bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Lesson Study in a Turnaround School: Local Knowledge as a Pressure-Balanced Valve for Improved Instruction
Authors: Collet Vicki S.
Published: November 2021

Background

Federal and state accountability policies attempt to improve educational outcomes but have been blamed for a breadth of ills, including minimizing local knowledge and reducing teachers’ ability to respond to contextual needs. Teachers in high-needs schools, especially, feel the effects of constrained curricula and increased testing, resulting in increased workload and anxiety.

Purpose

This article explores the impact of professional development on teachers and students in a time of high-stakes accountability. Specifically, we ask: Does Lesson Study impact teachers’ instruction and students’ achievement in writing? And how do pressures imposed by policy impact efficacy and collaboration in a high-needs school?

Research Design

This study uses data from 20 Lesson Study meetings at a high-needs, “Turnaround” school and considers changes in students’ writing achievement. The mixed-method approach and high-stakes context offer a unique contribution to Lesson Study research.

Conclusions

Findings indicate that instruction changed and students’ writing significantly improved, with the mean growth percentile increasing from the 30th to the 46th percentile on state assessments. Further, we found that during the Lesson Study process, teachers moved through six Stages of Transformation in response to a high-pressure context, moving from feelings of anger and blame-shifting to eventual feelings of empowerment.
Dynamics of Low-Fee Private Schools in Kenya: Governmental Legitimation, School-Community Dependence, and Resource Uncertainty
Authors: Edwards D. Brent , Klees Steven J. , Wildish Janet L.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

The UN Sustainable Development Goals include a renewed commitment to inclusive and equitable education for all and will maintain pressure on governments in low-income countries to ensure this provision. A range of prominent researchers and institutional actors continue to explore and to promote low-fee private schools (LFPSs) as a viable option for achieving universal access to basic education. The emphasis on LFPSs can be seen as part of the push for education policies that attempt to improve educational access and quality not through the strengthening of public education but through the establishment of public–private partnerships.

Focus of Study

In this paper we explore the Kenyan government's engagement with LFPSs, document and assess the impact of this support on the behavior of LFPS and clarify key actor perspectives and responses within this context.

Research Design

Through a qualitative case study of two LFPSs in a large urban informal settlement near Nairobi, we focus on the dynamic interaction and delicate equilibrium within which government officials, LFPS representatives, parents, and students not only interact with but influence each other. Data for the study were gathered over the course of 8 weeks during May and June of 2010 in the urban slum called Mathare Village in Nairobi through document review, 35 interviews, and school visits.

Conclusions

The findings suggest that LFPSs do not function in practice as in theory, and crucially, that there are inherent trade-offs, tensions, and unexpected dynamics in operation that have serious consequences for such issues as quality and equity, even when supported by formal government policy designed to address these aspects. The study reinforces the importance of national governments and international bodies increasing the resources devoted to improving access to, and the quality of, public education.
When the Achievement Gap Becomes High Stakes for Special Education Teachers: Facing a Dilemma with Integrity
Authors: Mintrop Heinrich , Zane Robin
Published: November 2021

Context

A fundamental assumption behind a high stakes accountability system is that standardized testing, proficiency goal setting for demographic student subgroups, and sanctions would motivate teachers to focus on students whose performance had heretofore lagged. Students with disabilities became one such subgroup under the No Child Left Behind system. Special education teachers faced a novel pressure: to radically narrow the achievement gap between their students with disabilities towards proficiency or incur sanctions and corrective action for their schools and districts.

Purpose

The study uses the concept of “integrity” to analyze public service workers’ agency in situations of strain or crisis. Integrity consists of four overlapping domains of judgment: obligations of office, personal integrity, client needs, and prudence.

Research Design

The study is an in-depth multiple case study of seven teachers; 21 structured interviews, and 17 observations, augmented by a number of informal contact that included invitations to observe teacher meetings and conversations with school administrators.

Findings

The study found that the special education teachers faced a true dilemma. Teachers adopted contradictory solutions — some embraced the new demands, some rejected them. Both seemed equally untenable. The study reveals salient dimensions of this dilemma: how teachers related to the external moral obligation to equalize, what they chose to ‘see’ when they viewed the achievement gap; how they explained, or explained away, their agency in narrowing the gap; how they strategized and muddled through with instructional maneuvers to make the gap go away; and what they regarded, and guarded, as fields of professional responsibility and autonomous decision making.

