bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Teaching for Hope in the Era of Grit
Authors: Stitzlein Sarah M. 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context Grit has quickly become one of the leading educational goals and markers of success upheld by many schools, parents, and education policies. This article intends to give us pause in the rush toward grit by revealing some of its shortcomings, including the implications of its individualist and long-term goal focus which leave systems of injustice in place and place children in a pick-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps ideology. Purpose/Objective This article responds to grit by putting forward a more robust and sustaining educational aim of hope that arises from the work of pragmatist philosophy, especially that of education theorist John Dewey. Research Design This analytic essay employs philosophical critique to assess the current emphasis on grit and its implications, then articulates the philosophical concept of pragmatist hope and explain how it overcomes the problems of grit. Conclusions/Recommendations The vision of hope put forward in this article is more flexible, social, and political than the popular form of grit, as it is driven to action that improves one's life and those of other people. The philosophically sophisticated account of hope offered here may be used, at times, to supplement or improve nascent theories of grit, or even supplant them. It suggests alternative ways forward as we seek visions of educational effectiveness that extend beyond test scores and into the lives of children and the future of American democracy.
Change in Computer Access and the Academic Achievement of Immigrant Children
Authors: Moon Ui Jeong , Hofferth Sandra L. 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context Increased interest in the correlates of media devices available to children has led to research indicating that access to and use of technology are positively associated with children's academic achievement. However, the digital divide remains; not all children have access to digital technologies, and not all children can acquire technological literacy. Specifically, immigrant families are known to be slow to adopt new technologies in the increasingly digital society of the United States. Purpose/Objective This study examined whether the benefits of computer access observed in the general U.S. population were also applicable to children from immigrant families in the early 2000s. Research Design Using data on 2,139 children in immigrant families from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten cohort, this study examined the association between children's gaining access to a computer at home and their reading and mathematics test scores between the late 1990s and the early 2000s. Findings/Results We found that if children had access to a computer during the early elementary school years, they demonstrated increased mathematics test scores later on. Conclusions/Recommendations Three characteristics of computer access are discussed in terms of implications for media popular today, including type of media (old vs. new), featured functions of technology, and timing of availability to children. In particular, the computer's spatial and virtual functions may be likely to translate into improved mathematics skills, especially when access occurs early in kindergarten and first grade. Extra effort is needed to inform immigrant and minority parents about the benefits of new technologies so that their children can access them at home as much as children from nonimmigrant and nonminority families. To lessen the digital divide in children's education, timely financial support and educational information should be provided to parents to encourage early adoption of new media technologies, thus ensuring that immigrant and minority children are not left behind in the digital age.
Reconsidering Academic Rigor: Posing and Supporting Rigorous Course Practices at Two Research Institutions
Authors: Campbell Corbin M. , Dortch Deniece 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context U.S. institutions of higher education have been criticized for providing limited learning gains and lacking rigor. Most understandings of academic rigor in higher education focus on how rigor manifests in students in terms of amount of work or approach to learning. Purpose/Objective This study examines rigor as posed by course practices. We define rigorous course practices as teaching practices and coursework that challenge learners to sustain a deep connection to the subject matter and to think in increasingly complex ways about the course content and its applications. The study sought to further the discourse on college academic rigor by describing rigor in coursework at two selective research institutions and examining which course contexts and teaching practices were associated with higher levels of rigor. Setting We studied two highly ranked, highly residential, selective, very highly research-oriented institutions on the East Coast of the United States: a mid-sized (< 5,000 undergraduates) private, urban institution and a large (∼15,000 undergraduates) public institution. Population/Participants We sampled 400 courses at each institution. Of the faculty who taught these courses, 31.4% agreed to participate. We conducted 150 class observations: 99 at Site 1 and 51 at Site 2. Research Design This study used a quantitative observational protocol. Data Collection and Analysis Data were collected during a week-long site visit, with observers using a structured rubric. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and OLS regression in blocks, partitioning the variance in academic rigor that can be explained by course characteristics (e.g., class size and discipline) and teaching practices (active learning, cognitively responsive teaching). Findings/Results Most courses in our sample focused on applying, and 85% of the courses achieved a higher-order level of cognitive complexity (analyzing, evaluating, or creating) at some point during the class session. Active learning and cognitively responsive teaching practices were associated with higher cognitive complexity and greater standards and expectations in the courses. Conclusions/Recommendations The discourse on academic rigor in higher education warrants further scrutiny and, could be balanced by studies that provide greater depth in the educational practices in classrooms. This study suggests that institutions and faculty may have a significant role in scaffolding rigor. Academic rigor is not simply about having bright, dedicated, and hard-working students but is also determined by classroom environments and processes that can be cultivated.
