bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Addressing Sources of Collateral Damage in Four Mentoring Programs
Authors: Kilburg Gary M. , Hancock Tom
Published: February 2022

This article examines the types of recurring problems that can inhibit K-12 mentoring team relationships and intervention strategies to remedy those problems. The study examines 149 mentoring teams in four school districts over a 2-year period. Data collection was coordinated by the researcher who was also the trainer for the four school districts’ mentoring programs. Each year of the study, the survey and interview processes were repeated. From the analysis of data, the research team identified a common set of recurring problems during both years. Intervention strategies were then identified, introduced, and assessed. Results indicate the need for continual assessment of mentoring programs and mentoring team relationships, financial commitment from the school district, a rigorous mentor selection process, and providing in-service and workshop opportunities for problem solving.
Contemplative Education in Unexpected Places: Teaching Mindfulness in Arkansas and Austria
Authors: Holland Daniel
Published: February 2022

Mindfulness meditation is increasingly recognized as a health promotion practice across many different kinds of settings. Concomitantly, contemplative education is being integrated into colleges and universities in order to enhance learning through reflection and personal insight. The confluence of these trends provides an opportunity to develop experiential curriculum that promotes both health and learning through the teaching of contemplative practices in higher education settings. Such curriculum, if indeed it is believed to be a valuable development in higher education, must not be reserved only for elite and highly competitive schools serving traditional college students, but must be integrated into campuses of all kinds and made accessible to any student. This emphasis on accessibility will need to consider the growing interest in contemplative learning across economic, religious, and ethnic groups, geographic contexts, and individual differences, including disability. The growth of contemplative curriculum in higher education will also need to be accompanied by meaningful and valid curriculum assessment methods in order to abide by the standards of contemporary university settings as it gently transforms many such settings. This article describes the development of an experiential course in mindfulness that was taught on two very different college campuses. The author's personal experiences and preparation for the course, the course content, the impact of the course on students, and reflections on contemplative practice as a movement in education are offered as an example of the potential for contemplative education in some unexpected places.
Doubting Schoolwork: Exploring an Emerging Concept
Authors: Schechter Chen
Published: February 2022

Doubt has been increasingly perceived as a means of introducing education renewal, particularly within the context of dramatic social change and uncertainty. Nevertheless, little inquiry has been conducted with regard to the doubting process and the principal's role that influences its effectiveness. This lack of conceptualization is particularly serious in light of the growing number of planned educational restructuring efforts that have rarely demonstrated positive outcomes in student achievements. This article explores the doubting process as an emerging concept in school reform. After introducing the concept of doubt and its importance in educational reform, the article exemplifies a secondary school principal who doubted core pedagogical practices. It is argued that inducing doubt, as a means of fostering productive school change, is contingent both on a paradigmatic shift in the principal's role and on continual consideration of school's social, cultural, and political context. Finally, suggestions for future research are presented.
Unintended Lessons: Plagiarism and the University
Authors: Thompson Carol C.
Published: February 2022

Plagiarism, like other ethical problems, flourishes in atmospheres with few consequences. The finding by one survey that only 27% of college students thought cutting and pasting someone else's work was “serious cheating” is troubling evidence of student inclination to cut corners ethically. Papers are easily copied from the Internet, and adult role models in the larger world are equivocal. Academic settings themselves may subtly encourage such behaviors if they think of their students as customers and outsource teaching to adjuncts. Plagiarism detection software, though helpful, is not without its own problems. Colleges and universities that carefully outline consequences, particularly if these are part of an honor system collaboratively run by students and faculty, can reduce plagiarism.
Learning to Lead: What Gets Taught in Principal-Preparation Programs1
Authors: Hess Frederick M. , Kelly Andrew P.
Published: February 2022

Today, school principals are asked to lead in a new world marked by unprecedented responsibilities, challenges, and managerial opportunities. Are principal preparation programs equipping their students for this new role? This study examines the content of instruction at a stratified sample of the nation's principal preparation programs. The analysis looks at preparation at the programs training the most candidates, the programs regarded as most prestigious, and more typical programs. We surveyed 56 programs and were able to collect 31 sets of syllabi that met the standards permitting systematic coding. The syllabi yielded 2,424 course weeks in the 210 syllabi analyzed. Overall, we found surprising similarities across the various types of programs. Just 2% of course weeks addressed accountability in the context of school management or school improvement. Eleven percent of course weeks made reference to statistics, data, or empirical research in some context. Only 12% of course weeks focused upon norms and values, but within those weeks there was evidence of normative bias in the topic descriptions and assigned readings. The evidence raises questions about whether principal preparation has kept pace with changes in the larger world of schooling.
Melioration as a Higher Thinking Skill of Future Intelligence
Authors: Passig David
Published: February 2022