Implications

What kind of accountability system would enable a collective dialogue among special education teachers in which high expectations, keen diagnosis, instructional expertise, internal responsibility for individualized learning gains, openness to external challenge, and attention to results would be the poles of the discussion? At the core, such an accountability system would validate the professionalism of the most expert teachers and avoid activating their defensiveness and demoralization. It would guard against middling expectations by making the performance of a wide spectrum of high and low performing schools or special education departments transparent. It would stay away from high pressure attached to unrealistic goals in order to discourage teachers from developing blind spots about their students, or acting with mere compliance and expediency. It would motivate a dynamic of student-centered continuous improvement in reference to a common standard, but also to low-stakes metrics that may guide iterative improvement.
Belonging in a Videogame Space: Bridging Affinity Spaces and Communities of Practice
Authors: Abrams Sandra Schamroth , Lammers Jayne C.
Published: November 2021

Background

Focusing on ways a common endeavor brings people together, Gee offered the concept of affinity spaces, which suggests that open participation without exclusion or membership is possible. This theory contrasts with Lave and Wenger's communities of practice, which called attention to situated, hierarchical participatory practices. Bridging these two theories, we look to discussions of Discourses and specialist language and behavior to highlight how doing–being–valuing combinations situate people within a particular space in ways that can welcome open participation while supporting both inclusivity and exclusivity.

Purpose

This article defines and illustrates features of belongingness visible in videogame spaces, underscoring the dynamics of hierarchical participation in interest-driven practices, an important element to consider when attempting to make education more responsive to contemporary youth.

Research Design

This retrospective cross-case analysis includes data from two separate ethnographic studies of videogame affinity spaces. Data displays, as well as anecdotal notes, help facilitate the qualitative analysis of observations, interviews, field notes, and artifacts.

Findings

Within these videogaming affinity spaces, there were practices and value systems (i.e., Discourses) that promoted inclusivity and exclusivity. Data reveal specialist knowledge, interaction, and proficiency, in particular, to be prominent features in relationship-building in interest-driven participatory spaces.

Conclusions

This study calls attention to the doing–being–valuing combinations that situate one within a particular space while supporting inclusivity and exclusivity. A focus on belonging, therefore, revives the concept of community-based Discourses, honors the practices that situate learners in contemporary spaces, and helps researchers and educators understand how youth configure and reconfigure their social practices to seek inclusion by using and honing specialist language and behavior.
Black Otherfathering in the Educational Experiences of Black Males in a Single-Sex Urban High School
Authors: Brooms Derrick R.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

A good deal of research has been written about the problems and challenges facing Black male youth in their educational endeavors, ranging from academic performances, aspirations, and outcomes to student–teacher relationships, social experiences, and identity development. Statements calling for more Black male teachers abound in current educational discourse, and a number of studies have focused on their experiences in teaching, their pedagogical practices, and their role within the school setting. However, little attention has been given to how Black male students experience their learning and relationships with Black male teachers—the very people who are supposed to benefit from this adult presence. The present study investigates Black male students’ experiences with Black male teachers at a single-sex urban secondary school.

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to understand Black male students’ experiences in an all-male learning environment, with a particular emphasis on the role of Black male adults in their schooling experiences.

Participants

This study focused on the schooling experiences of 20 college-age Black males who all attended the same single-sex public high school.

Research Design

Qualitative research methods were used in this study. In particular, data from in-depth interviews explored students’ narratives about how they experienced and made meaning from the all-male schooling environment.

Findings

Findings suggest that the students conceptualized adult Black males at their school as otherfathers based on their pedagogical practices, care and concern, and support. First, students expressed their need or desire for male teachers in their secondary schooling experiences. Students identified Black male adults as significant contributors to their development. Second, learning from Black male teachers was valued highly by students because these experiences provided them with insider perspectives and key insights on being Black and male. Students were exposed to opportunities to learn about how race and gender could matter in their lives. Finally, engaging with Black male adults in their schooling experiences provided students with unique opportunities to learn more about themselves. Students’ learning enhanced their critical consciousness and connected to their racial and gender identities as well. Students attributed much of their success and personal development to how Black male teachers engaged in otherfathering—expressed as holistic care, support, parenting, modeling, and life coaching.