Relational Challenges and Breakthroughs: How Pre-Service English Teachers’ Figured Worlds Impact Their Relationships with Students
Authors: Salerno April S. , Kibler Amanda K. 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context Figured worlds have been conceptualized as spaces, or “realms,” where individuals assign meaning and significance to actors and characters or come to understand what they take as “typical or normal.” This study applies a lens of figured worlds to descriptions that pre-service teachers (PSTs) give of themselves and their relationships with students they said were challenging to teach. Purpose/Objective Research focused on two questions: (1) How do PSTs describe their own figured worlds in relation to those of their students? (2) What challenges and breakthroughs do PSTs describe in their efforts to understand students’ figured worlds through relationship building? Setting Data are from a cohort of secondary English education PSTs during teacher preparation at a large public university in a South Atlantic state. Population/Participants/Subjects At graduation, the cohort consisted of 15 members, all of whom participated in our study. All of the participants were women of typical university student age. Participants described their race/ethnicity as White (11), Korean (1), Filipino-American (1), Chinese-American (1), and Hispanic (1). Research Design This qualitative study uses open-coding analysis to consider ways PSTs talked about their figured worlds and their student relationships across their two-year English education teacher preparation. Data include field notes of course discussions and practice-teaching observations, interviews, course presentations, lesson plans, and course assignments, especially from three teaching inquiry projects that PSTs completed during their program. The researchers take a practitioner-inquirer stance, as they were both involved in helping prepare the cohort. Findings/Results Among Question 1 findings, PSTs reveal various individual figured worlds in addition to several group-defined figured worlds, including group identities such as: women; students who had themselves excelled in school; new, young, and inexperienced teachers; people identifying strongly with English content; and people of privilege. Among Question 2 findings, PSTs overwhelmingly viewed relationships with students as important; however, they experienced many challenges and breakthroughs in building those relationships. Conclusions/Recommendations PSTs entered their preparation and their student-teaching classrooms with their own figured worlds about themselves and what teacher–student relationships should look like. In practice teaching, however, they experienced many challenges to building the types of relationships they expected. And they also experienced breakthroughs in improving these relationships. For teacher educators, it is important to understand the figured worlds that PSTs bring to teacher–student relationships and to help them in understanding that students’ figured worlds might not align with their own.
Clinging to the Edge of Chaos: The Emergence of Practice in the First Year of Teaching
Authors: Strom Kathryn J. , Martin Adrian D. , Villegas Ana MarÍa 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context New teachers must cope with various instructional, personal and organizational challenges, an experience that often leads to difficulties enacting innovative, student-centered instructional practices learned in their preservice programs and contributes to high rates of teacher attrition. Purpose Drawing on complexity theory, this review of empirical research takes an organizational or “systems” perspective on the experiences of first-year teachers as they transition from preservice education to the teaching profession. In so doing, we aim to shift away from constructions of the teacher as an autonomous actor and instead build a more complex, nuanced, and layered understanding of the multidimensional influences that work together to shape the practices of novice teachers. Research Design We conducted a metasynthesis of 46 studies that met the following criteria: (a) were focused on first-year teachers, (b) offered sufficient description of participants’ professional practices, (c) featured participants who attended a university-based preparation program, and (d) were conducted since 1990. We first recorded each study's methods, findings, and descriptions of first-year teacher practices. As a second level of analysis, we used a complexity lens to identify the systems comprising first-year teacher practices, noting how those systems and their component or elements interacted to shape first-year teaching. Findings/Results We found that common patterns of interactions between and among systems of first-year teaching—including the teacher herself, the classroom, the school, and the larger district, state, and federal environments—tend to reinforce traditional, teacher-centered practices. Yet, in some studies, conditions surfaced that enabled participants’ to enact student-centered and equity-minded teaching practices learned in their preservice programs. Conclusions/Recommendations Authors suggest that taking a complex systems view of beginning teaching, rather than singularly focusing on the teacher's actions out of context, can reveal opportunities for fostering more supportive, enabling conditions for new teachers to enact innovative practices that many preservice programs promote and experience a smoother transition into teaching.
