bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Measuring Beliefs about Teaching for Creativity
Authors: Katz-Buonincontro Jen , Hass Richard W. , Perignat Elaine
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Beliefs about teaching for creativity is a newer area of empirical investigation in education.

Purpose

The purpose of the quantitative study was to measure teachers’ domain-specific beliefs about teaching for creativity, piloted for the first time in this study, and compare these beliefs with domain-general beliefs about creativity.

Subjects

The study subjects were preservice and practicing teachers enrolled in bachelor's, master's, and doctoral (PhD and EdD) education programs within a private university located in the northeastern United States.

Research Design

This study surveyed a convenience sample of preservice and practicing teachers’ beliefs about creativity and their beliefs about teaching for creativity to examine their creative self-efficacy, growth and fixed creative mindsets, desirability of creativity for teaching success, and valuing creativity for student learning.

Data Collection and Analysis

A total of 149 students completed a measure on beliefs about creativity (domain-general) and beliefs about teaching for creativity (domain-specific). Exploratory factor analysis was conducted to examine potential newly aligned items and factors with a change in wording.

Results

The factor structure of the Fixed Creative Mindset items, Creative Self-Efficacy items and Desirability items was stable when rewording them to represent teacher perspectives. The Growth Creative Mindset items do not show the same stability, but two of the items seem to be related to a single factor, which is evidence that these items are functioning well. The newly worded Value items loaded on a separate factor, with only one cross loading. Educators rated themselves high in most areas, and low in the area of Fixed Creative Mindset. The results indicate that the Beliefs About Teaching for Creativity scales are reliable, with significant correlations among factors.

Recommendations

We propose research and policy recommendations to further examine the complex relationship between teachers’ beliefs about teaching for creativity and their pedagogical practices, especially in the area of growth and fixed creative mindset.
Recent Trends in the Characteristics of New Teachers, the Schools in Which They Teach, and Their Turnover Rates
Authors: Redding Christopher , Nguyen Tuan D.
Published: November 2021

Background

Over the past couple of decades, new teachers have become a pronounced focus of policy makers. This attention is a result of demographic shifts in the teacher labor market, increased attention to the quality of teachers assigned to historically underserved student populations, and high rates of new teacher turnover.

Purpose

Our goal is to understand how the characteristics of new teachers and the schools in which they teach have changed over time, including changes in the characteristics of teachers in schools that enroll a majority of economically disadvantaged and minority students. We examine how these broad changes relate to new teacher turnover, as well as the induction supports that may improve retention.

Research Design

We draw on nationally representative data from all seven waves of the Schools and Staffing Survey from the 1987–1988 to 2011–2012 school years to better understand the extent to which the characteristics of beginning teachers, the schools in which they teach, and their turnover rates have changed over time. We draw on data regarding teachers’ demographic characteristics, education and credentials, and school characteristics and working conditions, and turnover.

Data Analysis

We first describe how characteristics of new teachers and the schools in which they teach have changed. We then examine how these characteristics vary systematically across schools that enroll a majority of students who identify as racial/ethnic minorities and schools with fewer racial/ethnic minorities. We examine the extent to which new teachers are more likely than more experienced teachers to turn over from underserved schools and how organizational supports such as administrative support and induction programs predict lower rates of turnover.

Findings

Beginning teachers are now more likely to be certified, to have earned a graduate degree, and to have graduated from a selective college. They are also much more likely to begin their careers in schools that enroll more racially diverse students than in previous decades. Teachers are more likely to turn over from schools where the majority of students identify as racial/ethnic minorities, although the presence of supportive colleagues and administrators and induction supports are associated with lower turnover rates.

Conclusions

That the majority of new teachers now begin their careers in schools serving a majority of economically disadvantaged and minority students has implications for the preparation and induction of new teachers. Our results point to the continued importance of the provision of supports that integrate teachers into the social and professional culture of a school.
Youths’ Literacy Disidentifications in a Secondary Classroom: Contesting Transphobia through Humor in Role-Playing
Authors: Schey Ryan
Published: November 2021

Background

Recent decades have seen an increased number of literacy education researchers attending to LGBTQ people and texts in secondary schools, frequently documenting tensions that emerge, such as conflict. However, this research tends to be limited in scope with respect to time, texts, and identities. Moreover, it shows that students tend to face challenges and constraints when attempting to challenge homophobia and transphobia.