Recommendations

Implications and recommendations for educational researchers and practitioners to better understand how Black males matter in the lives and schooling experiences of Black male youth are discussed.
Managing Race and Race-ing Management: Teachers’ Stories of Race and Classroom Conflict
Authors: Deckman Sherry L.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Research exploring suspension and expulsion practices suggests that teachers may play a key role in perpetuating racial disproportionality in school discipline by interpreting student behavior through racialized and racist lenses and by viewing the behavior of students of color as an affront to their authority, resulting in more frequent punishing of Black and Latino students. The problem may be compounded for novice teachers, who are likely to teach in high-poverty, high-”minority” schools where discipline is a pronounced concern for educators.

Research Questions/Focus of Study

To illuminate the role of race in novice teacher interpretations of classroom management, this research explored the following questions: (a) How do novice in-service teachers narrate classroom management and disciplinary moments from their practice? (b) What do their narratives of these moments reveal about how they might negotiate racial difference in the classroom?

Research Design

This study employs narrative analysis of classroom management stories (N = 51) shared by novice teachers participating in a 10-week hybrid online/in-person professional development course focused on race, class, and gender equity in urban schools. Specifically, this article analyzes how race is discussed in these narratives.

Findings

Teachers in this study tended to share stories either about “managing race”—narratives about deescalating racial tension or reproaching transgressors of racial colorblindness—or “race-ing management”—stories that read race into incidents in such a way as to reveal latent racial dynamics. These patterns aligned with teachers’ self-identified racial backgrounds, with teachers who expressed a more tenuous racial identity or who described themselves as White tending to focus on managing race, and those who expressed a strong minority racial identity tending to focus on race-ing management.

Recommendations

To address issues of racial proportionality and justice in student discipline and to retain an experienced teacher workforce in under-resourced schools, I offer two key recommendations. First, we must innovatively support novice teachers in reversing insidious trends by offering structured opportunities for critical reflection on management through the lens of identity. In this way, novice teachers can analyze the implicit beliefs at work in their understandings. Furthermore, school leaders and other professional development facilitators must make clear to novice teachers that their competence is not being questioned when we ask them to engage in critical reflection. I discuss specific ways to approach this and offer recommendations for future research.
Race in Place: Black Parents, Family–School Relations, and Multispatial Microaggressions in a Predominantly White Suburb
Authors: Posey-Maddox Linn
Published: November 2021

Background

Research has demonstrated the importance of understanding the multiple factors that shape parents’ relationships with schools, including the resources parents have at their disposal, their own educational histories, and the influence of school cultures and policies. Less is known, however, about how parents’ engagement relates to their everyday experiences across school and community spaces, particularly for Black parents in nonurban, predominantly White settings.

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to examine Black parents’ school and community experiences in a predominantly White suburb and how their experiences and engagement may vary based on social class and gender (and their intersections).

Participants

A socioeconomically mixed sample of 56 Black parents (16 men, 40 women) with children in Grades K–7 participated in the study, as well as 2 longtime residents whose children attended district schools.

Research Design

The findings are based on an ethnographic study of Black family–school relationships in a predominantly White Wisconsin suburb. The data include semi-structured parent interviews; field notes taken in monthly districtwide African American Parents (AAPO) meetings; an analysis of district and AAPO documents related to district resources, demographics, academics, and family engagement; and an analysis of census and demographic trends in the suburb and the broader county.

Findings

Results reveal that parents supported their children's education in a variety of ways, and most parents valued the resources and opportunities the suburban district and community context provided their children. Yet parents described experiences with racial microaggressions in their interactions with school officials and community members. These microaggressions were often classed and gendered, and, for a number of parents, relived and reinforced in their children's schools. The results reveal both the everyday racism Black parents encountered in the predominantly White suburban community and school district, as well as the dynamic ways they navigated, resisted, and sought to change barriers to Black student and family success.

Recommendations

The research findings suggest the utility of educators recognizing the often racialized arenas many Black parents traverse in their everyday lives, legitimating parents’ alternative forms of engagement, and building on what parents are already doing to support their children's education and well-being. Given the growing number of students of color in suburban districts, educational researchers have both an opportunity and responsibility to engage in studies that interrogate urban-focused frameworks and explore the intersections of race, class, gender, and place in families’ experiences.
Literacy as Tardis: Stories in Time and Space
Authors: Davies Julia
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

This article draws on previous work about narrative, which regards the practice of storying our lives as a basic human impulse and one that draws on cultural resources to do so. Neophyte digital resources have fascinated and enticed us as devices to immerse ourselves ever deeply and widely to create shinier, polished narratives. Our new modes and media have impacted on the nature of our narratives, and we reflect on our lives as we read them back to ourselves. Yet the affordances of the devices have allowed us to play also with the modes of time and space. This article draws on theories suggested by Burnett et al.; Leander and Sheehy; Massey; and Lemke to unpack the slippery nature of these notions of space and time.