This paper examines the characteristics of the thinking skill we call “melioration” i.e., the competence to borrow a concept from a field of knowledge supposedly far removed from his or her domain, and adapt it to a pressing challenge in an area of personal knowledge or interest. The skill has its source in conscious personal meaning-making, not in the process of deduction. In the unplanned operation of connection and association, one creates a new concept generating a new insight into a phenomenon, which hitherto had not been described in such a way. This paper relates melioration to existing theories of intelligence, taking the position that human cognitive/intellectual functioning is in part the ability to learn or think in the framework of familiar systemic concepts, and in part the ability to learn or think with new systemic concepts that are then available for future application.
The Arts and Civic Space: An Experiment in Community Education
Authors: Mccue Frances
Published: February 2022

Background/Context

While the arts are being elbowed out of school curricula, new community-based education venues for the arts are emerging in cities across the country. This article describes Richard Hugo House, an arts center for creative writing in Seattle, which attracts people of different ages and sociocultural backgrounds who participate in not only writing studios, but in a wide range of activities such as literary readings and plays. Hugo House also maintains a gallery, a café, and a “zine” library, an underground collection of almost 16,000 homemade magazines from around the world. It has come to function as a civic space for the arts that fosters in participants not only a range of real-life skills, but also a sense of democratic values.

Purpose

This essay explores the theoretical underpinnings of a community learning place for the arts and includes some observations about how people of different backgrounds, ages, and skill levels engage with an art form and how the art becomes a pivot of dialogue for a larger community.

Research Design

In this particular civic arts space, I am identifying traits that make the learning environment a vibrant and inspiring one. For example, at Richard Hugo House, we are able to ask: “What do people need as they are learning to write? What does anyone coming to an artistic enterprise need? How does she sustain her work and improve her craft?” and we can trace the responses to these questions through the experiences of particular students and their teachers.

Conclusions/Recommendations

Good teaching in this informal setting is idealistic and pragmatic: it gives voice to more stories, and more stories help us see the “what ifs” of the world. Teaching at Hugo House facilitates more than it instructs—it's a process theory approach and our observations are grounded similarly—in action research. While good teaching lets more people be the tellers of their stories, it also helps to hone and craft them, making both the story and the telling of it culturally urgent. That, at its best, is highly democratic.
Contact Intervention Programs for Peace Education and the Reality of Dynamic Conflicts
Authors: Yablon Yaacov Boaz
Published: February 2022

Background

Great efforts are made to develop and implement contact activities for groups in conflict, yet studies of effects of planned contact interventions yielded mixed results. Previous attempts to explain why contact interventions do not fulfill their promise focused on the contact itself. However, the main focus of the present study was the underlying prevention strategy and the implementation of contact interventions. This was done in the context of planned face-to-face encounters between Jewish and Arab high school students in Israel.

Purpose of Study

The aim of this study was to examine whether there is a unique embodiment of a social conflict in different subgroups of one prototypical social group. It has been suggested that one of the reasons for the failure of contact intervention programs is that they are usually based on a primary prevention strategy, which does not consider intragroup differences or developments over time.

Population

The research sample consisted of 255 Israeli Jewish and Israeli Arab students who intended to participate in a peace education encounter program. Participants in the study were 17-year-old 11th-grade students from 12 classes—6 in Jewish high schools and 6 in Arab high schools.

Research Design

Quantitative analysis was used to measure differences within and between groups at the onset of a contact intervention program. Data were collected at three waves (three different points in time). Each wave was held for a few days, usually within a week, before the onset of the planned encounters. In each wave, two schools, one Jewish and one Arab, were sampled. The waves were 2 months apart, so that all questionnaires were collected within a 6-month period.

Findings

Results revealed significant differences within the subgroups in the perceptional and affective domains but not in variables indicating behavioral aspects of social relationships. Additional findings regarding differences between groups (majority and minority) suggested that the majority group was less negative toward the minority group than the minority group was toward the majority.