Focus of Study

In this study, I sought to extend previous scholarship by exploring how students used reading and writing to work within, on, and against normative values and practices in a secondary classroom as they enacted queer activism, efforts I conceptualize as literacy disidentifications.

Setting

This study took place at a public urban comprehensive high school that I call Harrison High School, which was in a midsized Midwestern U.S. city. In this manuscript, I focus on one course, a sophomore humanities class that combined English language arts and social studies.

Research Design

I conducted a yearlong literacy ethnography at Harrison, acting as a participant observer throughout the high school but focusing on literacy learning contexts, including English language arts classrooms and a GSA (Genders and Sexualities Alliance) club.

Data Collection and Analysis

During my participant observation experiences, I constructed field notes. In addition, I made audio and video recordings of classroom lessons, collected documents, and conducted interviews with teachers, students, and administrators. I analyzed these data through an inductive and comparative grounded theory approach.

Findings

Drawing on sociocultural perspectives of literacy and language along with queer theories, I conceptualize literacy disidentifications and explore this heuristic through the actions of Imani, a queer youth of color who encountered a schooling context where her activism was frequently shut down. To legitimize and sustain her queer activism, she blended humor with other literacy practices, such as role-playing and signification, which resulted in critiquing, yet not necessarily transforming, transphobia.

Conclusions

These findings suggest that educators working to cultivate queer-affirming schools can: sanction conflict and teach youth how to navigate conflict in compassionate and humanizing ways; recognize, rather than squelch, youths’ queer activism; teach LGBTQ-inclusive curricula, especially curricular texts that foreground the lives and perspectives of trans people; and broaden the range of youth literacy practices valued in classroom lessons.
“The Child is Not Broken”: Leadership and Restorative Justice at an Urban Charter High School
Authors: Bruhn Sarah
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

There has been growing attention to the disproportionate and harmful effects of school exclusion, including suspension and expulsion, on boys of color. Restorative justice may be one possibility for addressing these disparities. Yet the research on restorative justice in schools is nascent, and in particular, little is known about the role of school leaders in enacting restorative practices as a means to creating more equitable schools.

Focus of Study

By highlighting the work of school leaders, this study contributes to our collective understanding of how restorative justice can function as a meaningful alternative to school exclusion. The study explores how two leaders exercise leadership, build legitimacy, and develop relationships with teachers and students. It examines how these leaders make sense of their efforts to transform the school from a place reliant on traditional punitive mechanisms as a form of control to a restorative school culture.

Setting

The study took place at a charter school with campuses in two neighboring cities in the Northeast United States.

Research Design

This study uses portraiture, a methodology that emphasizes participants’ phenomenological perspectives and illuminates the complexity of goodness and success, making it well-aligned with the topic of this research. I gathered data through in-depth interviews with and observation of the two leaders at the center of the study, as well as interviews and observations of students and teachers.

Conclusions

Ultimately, the leaders exhibited restraint, persistence, and respect, qualities that served as the basis for meaningful relationships with students and teachers. In turn, these relationships were an important component of how the school sought to reduce suspension rates and narrow racial gaps in exclusionary punishments.
Postsecondary Outcomes of Innovative High Schools: The Big Picture Longitudinal Study
Authors: Arnold Karen , Mihut Georgiana
Published: November 2021

Context

Educational reform efforts have taken the form of different school models intended to reduce educational inequality. Personalized, interest-based schools and academically focused, “No Excuses” schools are two leading small-school designs with sharply contrasting approaches to innovation. Given mixed research findings about the successes and challenges of school reform models in the United States, it is imperative to understand how educational outcomes of students relate to the philosophy and distinguishing characteristics of particular school models such as these. At the same time, evaluating social mobility effects of high school education across educational reform models requires examination of common metrics such as high school graduation rate and college entrance and degree attainment.

Purpose

This study sought to establish whether and how a personalized, interest-based secondary school reform model is associated with graduates’ characteristics and postsecondary outcomes—and to place these findings in relation to student outcomes reported by a leading No Excuses school network.

Setting

Big Picture Learning is a network of innovative small schools that serves primarily low-income and minoritized students through an individualized, relational, real-world-based high school experience. The Big Picture educational model features individualized learning plans connected to extensive internships, independent learning organized around student interests, authentic assessments, and close, informal relationships between students and adults.