Purpose/Objective/Research

The article provides a series of examples from a range of scenarios and research projects to consolidate the proposal that the contexts of literacy events are difficult to delineate, that contexts slip and slide across space and time in ways that seem to defy absolute specificity—that they are “in motion,” mercurial, and subject to change. Nevertheless, within these uncertain spaces, individuals use the cultural resources at their disposal to make sense of who they are and what the world is, through the creation of stories.

Research Design

This is an analytical essay, which draws on the research of others to create a series of examples of “digital encounters.”

Conclusions/Recommendations

The article argues that despite the many changes that digital tools have brought to our lives, the narrative impulse and the desire to represent ourselves through images and other media have remained constant. The new tools seem to allow us, however, to play more explicitly with time and space and to incorporate these aspects into our meaning-making practices. We can use tools to explore new types of space and arenas for communication—not just because of our capacity to keep in touch across time and space (which is not new), but because we can disrupt how we perceive these concepts.
Virtual Convergence: Exploring Culture and Meaning in Playscapes
Authors: Abrams Sandra Schamroth , Rowsell Jennifer , Merchant Guy
Published: November 2021

Background

Research into digital practices and cultures repeatedly calls attention to the complexity of communication spaces and meaning-making practices. With the blurring of boundaries between online and offline, these entangled practices involve the interweaving of human, material, semiotic, and discursive practices.

Purpose

This introductory article builds on theoretical work by Huizinga and Appadurai and presents the concept of playscapes to help situate the overall collection of articles in this special issue, Virtual Convergence: Synergies in Virtual Worlds and Videogames Research.

Research Design

This analytic essay examines virtual worlds and videogames and offers the concept of playscapes to expand the discourse about space and finitudes of practice.

Conclusions

Playscapes extend current conversations about learning, transmedia, and play ecologies because playscapes can support the discussion of entangled meaning making across space and time, all the while acknowledging the situated nature of the activity.
The Trajectory of Scholarship about Self-Regulated Learning
Authors: Winne Philip H.
Published: November 2021

The trajectory of scholarship about self-regulated learning (SRL) originates in mid-19th-century writings about learners’ sense of responsibility in self education. Although Descartes's 17th-century writings implied mental activities consistent with metacognition, a central feature of SRL, these were inarticulate until Flavell and colleagues’ studies circa 1970. Since then, research on metacognition and its role in SRL has approximately doubled every decade. Foundations for modeling SRL include Skinner's behaviorism, which acknowledged learners’ choices about reinforcers for behavior, and Bandura's social learning theory, with its construct of agency. Research in the 1980s gathered data about SRL mainly using interviews, self-report questionnaires, and think-aloud protocols. These methods were quickly supplemented by observations of behavior and traces of learning activities tightly coupled to features of SRL. Today, SRL research is prominent across a broad spectrum of educational topics. Its importance will grow with trends toward lifelong learning and self-directed inquiries that survey vast information on the Internet, where students control what and how they will learn. Implications for future research include reconceptualizing “error variance” as arising partially due to SRL and capitalizing on software technologies that massively increase access to data about how and to what effects learners self-regulate learning.
Initial Choices: Promising to Teach
Authors: Randi Judy , Zumwalt Karen
Published: November 2021

This article explores the motivations of the 25 exemplar elementary, secondary English, and secondary math teachers at the time they chose to enter teaching either through New Jersey's alternate route (AR) program or college-based (CB) programs in the state. The article presents data that reveal these teachers’ underlying reasons for embarking on a teaching career and the circumstances that led them to a particular pathway. Their reasons for choosing teaching as a career are characterized on a continuum from passion (altruism) to pragmatism (practical considerations). The article then compares demographic characteristics and motivational influences of each group. Although these new recruits chose different pathways, the reasons they provided for teaching seem to characterize a changing teacher workforce rather than reveal striking differences between pathways.
Pathways to a Profession: An Introduction to the Yearbook
Authors: Natriello Gary , Zumwalt Karen
Published: November 2021