Conclusions

Results suggest that although mutual relationships between groups are negatively based, they are neither stable nor monolithic. Within a social group, different subgroups hold and present different attitudes, perceptions, and feelings toward their counterparts. Therefore, peace education programs, and especially face-to-face contact intervention, should be based on secondary intervention strategies and not, as is often the case, on primary prevention strategies.
William C. Bagley and the Founding of Essentialism: An Untold Story in American Educational History
Authors: Null J. Wesley
Published: February 2022

Background/Context

Most people who study the history and philosophy of education have heard of essentialism, but few people know the story behind how, when, and why the movement came to exist. This paper tells this story for the first time.

Purpose/Conclusions

This essay has three purposes. First, it provides an introduction to the life and career of William Chandler Bagley, a prominent professor of education at Teachers College, Columbia University, from 1917 until his retirement in 1939. Following an introduction to Bagley's life, this work describes the founding of essentialism by drawing upon numerous primary and secondary sources to place this movement within the social and historical context in which it developed. The author pays careful attention to the story of how and why the founding of essentialism took place on the same day that John Dewey delivered his “Experience and Education” lecture at the 12th biennial convocation of Kappa Delta Pi. The paper then argues that what came to be known as essentialism represents a forgotten tradition in American educational history, one that is much richer than contemporary calls for “standards and accountability,” which grew out of the economically driven “A Nation at Risk” report of 1983. To conclude, the essay calls for more substantive attention to liberal education, purpose, moral philosophy, and curriculum for teaching teachers, all of which were at the heart of essentialist educational thought, but are now forgotten in an age obsessed with economic efficiency. The author calls upon contemporary leaders in American education to reconsider essentialism as a powerful philosophy that has great potential for the future of the teaching profession.

Research Design

This paper is written from the perspective of history and is based upon the long-established methodology from the field of historiography.
The March of Remembrance and Hope: Teaching and Learning about Diversity and Social Justice through the Holocaust
Authors: Spalding Elizabeth , Savage Todd A. , Garcia Jesus
Published: February 2022

Background

Experiential learning has been posited as an approach to influencing preservice teachers’ understanding of diversity and social justice. The research reported here examined the impact of a field-based experience in Poland focused on the Holocaust as it pertained to the beliefs and actions of 12 future education professionals. This program, the March of Remembrance and Hope (MRH), took place in Poland in May 2003; the pretrip preparation occurred in January-May 2003 at a large southeastern university. Five of the participants were preservice teachers, and 7 were graduate students in either counseling psychology or school psychology. The MRH is an international interfaith trip to Holocaust sites in Poland, sponsored by the March of the Living, Israel. The MRH educates participants, primarily Gentiles, about the Holocaust and the dangers of intolerance and racism.

Purpose of Study

The authors are teacher educators committed to multicultural teacher education and teaching about social justice. Thus, we generated the following questions to guide this research: (1) How did the experience of the MRH influence participants’ knowledge of, attitudes about, and actions regarding diversity? (2) How, if at all, did participants connect the MRH experience to issues of social justice?

Research Design

Three case studies, exemplars of the impact of this experience, are presented and discussed in relation to the literature on effective multicultural teacher education, experiential education, and Holocaust education.

Conclusions

Results indicated that the MRH had a significant effect on the thinking and actions of students related to diversity and social justice. If the goal of multicultural education is to facilitate changes in future education professionals’ knowledge, beliefs, and actions, then it is important to take note of the aspects of the MRH experience that so affected Silas, Rachel, and Penny, the students described in the case studies. The literature on teacher education for diversity indicates that traditional approaches to multicultural education have minimal long-term impact. By contrast, the effects of the MRH took time to process and, as of this writing, appear not to have faded over time. And, although the academic preparation was critical to their understanding of the Holocaust, the authentic experience of the MRH had the greatest impact on these students’ thinking about diversity and their willingness to take action against social injustice.
What Happened to the Promise of Brown? An Organizational Explanation and an Outline for Change
Authors: O'Brien Thomas V.
Published: February 2022

Background/Context

Scholars from a number of fields have offered explanations as to why Brown v. Board of Education came up short in fully integrating school and society. Some have argued that the decision was a result of flawed logic or misguided litigation. Others have held that Brown fell short of its promises due to a lack of federal pressure. Another school of thought contends that Brown's limited impact is a reflection of Americans’ unwillingness to live up to democratic ideals. Each of these analyses identifies important elements of post-Brown America and school opportunity. A limitation among these explanations, however, is that each views the school as a stable enterprise rather than as an organization undergoing development before and after Brown. Scholars have not recognized the evolution of the American public school vis-à-vis Brown, a history that helps us understand why Brown and the reforms associated with it failed to fundamentally change schools or society.