The Role of Teacher Educators’ Personal Histories and Motivations in Shaping Opportunities to Learn about Social Justice
Authors: Metz Mike 
Published: November 2021

Background As social-justice-focused teacher education programs continue to gain prominence, a wealth of research explores approaches for preparing teachers for social-justice-minded teaching. This study looks closely at a key aspect of teacher education programs frequently absent from the research—the teacher educators (TEs) themselves. Focus of Study The study intentionally expands the consideration of TEs’ identities beyond reductive demographic characteristics to explore how the personal histories and motivations of TEs impact teacher candidates’ (TCs’) opportunities to learn about teaching for social justice. Setting and Participants The study follows two parallel sections of a single teacher education course taught by two different TEs. Because the TEs taught from the same syllabus, within the context of the same program, the impact of each TE's instructional choices is revealed. Research Design Using a comparative case study design, data sources included field notes, audio recordings of class meetings, course readings and materials, and two interviews with each TE. Audio recordings were transcribed and analyzed following a micro-ethnographic discourse analysis approach. The second interview took place after initial analysis of the data, allowing the TEs to respond to initial findings. Findings Although both TEs focused on social justice topics, in alignment with the program goals, their choices of what topics to focus on differed greatly. One TE used the course readings to open up discussions of gender and sexuality, critically examining heteronormative ideals and a dismissive attitude toward adolescent relationships and sexuality. The other TE used the same readings and assignments to create inquiry into complicated issues of racial and ethnic identity with implications for classroom teaching. In each case, the choices by the TEs in how they framed discussions and assignments and what ideas they took up and built on during class interactions shaped the curriculum in unique ways. These instructional choices corresponded to each TE's own personal experiences and motivations. Conclusions The findings suggest that research on teacher education programs must look beyond course syllabi or the structural components of a program to understand the opportunities to learn provided to TCs. Decisions by TEs during classroom instruction shape very different opportunities to learn. These decisions are based, at least partially, on TEs’ unique personal histories and motivations. When considering how teacher education programs address the issue of social justice, a TE's own history and motivations will impact the enacted curriculum as much as, if not more than, the written curriculum. As we continue to wrestle with how to prepare teachers for a diverse and inequitable society, teacher education programs and teacher education research would benefit from more nuanced consideration of the role TEs play in what gets taught in teacher preparation courses.
Classroom Contexts and the Construction of Struggling High School Readers
Authors: Learned Julie E. 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context In high schools, student readers navigate different classrooms, disciplinary domains, teachers, peer groups, and texts. Research suggests that through these ever-shifting contexts, youths demonstrate varying literacy skills and identities. Yet, schools assign static labels to students (e.g., struggling reader), and little research has examined how youths’ reading changes across classroom spaces. Purpose/Objective During this school year-long study, I shadowed youths identified as struggling readers across their classes to examine (a) how their reading-related skills, practices, and identities varied and (b) what classroom contexts appeared to mediate their reading. Participants Focal participants were 8 ninth graders identified as struggling readers, 14 comparative peers, 8 teachers, and the school literacy coach. Research Design I conducted a two-phase qualitative study in a culturally and linguistically diverse high school. During an initial ethnographic phase from September to November, I conducted open-ended ethnographic interviews and made observations to identify contexts that appeared important in mediating youths’ reading. Then, during a structured phase from December to June, I used protocols to conduct semistructured interviews and weeklong shadow observations of eight students identified as struggling readers, and I compared their experiences to those of youths not labeled as such. Data Collection and Analysis Data sources were 425 hours of observation, 66 interviews with youths and teachers, reading assessments, and school artifacts and records. I used constant comparative analysis to systematically and iteratively code across all data sources. Conclusions/Recommendations Analysis showed that students’ and teachers’ interactions with particular classroom contexts not only identified reading difficulty but also constructed “struggling readers” regardless, sometimes, of students’ skilled, engaged reading. Overall, youths tended to participate in limiting contexts that positioned them as deficient readers. However, when classroom contexts focused on disciplinary literacy and building trusting relationships, youths positioned themselves as readers and learners. I discuss these promising, albeit rare, classroom contexts with attention to the pivotal role that student-teacher interactions played in constructing the contexts over time. Findings have implications for the reconceptualization of adolescent reading difficulty, the organization of secondary literacy programs, and future directions for adolescent literacy research.