The need for large numbers of individuals who can serve as effective teachers for the nation's young people has generated continuing interest in the recruitment, preparation, and retention of talented teachers for the past half-century, particularly since the civil rights and women's rights revolutions opened a wide range of career opportunities to many for whom teaching was historically one of the few fields available. Among the policy options under development in recent decades have been alternative routes into teaching, typically preparation experiences that differ in form and/or format from the established college-based certification programs. In this Teachers College Record Yearbook, we present the results of a longitudinal examination of one early alternative route program developed by the state of New Jersey. The New Jersey Provisional Teacher Program (or Alternate Route) is of particular interest both because it was the first of a generation of such programs created by various states in the final years of the 20th century and because its creation surfaced a range of issues and tensions that all the programs following in its wake have experienced.
Parental Challenges to Organizational Authority in an Elite School District: The Role of Cultural, Social, and Symbolic Capital
Authors: Lareau Annette , Weininger Elliot B. , Cox Amanda Barrett
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Most research on “elite” schools has focused on the private sector. However, as a result of economic residential segregation, a number of public school districts exist which may plausibly be construed as socioeconomically elite. Districts of this sort remain relatively understudied. In particular, few researchers have noted the fact that the same mechanism that concentrates substantial wealth in elite districts—the real estate market—also tends to concentrate substantial noneconomic resources.

Purpose/Objective

Our paper examines the consequences of the abundance of cultural, social, and symbolic capital held by parents in one elite district, which we call Kingsley. During the period in which we collected data, the district administration sought to re-draw attendance boundaries for the two high schools in Kingsley. We show how shifting coalitions of parents made use of the full range of available resources in opposing, or in some instances supporting, district officials’ plans.

Research Design, Data Collection, and Analysis

We carried out a qualitative case study of the year-long redistricting process. Our data include copies of letters and emails sent to the district during the redistricting process, transcriptions of all school board meetings that took place during the process, and over 1,800 postings to two online discussion boards devoted to the process. These data were systematically coded by the research team. We also draw on articles in the press, observational data, and interviews for background information.

Findings/Results

District administrators were subject to a torrent of “data” and “research findings” that parents used to criticize the district's proposed plans. Parents frequently employed their professional expertise to directly challenge arguments put forth by officials in order to justify proposed policies. Furthermore, they drew on elaborate interpersonal networks in order to pool complementary forms of expertise and to mobilize large numbers of like-minded residents. Behind their challenges lay a sense of entitlement that rendered them unwilling to defer to the authority of the administration to make decisions concerning the needs of the system. While no single criticism was decisive, the ongoing challenges to proposed policies forced the district into a permanently defensive posture, resulting in a reduction of the board's ability to use its own expert knowledge to decide which institutional policies would best serve students’ needs.

Conclusions/Recommendations

We suggest that elite districts may be prone to a distinctive type of conflict between residents and policymakers. As economic segregation increases, it is possible that more districts will experience these challenges.
Unpacking the Strategies of Ten Highly Rated MOOCs: Implications for Engaging Students in Large Online Courses
Authors: Hew Khe Foon
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

The advent of massive open online courses (MOOCs) has fueled much attention among educators. However, despite the high interest they generate, we still understand little about student engagement in these large-scale online courses. Existing studies tend to focus on how MOOCs affect higher education institutions in terms of faculty identity, workload, responsibilities, and policy. Other studies have mostly employed clickstream data analysis to predict student dropout or completion. Although studies such as these are useful, they fall short of explaining the reasons why participants find the activities or course engaging.

Research Questions

Unlike many previous studies, this study seeks to uncover what factors related to MOOC pedagogy or to the individual instructor may encourage or discourage student engagement. This study explores the following questions: What elements related to the course design or the teaching staff did students find enjoyable, beneficial in helping them learn the materials, or motivate them to participate in the activities? What elements did students wish to improve? What elements related to the course design or teaching staff did students find frustrating?

Participants

The sample consisted of 4,466 learners who participated in one or more of 10 highly rated MOOCs. Highly rated MOOCs were sampled because they were likely to exemplify good practice or teaching strategies.

Research Design

Qualitative research methods were used in this study. More specifically, detailed observations of the 10 MOOCs’ course features and grounded analyses of the 4,466 learners’ course review data were conducted.