Purpose/Research Design

This study examines Brown through the lens of organizational change and reform. Making use of historical methods and organizational theory, this essay traces the institutional history of the public school in relation to Brown. It offers an alternative explanation of why Brown did not fundamentally alter the education enterprise or school opportunities for children of color. Finally, it concludes with a blueprint for school change that might allow for the promises of Brown to be realized. Even as schools have undergone change, they have stubbornly reinforced the status quo with regard to race. Nevertheless, the institution is capable of change, even with regard to race.

Conclusions/Recommendations

The promise of Brown failed to take hold in the public school system because it was not able to deeply penetrate an aging bureaucratic organization that had grown resistant to fundamental change. Consequently, the intended reforms, even when driven by an activist federal judiciary and committed reformers, were gradually downscaled and altered at the district and school levels, often resulting in only token desegregation and meager incremental change. I argue that despite its age and temperament, the school does have the capacity to bring about genuine, large-scale opportunities for students of color, but note that changes are not likely to occur quickly or without focused efforts. I conclude the essay with an outline of a three-tiered theory for change. The theory recommends that stakeholders develop and carry forward a long-term strategy that brings the culturally different together in the school, fosters a spirit of democratic collaboration, and advances programs that are explicitly antiracist.
Pathways in the Past: Historical Perspectives on Access to Higher Education
Authors: Gelber Scott
Published: February 2022

Background/Context

Although increasing numbers of scholars have begun to focus on student experiences, research on the history of underrepresented populations’ transition to college is still in its formative stage. The classic histories of higher education have tended to focus on university infrastructure and intellectual life rather than on student experiences. In addition, historians studying college enrollment generally have not used the policy frameworks of preparation, access, finance, and completion as their central analytical categories. Instead, most historians have organized their work around individual institutions and the categories of race, gender, and class.

Purpose

This article explores the question of what historical scholarship might contribute to current campaigns for equal access to higher education.

Research Design

This study was a literature review of all historical scholarship on college access produced in the last twenty five years. Literature was identified by searches on ERIC, Academic Search Premier, and JSTOR, and by consulting the references of the most commonly cited works in this field. For purposes of analysis, the review is divided into sections on “Preparation,” “Admissions,” “Finance,” and “Retention.” Each section highlights potential implications for contemporary thinking about college access and recommends future areas for historical inquiry. This essay does not claim to be an exhaustive survey of all historical scholarship on college access. Instead, the article focuses on work representing broad themes and major debates in the historiography as well as scholarship which touches most directly on transitions to college.

Conclusions/Recommendations

First, evidence from the nineteenth century suggests that even elite liberal arts colleges can take an active role in providing college preparation while still remaining true to other aspects of their academic mission. Secondly, although the increasing interest in “merit” once served to expand access to college by opening admissions to academically skilled but socially or economically marginalized students, it became a hurdle for equal access by the final third of the twentieth century. Since colleges have struggled to articulate a consistent measurement of student merit, it is unclear if it is possible to determine a coherent or constructive college mission based on this concept. Third, while market forces have occasionally motivated institutions to expand access to underrepresented populations, state intervention has generally been necessary to increase access to college. Finally, the most powerful lesson that history can provide may be reminding politicians that experts have typically underestimated the extent of the demand for higher education by both students and employers.
Transitions to College: Lessons from the Disciplines
Authors: Trent William T. , Orr Margaret Terry , Ranis Sheri H. , Holdaway Jennifer
Published: February 2022

Background/Context

Prior research on the challenges of college going and retention among adolescents today, particularly low-income, minority, and first-generation college-going youth, provide the context for this article.

Purpose

This article sets the stage for the special issue articles by framing the issue's purpose and content. The purpose is to synthesize existing research and knowledge about the adolescent college transition from multiple disciplines and fields, in order to develop a more robust foundation for further research and policy development. The article also describes the knowledge development process used by the Social Science Research Council and its advisory committee to support field and discipline based literature reviews and to synthesize their implications over an 18 month period.

