culture through Project-Based Assessment Tasks: Cultivating Transformative Agency and Humanizing Practices in NYC Public Schools
Authors: Hantzopoulos Maria , Rivera-Mccutchen Rosa L. , Tyner-Mullings Alia R.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

In the last two decades, high-stakes testing policies have proliferated exponentially, radically altering the broader educational landscape in the United States. Although these policies continue to dominate educational reform agendas, researchers argue that they have not improved educational outcomes for youth and have exacerbated inequities in schooling across racial, economic, geographic, and linguistic lines. Alternative project-based assessments, like ones used by the New York Performance Standards Consortium (Consortium) are one type of practice to have shown promise in aiding in the creation of humanizing and transformative educational spaces.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

This article examines how teachers and students make meaning of their experiences transitioning away from high-stakes standardized tests to project-based assessment tasks (PBATs) and specifically considers the role that PBATs might play in shaping school culture. Drawing from three years of data collection at 10 New York City public high schools new to the Consortium, we discern how students and teachers negotiate this shift, paying attention to the ways in which PBATs fostered transformative and humanizing pedagogies and practices. We raise the following questions: How can schools that use project-based assessment reinvigorate school culture to address enduring inequities that persist in schools? How might PBATs reframe schools to be more humanizing and transformative spaces?

Research Design

We used multiple methods to understand how project-based assessment shapes school culture and curriculum in these transitioning schools, and drew from qualitative and quantitative traditions. The research involved: (1) a historical inquiry into the role of the Consortium in school reform; (2) a broad investigation of the 10 schools transitioning into the Consortium (including three rounds of annual surveys with teachers and administrators); (3) three in-depth focal case studies of transitioning schools (including observations, interviews with teachers, and surveys with students); and (4) surveys with experienced teachers new to established Consortium schools.

Conclusions

PBATs are a useful tool to engage students and teachers more actively as participatory actors in the school environment, particularly when overall school structures collectively support its integration. Although there were inevitable challenges in the process of transition, our data suggest that the school actors mediated some of these tensions and ultimately felt that PBATs helped create more dignified spaces for youth. By anchoring the assessment process in the concept of transformative agency, we consider how the transition to PBATs might reinvigorate school culture, redress harmful systemic injustices, and serve as a necessary part of school reform and education policy.
The Opt-Out Movement and the Reform Agenda in U.S. Schools
Authors: Pizmony-Levy Oren , Lingard Bob , Hursh David
Published: November 2021

In this editorial, the authors situate the opt-out movement in the broader context of resistance to the global educational reform movement and its specific playing out in the USA in relation to the opt-out movement. The editors review the 11 articles and commentary and discuss the contributions of the collection as a whole to the literature. They note the contribution of the special issue to the literature on the application of social movement theory to educational politics and the literature on resistance to the global education reform movement.
Examining the Actor Coalitions and Discourse Coalitions of the Opt-Out Movement in New York: A Discourse Network Analysis
Authors: Wang Yinying
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Since 2013, opting out of state standardized tests has become a movement—the grassroots, organized efforts to refuse to take high-stakes state standardized tests. In particular, opt-out rates in the state of New York have been consistently fluctuating around 20%.

Purpose/Objective

This study aims to examine the actor coalitions and discourse coalitions that have propelled the opt-out movement in the state of New York—the movement's epicenter with the highest opt-out rate in the United States.

Conceptual Framework

This study is conceptually grounded in the advocacy coalition framework (ACF), a prominent conceptual lens to investigate the formation of coalitions and their impact on policymaking. The ACF posits that advocacy coalitions are forged by policy actors who have similar policy preferences. By contrast, differences in policy preferences are manifested in the discourse that serves to defend or propose coherent arguments as justifications for policy preferences held by the opposition coalitions.

Research Design

This study compiled the Opt-out Discourse Data Set by using data from 323 press articles and 52 archival documents from 2015 to 2018. Each news article or archival document was coded with three variables: movement actors, statements articulated by the actors, and the actors’ sentiment toward the statements. An actor-statement bipartite network, an actor coalition network, and a discourse coalition network were created, respectively. Next, Freeman degree centrality was calculated to identify major actors and their statements. The network metrics of density and connectedness of the two competing coalitions were calculated to compare the coalitions’ network structure.

Findings

In the actor coalition network, the movement advocacy coalition is clearly more densely connected than the movement opposition coalition in terms of the number of actors, coalition density, and coalition connectedness. The discourse coalition network shows similar patterns: the movement advocacy coalition is densely connected, as evidenced by the numbers of nodes in each coalition and the network metrics of coalition density and connectedness.

Conclusions/Recommendations

This study concludes with a discussion on how the future of the opt-out movement depends on (1) how the movement advocacy coalition continues to amass power and influence in education policymaking, and (2) how the New York State Education Department exercises its power over implementation of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). Moreover, this article demonstrates the application of discourse network analysis to examine qualitative data in education research. The discourse network approach is particularly instrumental in explaining a policy output by identifying coalitions and their interactions within and across the coalitions.
Strange Frame Fellows: The Evolution of Discursive Framing in the Opt-Out Testing Movement
Authors: Morel Richard Paquin
Published: November 2021

Background/context

In recent years, opposition to accountability policies and associated testing has manifested in widespread boycotts of annual tests—mobilized as the “opt-out movement.” A central challenge facing any movement is the need to recruit and mobilize participants. Key to this process is framing—a discursive tactic in which activists present social issues as problems that require collective action to solve. Such framing often relies on compatible political and ideological commitments among activists and potential recruits. Yet the opt-out movement has successfully mobilized widespread boycotts in diverse communities. How have participants in the movement framed issues relating to testing and accountability?

Purpose/objective/research question/focus of study

I explore the discursive tactics of participants in the opt-out movement by analyzing how they frame issues related to testing and accountability over time. I ask two research questions: (1) What frames did participants in opt-out-aligned social media groups use to convince others that standardized accountability tests are a problem and build support for the movement? (2) To what extent and how did the deployment of frames change over time?

Research design

I conducted a mixed-methods study combining qualitative content analysis to identify frames and computational analysis to describe their co-deployment over time.

Data collection and analysis

I compiled a text corpus of posts to opt-out-aligned social media pages from 2010–2014. I analyzed posts using open coding to identify frames used by participants in online communities. Frames were categorized by their orientation—the general way in which they framed the problem of testing and accountability. I then analyzed the co-deployment of frames using network analysis and hierarchical clustering.

Conclusions/recommendations

The longitudinal analysis of frames reveals key differences in the frames used by participants. While more politically oriented frames—those characterizing testing as a social issue affecting the public schools at large—were common in early stages of the movement, less overtly political frames—those characterizing testing as an individual issue affecting children and local schools or a technical issue—became more prominent over time. Over time, socially oriented frames became decoupled from other frames, showing independent patterns of deployment. This suggests that the movement may have benefited from de-emphasizing politically oriented frames, but that it lacked an overarching shared narrative, which has the potential to limit how it might affect accountability policies and testing.