Findings

Findings suggest six key factors that can engage online students and nine reasons for student disaffection. The four most frequently mentioned engagement factors were (a) problem-centric learning, (b) active learning supported by timely feedback, (c) course resources that cater to participants’ learnings need or preferences, and (d) instructor attributes such as enthusiasm or humor. The two most commonly reported student disaffections across the 10 MOOCs were due to forum- and peer-related issues.

Conclusion

This article ends with five main implications that could provide practical guidelines to other instructors of large online courses. The findings may also offer tips for instructors of traditional e-learning courses. Although we cannot generalize the findings of this study to traditional e-learning courses, it is possible that at the very least, the information presented here may suggest probable solutions for traditional e-learning courses that might otherwise be overlooked.
Whiteness as Property in Science Teacher Education
Authors: Mensah Felicia Moore , Jackson Iesha
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

The disparity between the race and ethnicity of teachers and students is expected to increase as our nation and classrooms continue to become more racially, ethnically, linguistically, and economically diverse. It is extremely important to think about not only the educational needs of such a diverse student population within schools but also who will teach these students. However, when looking at subject-matter specificity for the retention of Teachers of Color, such as science teachers, the picture becomes extremely serious when we understand teachers’ paths into and out of science and teaching.

Purpose

The purpose of the study is to analyze the experiences of preservice Teachers of Color (PTOC) enrolled in an elementary science methods course as they gain access to science as White property. Our analysis provides evidence that PTOC can break the perpetual cycle of alienation, exclusion, and inequity in science when they are given opportunities to engage in science as learners and teachers. In addition, we also offer insights regarding the role science teacher educators may play in preparing teachers and especially TOC for urban schools.

Setting/Research Design

The context of this study was a graduate-level preservice elementary science methods course at a large urban university in New York City. Multiple data sources included pre-post surveys, semester observation journals, final course papers, and a post-course questionnaire. Utilizing constructivist grounded during the initial phase of analysis and themes from critical race theory (CRT), our unique voices of color and positionalities allowed us to interpret the data from a CRT perspective and arrive at findings relevant to making science inclusive to PTOC.

Conclusions/Recommendations

In order to push the field of science teacher education toward social justice issues of access, opportunity, and enjoyment, efforts must focus on increasing representation of Teachers of Color in science education. The transformation of science teacher education to grant equitable learning experiences for Teachers of Color is needed. Further research on the experiences of science Teachers of Color, as well as Faculty of Color and their relationship with students, is highly encouraged. Both teacher preparation and science education must be open to interrogate and reveal structural forms of race, racism, and power that manifest through curriculum, structure, and pedagogy that cause alienation and exclusion for Teachers of Color. Therefore, we encourage science teacher educators to examine their own course curriculum, structure, and pedagogy through self-study and refection. Overall practices in teacher preparation must empower rather than impede progress toward important goals of CRT, and this may be achieved through building stronger relationships with PTOC and Faculty of Color across teacher preparation courses in support of these goals.
Mathematics Course Placement Using Holistic Measures: Possibilities for Community College Students
Authors: Ngo Federick , Chi W. Edward , Park Elizabeth So Yun
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Most community colleges across the country use a placement test to determine students’ readiness for college-level coursework, yet these tests are admittedly imperfect instruments. Researchers have documented significant problems stemming from overreliance on placement testing, including placement error and misdiagnosis of remediation needs. They have also described significant consequences of misplacement, which can hinder the educational progression and attainment of community college students.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question

We explore possibilities for placing community college students in mathematics courses using a holistic approach that considers measures beyond placement test scores. This includes academic background measures, such as high school GPA and math courses taken, and indicators of noncognitive constructs, such as motivation, time use, and social support.

Setting

The study draws upon administrative data from a large urban community college district in California that serves over 100,000 students each semester. The data enable us to link students’ placement testing results, survey data, background information, and transcript records.

Research Design

We first use the supplemental survey data gathered during routine placement testing to conduct predictive exercises that identify severe placement errors under existing placement practices. We then move beyond prediction and evaluate student outcomes in two colleges where noncognitive indicators were directly factored into placement algorithms.

Findings/Results

Using high school background information and noncognitive indicators to predict success reveals as many as one quarter of students may be misassigned to their math courses by status quo practices. In our subsequent analysis we find that students placed under a holistic approach that considered noncognitive indicators in addition to placement test scores performed no differently from higher scoring peers in the same course.