Results

The article provides a summary of the articles presented in the special issue and a summary of the committee's recommendations, as framed in a separate publication, Questions That Matter. It explains that the six discipline and field-based essays (history, demography, anthropology, sociology, economics, and higher education) presented in the special issue reflect a discussion of the organization of research in each field and characterizes the contributions of each field to our understanding of transitions. Together these form a rich collection of essays that map the state of the respective fields by identifying key topics and the research questions posed.

Conclusions

The authors conclude by drawing attention to two primary points: key elements of the challenge to improvements in research and persisting conceptual issues that challenge research, policy and practice.
Software Infrastructure for Teachers: A Missing Link in Integrating Technology with Instruction
Authors: Sung Yao-Ting , Lesgold Alan
Published: February 2022

Background

Based on analyses of the difficulties encountered during the process of integrating technology into instruction and the efforts made by researchers to overcome barriers to such integration, we propose that the efforts made to date (e.g., increasing the availability of computer equipment and enhancing computer literacy, support, and training) are not sufficiently comprehensive to achieve the goals of improving teaching efficiency and developing innovative teaching methods.

Objectives

The objective of this research commentary is to highlight the importance of the software infrastructure for teachers (SIT) to promoting the integration of information technology into instruction.

Research Method and Design

A critical synthesis was conducted on the literature of using computer technology for learning, teaching, and teacher professional development.

Conclusions

This study points out the features of SIT, the benefits of using SIT, and the possible approach to the development of SIT, and highlights some problems that have yet to be solved.
Reflections on Race: Affirmative Action Policies Influencing Higher Education in France and the United States
Authors: Donahoo Saran
Published: February 2022

Background/Context

Although frequently associated with the United States, affirmative action is not a uniquely American social policy. Indeed, 2003 witnessed review and revision of affirmative action policies affecting higher education institutions in both France and the United States. Using critical race theory (CRT) as a theoretical lens, this text compares the affirmative action programs and lawsuits litigated in both nations in 2003 and their impact on the educational and social experiences of people who are racially or culturally non-White.

Purpose

This article examines and compares affirmative action policies and lawsuits directed at higher education in France and the United States. Faced with similar challenges, controversies, and racial concerns, these courts offered somewhat diverging opinions on the purpose, meaning, and impact that affirmative action policies should have in this millennium.

Research Design

This article employs legal hermeneutics, a specific form of documentary analysis, to examine affirmative action policies and related court decisions recently issued in both France and the United States. U.S. court decisions such as Gratz v. Bollinger (2003) and affirmative action program self-study reports published by L'institut d'etudes politiques, or Sciences Po, serve as the primary sources for the text.

Conclusions

The 2003 rulings in both France and the United States provide the legal impetus needed for affirmative action programs to continue. However, none of the court decisions or programs on either side of the Atlantic makes any real attempt to address the larger racial issues that created the need for affirmative action from the start. With the exception of the limited use allowed in affirmative action programs, all forms of diversity in the United States have basically the same value and, accordingly, have virtually the same impact on social arrangements. Likewise, France accepted the CEP (Conventions éducation prioritaire [Priority Convention Education]) program as an affirmative action measure while giving no thought to the need to reform the overall ideology of the nation, which dictates that all citizens are French and no forms of heterogeneity exist. In essence, the affirmative actions programs upheld in these court rulings fail to enforce the equality principles imparted in the French and U.S. constitutions by inhibiting discussion and deconstruction of racial inequalities.
Detracking in Context: How Local Constructions of Ability Complicate Equity-Geared Reform
Authors: Rubin Beth
Published: February 2022

Background/Context

Recent sociocultural studies of detracking describe the ways in which notions of ability—local understandings of students’ intellectual capacities—are at play in these settings, shaping both the politics and the practice of the reform. This study extends this examination into the classrooms of detracking schools.

Purpose

This article considers the enactment of detracking in the ninth grade social studies classrooms of three public high schools. Through a detailed look at classroom life in racially and socioeconomically distinct public high school settings, it explores how local notions of ability shape the implementation of classroom practices in general and of detracking reform in particular.

Setting

The research took place in three public comprehensive high schools in a northeastern state with the following student populations: 1) low income and predominantly African American and Latino students; 2) high income and predominantly White students; 3) socioeconomically diverse and predominantly African American and White students.

Research Design

This study used an interpretive research methodology and a multiple case study design.