Research Design

The Big Picture Longitudinal Study tracked 1900 graduates from six graduating high school classes. Data sources included student and school advisor surveys, National Student Clearinghouse college enrollment data, and interviews with graduates’ former advisors. Published outcomes data for KIPP No Excuses schools provided comparative information. Analyses comprised descriptive statistics of survey data and multivariate regression analyses connecting high school exit data to college outcomes.

Findings

The Big Picture Learning model is extremely successful in meeting its stated goals of fostering positive relationships, helping students discover and pursue their interests, and promoting high school graduation and college entrance. Results for academic subject achievement and college persistence are mixed, however. Big Picture graduates have similar college matriculation rates but somewhat lower six-year graduation rates than alumni from the KIPP No Excuses school network. Alumni from both networks show high rates of college attrition.

Conclusion

When taken alone and in context of other innovative school models, the Big Picture results point to the difficulty of sustaining secondary school gains in the post-high school lives of low-income students and highlight shortcomings of traditional colleges in serving this population.
Unloved, Unwanted, and Unsure: The Counternarratives of Incarcerated Youth
Authors: Desai Shiv R.
Published: November 2021

Background

Black youth are five times more likely, Latinx twice as likely, and Native American youth three times as likely to be incarcerated as their White peers. One of the dire consequences of the prison-industrial complex is that countless youth of color have been disenfranchised and cast out of society.

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to document the features of a Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) project conducted by Leaders Organizing 2 Unite & Decriminalize (LOUD) youth members, which is made up of allies, formerly incarcerated youth, and youth on probation, to provide a model that could be adaptable in similar other contexts.

Setting

This study takes place in the American Southwest in a state where marijuana is only medically legalized.

Participants

I worked primarily with five Latina women and three Latino men, one African American man, and one Diné woman. The ages of the LOUD members ranged from 15 to 20 years old and from a high school freshman to a first-year college student.

Research Design

As a co-facilitator for LOUD, I investigated how this YPAR project provided youth with the opportunity to shape and challenge current juvenile justice policies that detrimentally impacted youth for three years. YPAR endorses a collective process between the researcher and youth, allowing both parties to contribute meaningfully to all areas of research.

Data Collection and Analysis

Data were analyzed from three sets of semistructured interviews and 40 field notes taken over three years. I used a conventional content analysis approach to analyze both individual interview and weekly meeting transcriptions. Line-by-line coding was conducted through the use of Dedoose qualitative software.

Results

Through their YPAR investigation of the juvenile justice system, LOUD members were able to identify several key issues that affected system-involved youth such as being dehumanized, the mental, emotional, and spiritual toll, access to their lawyers, and unfair burdens placed on their families. LOUD members found their voice, became empowered to recommend changes in juvenile justice policies, and became social justice advocates for incarcerated youth through this process.

Conclusions

This project demonstrates how vulnerable marginalized youth became empowered by conducting and analyzing research, developing important recommendations, and being able to share their stories to change the juvenile justice system. We could choose to be a nation that extends care, compassion, and concern to those who are locked up and locked out or headed for prison before they are old enough to vote. We could seek for them the same opportunities we seek for our own children; we could treat them like one of “us.” We could do that. Or we can choose to be a nation that shames and blames its most vulnerable, affixes badges of dishonor upon them at young ages, and then relegates them to a permanent second-class status for life. That is the path we have chosen, and it leads to a familiar place. (Alexander, 2010, p. 206)
Uncovering Implicit Learning Theories in the Humanities: A Study of Grantmaking at Illinois Humanities
Authors: Dean Christopher G. Pupik , Schein Maggie , Kang Sheena , Kidd David , Webb Mel , Doyle Annie Walton , Allen Danielle
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

In recent years, the humanities have frequently been described as “under attack” or “in crisis” in both popular media and academic writing. In this climate, it is particularly critical to develop a stronger understanding of the value of the humanities. While there are many theoretical arguments about their value, the base of empirical research that is focused on understanding how the humanities make a contribution to human development is not as robust as the theoretical arguments. Developing the base of empirical research requires the development of assessment tools that are grounded in humanistic practice and the implicit learning theories employed by humanists.

Objective

This study seeks to uncover and describe the implicit learning theories employed by a sample of humanist practitioners who applied for and received funding from the public humanities organization Illinois Humanities (IH) between 1981 and 2012.