Conclusions/Recommendations

The findings suggest a holistic approach to mathematics course placement may improve placement accuracy and provide access to higher level mathematics courses for community college students without compromising their likelihood of success.
Reimagining Indian Higher Education: A Social Ecology of Higher-Education Institutions
Authors: Tierney William G. , Sabharwal Nidhi S.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Developing countries desire institutions ranked as “world-class,” and want to increase postsecondary participation. Limited public monies require decisions that usually augment the welfare of one objective at the expense of another. An additional conundrum concerns the need for quality assurances. Research needs to be rigorous; students need to be well trained. The authors suggest that the social ecology of higher education has a crucial role to play in India. The challenges are whether to accommodate rapid expansion, how to improve the overall quality of the system, and invest in a research infrastructure.

Purpose/Objective/Research Questions/Focus of Study

The article's purpose is to ask if the social ecology of postsecondary education that has been created in India is in its best interests. Social ecology refers to the universe of postsecondary organizations that account for the 35,357 institutions in India. Insofar as the ecology is “social,” the citizens and government determine the shape of the ecology. The authors first offer a traditional definition of what has been meant by the public good and then turn to a consideration of India's social ecology of higher education. The article's purpose then, is specific to India and more generalized to postsecondary education in a globalized world. The text situates the institutions and systems of higher education into a social ecology that until recently has been framed by the idea of a public good.

Setting

The study took place in India during 2015–2016.

Research Design

The text is an analytic essay that utilized secondary texts pertaining to the structure and quality of the postsecondary system in India.

Conclusions/Recommendations

The authors suggest that the “'alphabet soup” of institutional forms that currently exists in India does not serve the country well; the taxonomy tends to obscure, rather than clarify, roles and responsibilities. They argue that a new social ecology of higher education needs to be put forward that streamlines relationships, clarifies roles and regulations, improves data analysis, and focuses on quality rather than quantity.
Applying to College: The Role of Family Resources in Academic Undermatch
Authors: Roksa Josipa , Deutschlander Denise
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

While K–12 research places parents at the center of understanding students’ educational outcomes, empirical analyses of academic undermatch, and transition into higher education more broadly, have focused primarily on students’ attitudes and behaviors. Family is implicitly present in the background but rarely brought to the fore. In this article, we integrate K—12 and higher education literatures to illuminate how family social and cultural capital are related to the probability of academic undermatch and to social class inequality in this outcome.

Research Questions

We address three related questions: what is the relationship between family social and cultural capital and the probability of academic undermatch? To what extent is that relationship explained by students’ college-going attitudes and behaviors? Finally, how do family social and cultural resources contribute to social class inequality in academic undermatch?

Research Design

We use recent data from the Educational Longitudinal Study (ELS). ELS is a nationally representative sample of students who were 10th graders in 2002 and have been followed through the end of their high school education and into college. The analytical sample includes 5,370 students. The outcome examined is academic undermatch in college application, which occurs when a student applies to colleges at a selectivity level below the selectivity of colleges the student is academically prepared to attend.

Results

Family social and cultural capital play an important role in academic undermatch at the point of applying to college. More specifically, they influence students’ attitudes regarding what is important to consider when choosing colleges (such as college costs and living at home) and students’ college-going behaviors (primarily the variety of information sources consulted and the number of applications submitted). These variables collectively account for approximately 40% of the socioeconomic status (SES) gap in academic undermatch, net of controls. Moreover, we find no statistically significant interactions with SES, indicating that family resources, as well as specific attitudes and behaviors examined, benefit all students equally.

Conclusion

Students’ attitudes and behaviors related to college-going are deeply embedded in family contexts. Understanding academic undermatch, and college decisions more broadly, necessitates an explicit attention to family social and cultural resources, and mechanisms through which those resources are translated into specific educational outcomes. Policies and practices that aim to reduce social class inequality in college access would benefit from engaging parents, not only students.
Patterns and Volatility in State Funding for Higher Education, 1951–2006
Authors: Delaney Jennifer A. , Doyle William R.
Published: November 2021

Background

Numerous studies have addressed the determinants of higher education appropriations. Extending prior studies that only consider the relationship between higher education and one other state budget category, Delaney and Doyle develop and test an empirical model of the relationship between higher education and all other budget categories. Delaney and Doyle propose that higher education takes the form of a balance wheel in state budgets. They find that higher education is cut more than other budget categories in bad budget years and given larger increases in good budget years. Although previous work advances understanding of how states budget for higher education, it is limited in the length of time considered.