Data Collection and Analysis

Data was collected at each of the three schools over the course of an academic year in the following ways: 1) extensive observations of detracked ninth grade social studies classes; 2) interviews with students and teachers participating in those classes; 3) shadowing of students through the school day; 4) collection of school generated documents.

Findings/Results

At the low income, majority African American and Latino school, detracking reform was framed by a discourse of deficit that posited all of the school's students as unwaveringly low in ability, and classroom practices provided little opportunity for students to either display or develop competence. In contrast, detracking at the suburban, homogeneous school spurred a creative curriculum targeted to the needs of individual students in the heterogeneous classroom, all of whom were presumed to be bright, motivated and college bound despite varied skills. At the racially and socioeconomically integrated school, a community and school system in which people were highly concerned with issues of equity and diversity, teaching practices in the detracked classroom emphasized flexibility and personalization, providing opportunities for students to examine social and cultural issues in a discussion-centered framework. Students, both within and among the three schools, experienced detracking reform in ways that were distinct and not equally beneficial.

Conclusions

Translating a structural reform into change that is meaningful for students is a complex endeavor. Effective detracking involves changes at multiple levels: in institutional structures, classroom practices, and teacher and student beliefs about ability.
Who Really Cares? The Disenfranchisement of African American Males in PreK-12 Schools: A Critical Race Theory Perspective
Authors: Howard Tyrone C.
Published: February 2022

Background/Context

Despite recent gains from a number of students in U.S. schools, African American males continue to underachieve on most academic indices. Despite various interventions that have attempted to transform the perennial disenfranchisement, their school failure has persisted. Conversely, their failure in schools frequently results in poor quality of life options.

Purpose/Objective/Focus of Study

The objective of this study was to use critical race theory as a paradigmatic lens to examine the schooling experiences of African American males in PreK-12 schools. The focus of the study was to shed light on how African American males believe race and racism play as factors in their schooling experiences.

Research Design

The article includes qualitative data from a case study of African American males who offer counterstorytelling accounts of their schooling experiences. This article also explores the utility and appropriateness of critical race theory as a methodological tool to examine and disrupt the disenfranchisement of African American males in U.S. public schools.

Findings/Results

The results from this study revealed that the participants were keenly aware of how race shaped the manner in which they were viewed by their teachers and school administrators. The data also revealed how the participants explicitly fought to eradicate negative racial stereotypes held about African American males. Finally, the use of counter-storytelling within a critical race theory framework seemed to provide the participants a platform to discuss race-related issues in a manner that many of the participants felt was lacking in their school environments.

Conclusion/Recommendations

The findings from this study reveal some of the difficult obstacles that many African American males seek to overcome in order to become academically successful. Moreover, the findings suggest that educators must become more conscious of the role that race and racism plays in their schooling environments. Furthermore, educational researchers who are concerned with disrupting school failures of students of color and from low-income backgrounds should consider conceptual and methodological frames that place race, class, and gender at the center of their analysis.
A Culture of Collaborative Inquiry: Learning to Develop and Support Professional Learning Communities
Authors: Nelson Tamara Holmlund , Slavit David , Perkins Mart , Hathorn Tom
Published: February 2022

Background/Context

The type of professional development provided for teachers has been undergoing change from a one-time workshop approach to a more embedded, long-term, reflective, and collaborative structure. Although findings on the impact of new forms of professional development (PD) are beginning to emerge in the literature, there is little research on the professional development of those who design and support these PD efforts.

Purpose/Focus of Study

To better understand how to support secondary teachers’ engagement in collaborative inquiry, a group of 12 professional development providers deliberately set out to use the same processes and structures in their development and implementation of a PD model. This research examines what this group learned about fostering and sustaining a culture of collaborative inquiry and considers how this can inform PD providers’ support of teachers’ engagement in a collaborative inquiry cycle.

Research Design

A narrative case study design was used to examine the evolution of the professional development group from its inception in March 2004 through December 2005, halfway through the project's duration. The particular timeframe was targeted to explore the developmental phase of the group and critical decisions that shaped the group structure and direction.

Data Collection and Analysis

Traditional qualitative data sources were collected and analyzed in the construction of the narrative, including interviews with the professional developers, archived documents, and video and audio recordings of meetings.