Research Design

This project used qualitative analysis to study 89 grant proposals that were submitted to and funded by IH between 1981 and 2012. This archive was analyzed in a three-stage process. Through qualitative thematic analysis, we identified and coded elements of the archive that provided data about humanistic craft practice. We used the results of this analysis to conduct a secondary analysis of the elements of craft logic and to identify implicit learning theories.

Findings/Results

Our findings revealed that the humanists who received grants from IH engaged the craft logic of the humanities in ways that could be grouped into themes and tended to apply one of seven implicit learning theories to their work. Three implicit learning theories were shared by ten or more grants across the sample: cultivating understanding through analysis, cultivating understanding through imaginative engagement, and cultivating appreciation.

Conclusions/Recommendations

We propose that the analytic approach we describe here helps make the logic underlying humanistic practice explicit and thereby lays the foundation for the development of systematic assessment strategies authentic to programs that deploy common humanistic methods and goals. This can provide humanists and humanities organizations with a better and more explicit understanding of how their own practices work as drivers of human development and to construct an analytic framework for empirically assessing the impact of the humanities on participants and students in humanities programs.
The Contested Discourses of Yoga, Youth, and Urban Schooling: Paradox and Possibility
Authors: Johnson Janet D.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Yoga, as a recent cultural phenomenon in the United States, is often marketed as a way to relieve stress and anxiety. This has led to yoga becoming widespread in schools, particularly schools that serve low income youth of color. While some advocates argue that yoga can help students navigate highly controlled, standards-based school environments, others assert that yoga is being used as a tool for student compliance rather than liberation.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

This study addresses the tensions between schooling discourses and yoga discourses, and how youth use their own discourses and agency to navigate those complications.

Setting/Population

This study took place in an alternative high school program for students who were in danger of not graduating because they had too few credits. Reflecting the community, the participants were low income youth of color.

Research Design

In this yearlong critical qualitative study, I served as an observer for weekly yoga classes at the school, interviewed the student participants during the fall and the spring, and interviewed the yoga teacher and classroom teacher during the fall and spring. I kept a field journal and wrote memos after every class and analyzed the data from the observations and interviews using critical discourse analysis.

Conclusions/Recommendations

Even as yoga may serve as a counternarrative to schooling discourses, it is only with intention and practice that it does not reify narratives of power and patriarchy. This is particularly true when the participants themselves may replicate these narratives, such as the participants’ complex use of heteronormative masculine discourses. For yoga to be liberatory in schools, the following aspects should be included: a sense of community where all students feel valued, classroom teacher participation, explicit instruction in the discourses of yoga around acceptance and compassion for oneself and others, and acknowledging school and youth discourses around sports and heteronormativity.
The Gay Teachers Association of NYC and LGB Students: 1974–1985
Authors: Mayernick Jason
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

This study deals with an intersection of educational history, queer history, and labor history involving the activities of lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) teachers. The history of LGBT teachers, particularly before the 1990s, has been addressed by only a handful of historians. The prior research most relevant to this study is Jackie Blount's Fit to Teach: Same-Sex Desire, Gender, and School Work in the Twentieth Century (2006) and Karen Graves's And They Were Wonderful Teachers (2009).

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

This study focuses on the activities of the Gay Teachers Association of New York City (GTA) between 1974 and 1985 as they related to teachers’ job security and the safety of LGB students in NYC public schools. It aims to illustrate the sense of responsibility toward LGB students developed by members of the GTA and how they acted on that responsibility.

Research Design

This is a historical study, relying primarily on archival research and secondarily on interviews conducted by the author.

Conclusions/Recommendations

The teachers of the GTA developed a comprehensive concept of their responsibility as LGB educators. They came to believe that they had a particular responsibility to LGB students. Finally, GTA members actively pursued equity for LGB students in New York City's public schools through counseling, community outreach, political lobbying, and public debate.
In “Alma Mater” We Trust? Exploring Attitudes toward Institutions and Alumni Giving
Authors: Drezner Noah D. , Pizmony-Levy Oren , Anderson-Long Maria
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Government support for higher education has decreased over the past few decades. In turn, institutions are seeking alternative sources of funding and increasing reliance on alumni giving. Although trust is important to social institutions and nonprofits, we know little about the role of trust in alumni engagement.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

We empirically assess the association between trust and philanthropic giving. We aim to determine the effectiveness of using trust as a predictor for giving attitudes and behavior. More specifically, we seek to answer the following research questions: 1. To what extent does trust in alma mater vary across socio-demographic characteristics? 2. To what extent does trust in alma mater correlate with alumni engagement (self-reported behavior and attitudes) with philanthropic giving? 3. Does the strength of the association between trust in alma mater and alumni engagement hold after controlling for socio-demographic characteristics?