Purpose

This study makes two important contributions to the literature. First, it documents changes in the amount of volatility in state funding for higher education. Second, it identifies patterns in the volatility, and does so over a longer time period than has been investigated in past research, using data that spans over a half century (1951–2006).

Research Design

This study uses a unique panel dataset spanning the period from 1951 to 2006 to quantitatively document changes in the extent of volatility in state funding for higher education. It also identifies and tests for patterns of volatility.

Findings

We find that the level of volatility in state budgeting for higher education has changed over time. We also find evidence of linear (incremental), quadratic (countercyclical), and cubic (balance wheel) patterns of volatility at different points in time.

Recommendations

Our findings indicate that the role of higher education in state budgets is not static and has varied over time. In policy discussions about higher education funding, we think it is important to consider both absolute funding levels and the amount of volatility in funding. We recommend that higher education leaders discuss not only funding levels with their state legislatures, but also discuss volatility in funding patterns. States and higher education have operated under different funding relationships in the past; therefore, it seems possible that policymakers and higher education officials could change their current funding relationship to conform to a pattern that better serves the needs of the state, institutions, and students.
What Guides Pre-K Programs?
Authors: Graue Elizabeth , Ryan Sharon , Wilinski Bethany , Northey Kaitlin , Nocera Amato
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Early childhood education joined the standards movement in 2002 with the Good Start, Grow Smart initiative, with advocates arguing that standards were a tool for creating more continuity and coherence in Pre-K systems. Critics posed concerns about a perceived poor fit between standards-based and developmentally appropriate practices, pointing to standardization and pressure from the K–12 system. With growth in public Pre-K programs guided by state early learning standards, we set out to understand what guides Pre-K programs.

Setting

We sampled two states with mature Pre-K programs: New Jersey (NJ), a targeted, highly regulated full-day program for 3- and 4-year-olds and Wisconsin (WI), a universal, local control half-day program for 4-year-olds. Both programs implement Pre-K programs in schools, Head Start, and child care classrooms.

Purpose/Focus of Study

The purpose of the project was to compare the role of standards in Pre-K programs in NJ and WI, analyzing standards conceptualization and enactment by district administrators and teachers.

Research Design

We designed a multi-state, comparative case study including interviews with state actors who identified rural, midsize, and urban districts for fieldwork, weekly observations of Pre-K classrooms in elementary schools, Head Start, and childcare centers and interviews with the teachers in these sites.

Conclusions

Policy and standards alone were not very good predictors of the Pre-K programs’ enacted practices. The logic of practice embedded in standards evolved through policy enactment in the local context, through the work of actors, like local child care advocates, the administrative designs of district leaders, and the policies of the adjacent K–12 system. The nonlinear implementation of early learning standards in this study shows the importance of looking beyond policy inputs and child outcomes and the need to include the administrative and instructional practices between if we are to understand how to best support young learners and their teachers.
A Special Kind of Ambition: The Role of Personality in the Retention of Academically Elite Teachers
Authors: Jones Brady K.
Published: November 2021

Background

Creating greater stability in the teacher labor force and improving teacher quality is an important education policy priority in the United States. While there is a robust literature on the external, environmental reasons teachers stay in or leave the occupation, little is known about the role internal, person-level factors play in teacher retention, especially among academically elite teachers.

Focus of Study

This study explores the role of personality, holistically defined, in teacher commitment.

Participants

The sample for this study consists of 107 graduates of a single teacher preparation program. They are classified as “academically elite,” as this preparation program is very selective and demands high GRE scores.

Research Design

Discriminant function and regression analyses are used to test which of a rich set of personality measures, both traditional self-report measures and coded narrative accounts of life and career high points, predict long-term commitment to teaching in this sample.

Results

Discriminant function analysis exploring differences between very long-term committers (15+ years) and short-term committers (7- years) suggests that long-term committers are distinguished by a “special kind of ambition”: they set goals that are both more difficult and more prosocial than their counterparts with a shorter commitment to the occupation, and in personal narratives they more often show “enlightened self-interest,” a combination of self-interest/self-promotion with concern for and connection to others. In addition, regression analyses show that these personality variables significantly predict retention in the sample as a whole, even when controlling for school advantage.

Conclusions

These results provide evidence that personality does play an important role in teachers’ occupational commitment, call into question pervasive stereotypes in the United States of teachers as unambitious, and suggest ways academically elite teachers might be able to shift the ways they think about their work in order to sustain themselves in the occupation.