Conclusions/Recommendations

The PD group's focus on how to foster and sustain a culture of collaborative inquiry provides insights into the structures and processes that support this kind of collaborative endeavor. Assuming an inquiry stance toward the work was challenged by the ongoing business of implementing a large-scale project and the demands of people's other work in school districts and universities. Difficulties related to communication between and during meetings also occurred. An explicit reliance on collaborative norms and explicitly using processes such as dialogue structured by protocols, distributing leadership responsibilities, and co-constructing an inquiry focus based on data analysis helped the group develop and maintain an inquiry stance. These findings inform the support of teachers undertaking collaborative inquiry for professional growth.
Speaking like a “Good American”: National Identity and the Legacy of German-Language Education
Authors: Kibler Amanda
Published: February 2022

Background/Context

As a case study in minority language restriction, the German example provides a useful historical counterpoint to more recent debates regarding the place of non-English languages in American schools.

Focus of Study and Research Design

This historical analysis examines the role of education in the changing discourse of minority languages and national identity, specifically analyzing the tradition of German-language education in the United States as it changed during World War I.

Findings

The establishment of German-medium public and private schooling in the United States prospered until the late 1800s as the result of practical considerations and German communities’ own commitments to linguistic, religious, and/or cultural maintenance. German use in some of these schools declined in relation to English as the result of demographic shifts and efforts in the 1880s and 1890s to restrict non-English languages in schools. The advent of World War I, however, dramatically altered the status of German in society generally, and in education specifically. Wartime federal rhetoric and involvement, educational and social policies, and debates within the educational community indicate not only a period of restricted non-English language use in schools, but they also signal the emergence of a new conception of American identity, one defined in linguistic terms and displayed through the exclusive use of English.

Conclusions/Recommendations

Shifts in rhetoric and policy offer significant insight into the relationships between minority languages and larger issues of power and social control; the restriction and subsequent loss of a seemingly privileged non-English language in the United States reveals the precarious position of any minority language in society. Contemporary discussions about immigration, official languages, and national identities continue to operate within a monolingual English paradigm, carrying significant implications for schools serving immigrant and language minority students.
The Influence of Multicultural Educational Practices on Student Outcomes and Intergroup Relations
Authors: Zirkel Sabrina
Published: February 2022

Background

How best to serve a racially and ethnically diverse student body has been a topic of intensive theory development for the past 30 or 40 years. We have strong theoretical models regarding the need for and practice of multicultural education, the goals of which include both increased educational achievement for students of color and improved inter-group relations. Nevertheless, there are few places where one can find a broad examination of the empirical support for the influence of multicultural educational practice on either student outcomes or intergroup relations.

Purpose

In this article, I use James A. Banks's widely used conceptualization of the five components of multicultural educational practice—content integration, knowledge construction, prejudice reduction, equity pedagogies, and empowering school cultures—to examine the empirical evidence for the influence of each of these five different components on the academic outcomes of students of color and intergroup relations in schools.

Conclusions

The empirical research reveals that all five components of multicultural educational practice outlined by Banks to have a strong, positive impact on the educational outcomes of students of color and to improved intergroup relations, although research has been stronger in some areas (e.g., prejudice reduction and some equity pedagogies such as cooperative learning) than others (e.g., the specific effects of content integration and knowledge construction). The evidence suggests several additional conclusions: (1) Multicultural educational practice has benefit for the academic outcomes of all students, not just students of color. (2) Multicultural educational practice is most effective when implemented with careful attention to issues of race and power. (3) The academic and intergroup relations outcomes are linked, such that efforts designed to improve one improve the other. Implications for future research on the effects of multicultural educational practice on students, as well as teacher and administrator education programs, are discussed.
What is All this Talk about “Social Justice”? Mapping the Terrain of Education's Latest Catchphrase
Authors: North Connie E.
Published: February 2022

Background/Context

As of 2008, “social justice” is frequently appearing as the centerpiece of numerous educational settings and spaces, such as article and book titles, teacher activist organizations, teacher education policy documents and mission statements, and scholarly conferences. Unfortunately, the organizations and individuals employing this label often fail to elaborate the substantive meaning of social justice education and the implications of its use.

Objective and Research Design

Given the wide range of terms and projects used to describe education for social justice, a focused analysis on the tensions and contradictions inherent in these models can render explicit and debatable their underlying assumptions and claims. To promote greater discussion about the possibilities for, and situational constraints on, education for social justice, the following review of educational literature maps out and evaluates the conflicting discourses about, and approaches to, social justice education.