Population/Participants/Subjects

Data for this study came from the National Alumni Giving Experiment (NAGE) conducted in 2014 (n=1,553). The NAGE survey instrument was designed as a web-based, self-administered questionnaire, with attitudinal items developed based on previous research and common practices in public opinion research. Respondents were recruited and paid via Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk). The NAGE sample is comparable with the General Social Survey's (2012/2014) college educated sample.

Research Design

We used a sequential mixed-methods research design (QUAN > qual). In the first stage, which is the main portion our study, we employed multivariate analysis to examine (a) socio-demographic variations in trust in alma mater, and (b) the correlations between trust and philanthropic giving. In the second stage, we coded and analyzed open-ended responses. We analyzed the quantitative and qualitative data separately, but we connect the findings to produce a comprehensive analysis of the role of trust in philanthropic giving to higher education.

Findings/Results

We found that alumni trust is a strong predictor of self-reported giving and attitudes, even after accounting for socio-demographic characteristics. Analysis of open-ended responses suggests that alumni develop (dis)trust based on public discourse on higher education and their personal perceptions and observations of their alma maters’ institutional policies and spending.

Conclusions/Recommendations

Trust is granted by individuals to others and to institutions. However, institutions cannot take trust for granted. Institutions of higher education must continually earn the trust of their constituents through creating transparent practices and educating students and alumni about funding, assuring them that they have measures in place to track and implement donor wishes.
Central Office Leadership for Instructional Improvement: Developing Collaborative Leadership Among Principals and Instructional Leadership Team Members
Authors: Stosich Elizabeth Leisy
Published: November 2021

Background

This study addresses the nexus of two significant yet under-researched areas of instructional leadership: the role of central office administrators in developing principals as instructional leaders and the potential for the instructional leadership team (ILT) to serve as a structure for supporting administrators and teachers in working collaboratively to improve instruction and student learning in their schools.

Purpose

Specifically, this study examines the efforts of principal supervisors—central office administrators responsible for supporting and evaluating principals—who aimed to develop instructional leadership broadly in high-poverty high schools by leading professional learning opportunities for principals and members of their ILTs.

Participants

Participants included principals and ILT members (e.g., assistant principals, teachers) in three high-poverty high schools in the same urban district and the three principal supervisors responsible for supporting them.

Research Design

Drawing on 36 interviews and approximately 80 hours of observation of ILT meetings and professional learning opportunities, the present study uses in-depth case studies of three focus schools to identify the specific practices principal supervisors use to influence the work of principals and ILTs.

Findings

The findings suggest that principal supervisors contributed to ILTs’ increased focus on instruction and encouraged principals to share leadership with teachers. Principals and ILT members viewed the support of principal supervisors as most helpful when they engaged in explicit teaching about the purpose and practices of ILTs, approached their work with principals and ILTs as joint work, and shared specific models that could be integrated into ILT meetings.

Conclusions

The practices used by principal supervisors represented a significant shift in the role of central office administrators toward a focus on teaching as opposed to a more traditional focus on supervision.
Coaching in Context: Exploring Conditions that Shape Instructional Coaching Practice
Authors: Hannan Maggie Quinn , Russell Jennifer Lin
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

The literature shows that one constant in coaching is the high degree of variation in coach roles and contexts, suggesting that understanding coaching practice requires that we also understand the role structures and organizational conditions that shape coaches’ work. Research on both instructional coaching and instructional change is increasingly attending to the organizational and social factors that shape, facilitate, and constrain the web of interactions that coaching work comprises. Past research points to the complex systems and social networks that shape critical elements of coaching practice, emphasizing the interdependency of organizational processes and the critical importance of considering not only the outcomes of implementation, but also the contextual factors that shape them.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

Given that multilayered social, technical, and organizational factors shape the practice and impact of instructional coaching, understanding the combinations of factors that are most consequential is key for both policy implementation and instructional coaching research. Consequently, understanding coaching requires attending to specific practices, the structural contexts in which those practices are embedded, and varied implementation processes across system levels and diverse school districts. Therefore, we built this study on the foundational idea that coaching work inherently and continuously interacts with the complex systems in which it takes place and that understanding and analyzing coaching requires attending to the organizational and social structures that shape it. Accordingly, this article focuses on the following research question: What contextual conditions facilitate and constrain coaching, and why?