Making Publics: Mobilizing Audiences in High School Makerspaces
Authors: Stornaiuolo Amy , Nichols T. Philip 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context Researchers, policy makers, and practitioners are paying increasing attention to the educational opportunities afforded by the maker movement—a growing public interested in do-it-yourself designing, remixing, and tinkering using physical and digital tools. While education research on “making” has often focused on informal learning contexts, this article examines the possibilities and tensions that surface as a new urban public high school brings making to the center of its teaching and learning. Focus of Study This research examines the learning opportunities that emerged as students engaged in their school's Media Production Makerspace. Focusing on the ways students created, remixed, and shared individual and collaborative media texts in the classroom, the study asks: What are the resources and constraints of the Media Production Makerspace's learning ecology for students from nondominant communities, and what practices, tools, and knowledge do students draw on and develop as they engage in school-based making activities and extend those to other audiences? Setting The study is situated in the Collaborative Design School, a non-selective urban public high school organized around principles of making and the maker movement. Research Design This study was a social design experiment that followed 45 high school freshmen in the Collaborative Design School's media makerspace over three design cycles during the 2014–2015 school year. Conclusions/Recommendations The study revealed that the work of cultivating and mobilizing audiences was central to young people's making activities. However, the ways these audiences were cultivated and mobilized depended on a number of historical, cultural, social, and political factors and involved significant labor by multiple stakeholders. To mobilize audiences into meaningful publics oriented toward collective action, young people needed to see themselves as civic actors who could contribute to broader public conversations and whose opinions, perspectives, and experiences mattered. In tracing the tensions that arose in this process of making publics, the authors suggest that integrating makerspaces in schools can lead to powerful learning opportunities and serve as generative routes to civic action for some students but also that makerspaces should not be positioned as panaceas that can be inserted into schools as an autonomous fix.
Teacher Unions, Charter Schools, and the Public/Private Distinction in Education Law and Policy
Authors: Superfine Benjamin M. , Woo David S. 
Published: November 2021

Background Over the past decade, courts and administrative agencies increasingly have considered cases that involve clashes between charter school proponents and teacher unions. While these cases have focused on a range of education policy issues, some cases have focused on arguably the most important legal and policy distinction applicable to charter schools— whether a charter school should be considered public or private. Purpose This study examines the intersection of the public/private distinction in U.S. law and policy, and the shifting political positions of teacher unions and charter school proponents, in courts and agencies. We examine the history of the public/private distinction in U.S. law and policy and specifically in education, in addition to conducting an in-depth analysis of three recent decisions involving charter schools and teacher unions in which courts and agencies determined whether charter schools were public or private organizations. Research Design This article is a legal analysis and historical case study. Findings Three recent and high-profile education cases in agencies and courts reflect the continuing breakdown of the public/private distinction in law and policy. Courts and agencies have hinged their decisions about the applicability of federal and state collective bargaining laws on this distinction and have grounded decisions about the basic constitutionality of state charter school laws in this distinction as well. However, there is little consistency in how the public/ private distinction has been applied in legal clashes between teacher unions and charter schools. Conclusion Our analysis underscores the limitations of the current debate over the public/ private nature of charter schools and teacher unions, particularly in the institutional settings of courts and agencies, because this debate is largely untethered from issues of teaching and learning. However, our analysis also suggests that the public or private nature of charter schools still appears “up for grabs” in the legal arena. As such, courts and agencies might offer reformers a useful venue compared to the legislative arena for influencing how the public/private distinction applies to charter schools.