Conclusions

The author concludes that singular approaches to education for social justice, as well as policy formation processes that exclude or marginalize the actors implicated in them, will not result in more just and equitable forms of education.
How Large an Effect Can We Expect from School Reforms?
Authors: Konstantopoulos Spyros , Hedges Larry V.
Published: February 2022

Background/Context

Determining the effectiveness of reform strategies is a major part of the current and future educational research agenda. Effects of education reforms will be evaluated largely quantitatively, and an important aspect of this work will be judging how well reform strategies work. The rhetoric of contemporary school reform suggests two somewhat different solutions to the problem of the interpretive frame. One solution is derived from the idea that the goal of school reform is to reduce the achievement gaps between minority groups such as Blacks or Hispanics and Whites, rich and poor, and males and females. The second solution is derived from a similar idea that school reforms are intended to reduce the achievement gap between lower and higher achieving schools.

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore these two alternative frameworks for interpreting the effects of school reforms and to gain insight about the implications of each of the frameworks for interpreting these effects.

Research Design

We use NAEP trend data and examine empirical evidence about the implications of these two frameworks for judging the effects of school reforms. Our study is correlational and uses observational data from the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.

Findings

We find that these two frameworks lead to different judgments about whether the effects of reforms are large enough to be important. We argue that the normative distribution of school effects framework is more appropriate than the other framework for interpreting the likely magnitude of school reform effects. In addition, we show that interpreting the magnitude of the effects of school reforms in terms of individual variation and the achievement gaps between important student groups may not only be disappointing, but also misleading.

Conclusions/Recommendations

The results of this study can be used to provide a way to obtain plausible reform effects for designing studies of school reform. The results of this study can also provide a context in which to evaluate the results of studies of the effectiveness of school reform in terms of national data. Our study also illustrates one way in which survey data can contribute to evidence-based policy formation. The distribution of the observed school effects provides a basis for estimating plausible effect magnitudes for planning intervention studies. The analyses of school effects can also provide a context for interpreting treatment effects within the context of the observed variation. It permits the policy researcher to explain the implications of reform effects within the backdrop of observed variation within which any intervention will operate.
Choice, Equity, and the Schools-Within-Schools Reform
Authors: Ready Douglas D. , Lee Valerie E.
Published: February 2022

Background/Context

There is general agreement that most public high schools should be smaller than they are. Although the small-schools movement attracts considerable support, there is a general reluctance or inability to close large schools and to build many new small schools. A more cost-effective approach is to divide larger high schools into several smaller units, typically called schools within schools (SWS). We use the term subunit to describe these smaller educational groupings, which are generally organized around themes, careers, or pedagogical approaches intended to appeal to students’ interests and future plans. The majority of SWS designs then allow students to select their subunits. As such, the SWS model represents a convergence of two popular reform efforts—the movement to create smaller high schools, and the push to increase educational choice.

Purpose/Objective

This article addresses three questions related to academic differentiation and student choice within SWS high schools. First, to what extent did subunit themes emphasize students’ disparate occupational and educational futures over their common social and academic needs? Second, what rationales did students offer for their subunit selections, and how did their choices reflect their interests, motivations, social backgrounds, and academic abilities? Third, how can we characterize the interplay between subunit offerings, students’ subunit choices, and educational equity?

Research Design

This article draws on data collected over several years in a sustained field-based study of five SWS high schools. Our data collection included conducting individual and focus group interviews with students, teachers, guidance counselors, and school- and district-level administrators; shadowing students; visiting selected classrooms; observing interactions in hallways and other public locations; attending special events that occurred during our visit; mapping the physical layout of the building; collecting papers and documents pertinent to school life; and learning about the contexts in which the school operated.

Conclusions/Recommendations

Each school offered subunits organized around academic subjects, career focuses, or pedagogical approaches. Certain subunits were designed for students seeking traditional vocational training, whereas others targeted academically motivated college-bound students. Although students ostensibly selected subunits that matched their interests and motivations, varied social and structural pressures beyond subunit themes influenced their choices. As a result, to varying degrees within schools, subunits were segregated and stratified by student race/ethnicity, social class, and—above all—academic performance. With stark parallels to student curricular choice in comprehensive high schools, many school staff viewed these within-school divisions as the natural (and even appropriate) outcome of student social and academic difference.