Research Design

To understand the interactions between coaching work and these many social and technical factors, we investigated how a group of coaches implemented a mathematics coaching model, focusing specifically on the relationship between coaching contexts and coaching practice. Our case-focused, mixed-methods approach, which included both qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) and case-study methods, allowed us to explore the interrelationships between coaching and the system conditions that shape, enable, and constrain instructional change.

Conclusions/Recommendations

Our findings support the argument that coaching cannot be extricated from the surrounding system factors that shape it. On the contrary, we found that supports for and barriers to robust coaching practice are context-specific phenomena, suggesting that any coaching intervention ought to be tailored to its specific organizational location. Accordingly, we argue that different combinations of contributing factors can affect coaching in different ways, thereby contributing to the theory that a nested-systems perspective on instructional coaching is key to understanding its effects.
Equitable Teaching and the Core Practice Movement: Preservice Teachers’ Professional Reasoning
Authors: Kane Britnie Delinger
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

The Core Practice movement continues to gain momentum in teacher education research. Yet critics highlight that equitable teaching cannot be reduced to a set of “core” practices, arguing that such a reduction risks representing teaching as technical work that will be neither culturally responsive nor sustaining. Instead, they argue that preservice teachers need opportunities to develop professional reasoning that takes the specific strengths and needs of students, communities, and subject matter into account.

Purpose

This analysis takes up the question of how and whether pedagogies of investigation and enactment can support preservice teachers’ development of the professional reasoning that equitable teaching requires. It conceptualizes two types of professional reasoning: interpretive, in which reasoners decide how to frame instructional problems and make subsequent efforts to solve them, and prescriptive, in which reasoners solve an instructional problem as given.

Research Design

This work is a qualitative, multiple case study, based on design research in which preservice teachers participated in three different cycles of investigation and enactment, which were designed around a teaching practice central to equitable teaching: making student thinking visible. Preservice teachers attended to students’ thinking in the context of the collaborative analysis of students’ writing and also through designed simulations of student-teacher writing conferences.

Findings/Results

Preservice teachers’ collaborative analysis of students’ writing supported prescriptive professional reasoning about disciplinary ideas in ELA and writing instruction (i.e., How do seventh graders use hyperbole? How is hyperbole related to the Six Traits of Writing?), while the simulation of a writing conference supported preservice teachers to reason interpretively about how to balance the need to support students’ affective commitment to writing with their desire to teach academic concepts about writing.

Conclusions/Recommendations

This analysis highlights an important heuristic for the design of pedagogies in teacher education: Teacher educators need to attend to preservice teachers’ opportunities for both interpretive and prescriptive reasoning. Both are essential for teachers, but only interpretive reasoning will support teachers to teach in ways that are both intellectually rigorous and equitable. The article further describes how and why a tempting assumption—that opportunities to role-play student-teacher interactions will support preservice teachers to reason interpretively, while non-interactive work will not—is incomplete and avoidable.
The Rollout of Computer Science Education to Every Student in New York City: A Socio-Contextual Social Network Analysis
Authors: Holbert Nathan , Disalvo Betsy , Berland Matthew
Published: November 2021

Background

CS4All is an $81 million private-public investment aimed at creating the necessary infrastructure to provide computer science experiences to all New York City public-school students by 2025.

Purpose

In this paper, we examine the history of the CS4All initiative and document the network of actors and their relationships in the system such that we can understand how this reform is enacted, how it might be reactive to external contexts and pressures, and how the structure and pathways of this particular social network might inform similar efforts elsewhere.

Research Design

To structure our analysis of CS4All, we first examine the most recent historic example of a large-scale curricular reform—Man: A Course of Study (MACOS). By reflecting on the network structure of CS4All in light of the design, enactment, and eventual failure of MACOS, we can identify potential pain points and opportunities in CS4All's 10-year effort. We conducted interviews with core members of the CS4All initiative and examined available public records to construct and analyze a social network of key CS4All stakeholders, other actors, processes, and institutions.

Conclusions

In our analysis of the CS4All social network, we document how well-connected individuals simultaneously mobilized government resources and grassroots enthusiasm to create the conditions necessary for the initiation of this massive curricular reform effort, and describe the current pathways in place for decision making and resource distribution. Comparing the history and structure of the CS4All initiative to Man: A Course of Study —a failed nationwide curricular reform in the 1960s—we find that CS4All's centralized decision-making process and failure to create and distribute high quality formative assessment tools may lead to challenges to adoption. However, explicit efforts to solicit input from and communicate initiative values to the large diversity of stakeholders throughout NYC, as well as the innovation of a decentralized “buffet-style” curricular approach, may put CS4All on more sure footing.
Black Men in Engineering Graduate Programs: A Theoretical Model of the Motivation to Persist
Authors: Burt Brian A. , Roberson Justin J. , Johnson Jarrel T. , Bonanno Anne
Published: November 2021

Background

A growing body of research highlights the experiences of Black men students who successfully navigate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) educational pathways. Many Black men graduate students in engineering describe moments when their advisors, peers, and, at times, community members make them feel different because of their race and gender. Needed is a better understanding of what motivates Black men to persist in graduate school despite such challenges.

Purpose

This study advances a new theoretical model, “Black Men's Graduate Engineering Motivation” (BMGEM), to describe the overlaying factors and sources of motivation—and their interrelations—that influence Black men in engineering graduate programs to persist.

Research Design

To explore the motivational factors that influence Black men in graduate engineering programs at predominantly White institutions (PWIs) to persist, this study of 42 students used an eight-item demographic form, one-on-one semi-structured interviews, and follow-up focus groups. Data analysis was conducted using adapted grounded theory techniques. After the completion of data collection and multiple iterations of analyses (both inductive and deductive), existing conceptualizations of motivation were used to help make sense of data. The connection to existing literature, code development, their placement into categories, and placing categories into themes led to the creation of a substantive, practice-informing theory: Black Men's Graduate Engineering Motivation.

Findings

Data analysis resulted in the theory of Black Men's Graduate Engineering Motivation (BMGEM). The BMGEM explains the overlaying factors that influence individuals’ experiences and motivations to persist (i.e., sociocultural factors, personal factors, social identities, pre-graduate school experiences), and external and internal motivational sources that also influence students’ motivations to persist (i.e., desire to earn a graduate degree, desire to become an engineer, challenges during graduate school, peers, family members, [under]representation, self-coaching practices, career and professional goals).

Conclusions and Recommendations

The findings from this study inform future research, and practice-based strategies around broadening participation, that aid in Black men's progress through science and engineering pathways. With this new information, we charge engineering colleges to make true commitments to broadening participation, which means centering students—in this case, Black men—as contributors to STEM. In doing so, engineering colleges need to commit to helping Black men succeed. Assisting in their motivation to persist is a key to meeting this charge.
Teacher Data Analysis and Assets-Based Discourses about Multilingual Youth: Exploration of Relationships
Authors: Molle Daniella
Published: November 2021

Context

The pervasiveness of deficit-based discourses about multilingual students has long been documented in the scholarly literature. Such discourses severely erode the learning and well-being of multilingual youth. One of the spaces in which deficit-based discourses about students may be transformed is professional development.

Focus of the Study

The study connects a key practice of high-quality professional development, the analysis of classroom evidence of student learning, to student-focused discourses about multilingual youth. The research questions the study addresses are: As they make sense of data together, (a) how do teachers discursively position multilingual youth? and (b) what factors reinforce and undermine assets-based discourses about multilingual youth?

Research Design

Leveraging a case study approach, I explore how a team of three middle-school teachers positions students while analyzing classroom evidence during a one-year professional development designed for educators of multilingual youth. I rely primarily on transcripts of professional development sessions to trace student positioning by the team over time as teachers analyze dissimilar types of classroom evidence.

Findings

The findings reveal complex mediational relationships among teachers’ data use, student positioning, and shared theories of student engagement. These co-constructed theories reinforce deficit views of students when student reasoning and participation in learning are obscured by the data teachers are exploring. When the data make the process of student engagement available for reflection, however, teachers shift toward assets-based discourses. In addition, the findings shed light on relationships between type of evidence and implications for classroom practice. The teachers in the study shift their focus from teacher-centered instruction to the scaffolding of student interaction when the data make visible student participation in learning.

Conclusions

The study contributes to a nascent knowledge base about the complex relationships between teacher analysis of classroom evidence and assets-based discourses about all students and multilingual students in particular. The findings expand current conceptualizations of teacher data use by foregrounding student positioning over time as a key element of teacher sensemaking, and revealing the significant mediational role that shared theories of student engagement play in teachers’ data use. In terms of practical implications, the study offers insights into the mechanisms through which assets-based discourses about multilingual youth can be fostered across learning contexts.
Disparities Across Time: Exploring Absenteeism Patterns between Cohorts of Students with Disabilities
Authors: Gottfried Michael A. , Le Vi-Nhuan , Kirksey J. Jacob
Published: November 2021

Background

It is of grave concern that kindergartners are missing more school than students in any other year of elementary school; therefore, documenting which students are absent and for how long is of upmost importance. Yet, doing so for students with disabilities (SWDs) has received little attention. This study addresses this gap by examining two cohorts of SWDs, separated by more than a decade, to document changes in attendance patterns.

Research Questions

First, for SWDs, has the number of school days missed or chronic absenteeism rates changed over time? Second, how are changes in the number of school days missed and chronic absenteeism rates related to changes in academic emphasis, presence of teacher aides, SWD-specific teacher training, and preschool participation?

Subjects

This study uses data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS), a nationally representative data set of children in kindergarten. We rely on both ECLS data sets— the kindergarten classes of 1998–1999 and 2010–2011. Measures were identical in both data sets, making it feasible to compare children across the two cohorts. Given identical measures, we combined the data sets into a single data set with an indicator for being in the older cohort.

Research Design

This study examined two sets of outcomes: The first was number of days absent, and the second was likelihood of being chronically absent. These outcomes were regressed on a measure for being in the older cohort (our key measure for changes over time) and numerous control variables. The error term was clustered by classroom.

Findings

We found that SWDs are absent more often now than they were a decade earlier, and this growth in absenteeism was larger than what students without disabilities experienced. Absenteeism among SWDs was higher for those enrolled in full-day kindergarten, although having attended center-based care mitigates this disparity over time. Implications are discussed.

Conclusions

Our study calls for additional attention and supports to combat the increasing rates of absenteeism for SWDs over time. Understanding contextual shifts and trends in rates of absenteeism for SWDs in kindergarten is pertinent to crafting effective interventions and research geared toward supporting the academic and social needs of these students.
Collaboration versus Concreteness: Tensions in Designing for Scale
Authors: Cannata Marisa , Nguyen Tuan D.
Published: November 2021

Background

Substantial research on reform implementation highlights numerous challenges to implementing innovations at scale with depth and sustainability, yet new reforms continue to encounter many of the same challenges. This has led to calls for researchers to work in partnership with practitioners to design, implement, and scale educational innovations. Although these approaches hold promise, little is known about the internal operations of these improvement approaches and the experiences of their participants.

Purpose

Through a case study of a research–practice partnership that uses a continuous improvement approach to design and development, this article explores how the collaborative design process shaped the resulting innovation design. Research Design: This is a qualitative case study that included interviews with members of the district and school design teams, observations and field notes from design team meetings, and participant feedback forms.

Findings/Results

The evidence converges on three main challenges in the design process. These challenges point to tensions in maximizing all the design factors because they sometimes conflicted with each other: (1) Members were most engaged when the work was very specific and deemed feasible in a particular context, (2) Efforts to develop more specificity in the design emphasis were limited by efforts to engage educators in a collaborative process in which school-level actors had ownership over key design decisions, and (3) The abstractness of the emerging reform led to difficulties in establishing a shared deep understanding of each core component of the reform. Finally, the ability of school teams to productively resolve these tensions was related to the existing capacity of the school.

Conclusions

This case study of a collaborative design process in a research–practice partnership illustrates the complexities of the co-construction of a set of reform practices between researchers, practitioners, and other stakeholders and highlights the need for a delicate balance between specificity of the design and local engagement. We showed how a collaborative process fostered high engagement as researchers and practitioners co-constructed the reform, and how the team struggled to define the core strategies in sufficient detail to allow for implementation planning in a way that maintained the co-constructed design. There appeared to be a tension between achieving the necessary concreteness or specificity in the reform design that would be implemented across contexts, and a process that valued local ownership and collaborative decision-making.