bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Neotracking in North Carolina: How High School Courses of Study Reproduce Race and Class-Based Stratification
Authors: Mickelson Roslyn Arlin , Everett Bobbie J. 
Published: February 2022

Background/Context This article describes neotracking, a new form of tracking in North Carolina that is the outgrowth of the state's reformed curricular standards, the High School Courses of Study Framework (COS). Neotracking combines older versions of rigid, comprehensive tracking with the newer, more flexible within-subject area curricular differentiation to form an overarching, multilevel framework for high school curricula. The Course of Study Framework requires 8th graders to select one of three Courses of Study prior to entering high school: Career Preparation, College/Tech Preparation, or College/University Preparation. Exceptional children are enrolled in Occupations, a fourth COS. The COS reform was instituted, in part, to facilitate reaching North Carolina's twin goals of equity and excellence for all students. Purpose The purposes of this article are to investigate if neotracking facilitates or hinders reaching these goals; if there is a relationship between district and school demographics, students’ racial backgrounds and their COS assignments; and if between- and within-school variations in COS placements result in greater or less race and social class stratification in opportunities to learn. Research Design Using aggregate data on COS enrollments among Class of 2005 high school seniors in the entire state of North Carolina and the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS), we evaluate COS enrollment patterns by student, school, and school system characteristics. Findings Results indicate that although a majority of students across North Carolina enroll in the College/University Prep COS, the variations in enrollment reflect the race, ethnic, and social class stratification in North Carolina. Students in affluent NC school districts are significantly more likely to enroll in the top COS than those living in less affluent school districts. COS enrollments vary by students’ race and ethnicity, too. Likewise, COS enrollments are related to the racial composition of a high school's student body. Conclusions Neotracking tends to reproduce race and social class stratification of opportunities to learn, resulting in the worst of both worlds: the majority of North Carolina's high school graduates may not be prepared either for higher education or for the workplace—one of the very problems that the accountability movement and the NC Course of Study program was intended to address.
Public and Catholic School Responses to IQ Testing in the Early 20th Century
Authors: Ryan Ann Marie , Stoskopf Alan 
Published: February 2022

Background Between 1910 and 1930, IQ tests were introduced to and institutionalized in American schools. IQ testing represents an important component of the first wave of test-driven educational reform in American history, but surprisingly, there is relatively little research focusing on public educators’ perception of these tests at the time, and even less so for Catholic educators. Focus of Study and Research Design In this article, we compare the public and Catholic school discourse that accompanied the introduction of IQ testing during these early and critical years. This historical study analyzes the discourse among educational researchers, administrators, and teachers in these two parallel educational settings through an examination of conference proceedings from the National Education Association and the Catholic Educational Association. These documents reveal the evolving attitudes toward the role of IQ testing in teaching and learning during the 1910s and 1920s. Our analysis demonstrates significant differences between these two groups in their responses to test-driven reform. We argue that these differences can be attributed to the contrasting ideological stances, institutional practices, and historical experiences of public and Catholic school educators. Conclusions We found a greater degree of questioning the purposes of IQ testing among Catholic educators due to a culture of skepticism toward modern notions. This allowed Catholic school educators to debate the validity and value of IQ testing much earlier and for a longer period than their public school counterparts. Critical reexaminations of IQ testing in public schools occurred well after the tests became a standard mechanism for placing students into learning tracks, making it considerably more difficult to advocate for undoing a practice that seemed to be addressing students’ needs. Whether more educational opportunities were really opening up for students because of IQ testing was not seriously questioned by most public school administrators during this era.
Literacy Makeover: Educational Research and the Public Interest on Prime Time
Authors: Lefstein Adam 
Published: February 2022

Background/Context Literacy education has always been hotly contested, and in England the debate has recently intensified in controversies over synthetic phonics teaching and the National Literacy Strategy. This article brings together four theoretical and policy contexts in studying this debate: (1) the long-standing and on-going “reading wars”; (2) theories of deliberative democracy, and the particular problems of how the mass media facilitate and/or suppress public discourse and the participation of academic experts in the public sphere; (3) the affordances and constraints of television news reporting, and in particular, the emergence of the makeover reality television genre as a model for current affairs reporting; and (4) the “evidence-based policy” movement in educational research. Purpose/Questions This article examines a prominent media event—the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) television program Newsnight's reports on synthetic phonics teaching—to reflect on the relationship between educational research, the media, and the treatment of educational problems in the public sphere. I ask: How are educational problems represented in the mass media? How do and should academic researchers participate in public debates about these problems? Research Design This interpretive study is based primarily on critical analysis of three news reports and was informed by rhetorical criticism, genre analysis, ethnographic research of the educational program represented, and theoretical concerns about the interaction of research, the mass media, and the public sphere. Key participants in the media event were also interviewed. Findings The prestigious news program has poorly served public debate by narrowing the problem of educational improvement to a question of teaching method; by promoting a “makeover” approach to school reform; and by casting the issue in the inherited yet inadequate terms of the traditional “reading wars” frame. The two educational researchers appearing on the program adopted different rhetorical strategies. One invoked his academic authority and acted as an epistemological gatekeeper. The second, who was deemed to be more successful, addressed viewers as consumers of educational goods and couched her academic concerns in everyday language. Conclusions The case study has implications for the way that educational researchers communicate their ideas to the general public. In particular, it raises questions about the desirability and likely effectiveness of the currently popular strategy to maximize research influence through the promotion of “evidence-based” policy.
Cultural Match or Culturally Suspect: How New Teachers of Color Negotiate Sociocultural Challenges in the Classroom
Authors: Achinstein Betty , Aguirre Julia 
Published: February 2022

Background The call to recruit and retain teachers of color in urban high-minority schools is based on an assumption of a cultural match with students. Yet new teachers of color may find themselves challenged by students with whom they are supposedly culturally matched. Although past research has examined recruitment, preservice, and veteran experiences of teachers of color, little research investigates the critical novice phase. Purpose The study examines the induction experiences of new teachers of color in urban high-minority schools as they negotiate challenges about cultural identifications. The research questions ask: How, if at all, do new teachers of color experience sociocultural challenges from students? If they do experience such challenges, how do the teachers respond to them in practice? Participants Fifteen new teachers of color working in urban high-minority secondary schools in different subject domains in California. The participants include Latino, African American, Asian, Filipino, and biracial new teachers. Research Design This article draws from cross-case analysis of case studies of new teachers of color on the theme of responses to sociocultural challenges. Data Collection/Analysis Data are from teacher interviews, classroom observations, and focus groups, reflecting 3 years in the teachers’ lives. We coded the data on three levels: preliminary coding of sociocultural challenges, pattern coding of responses to challenges, and cross-case analysis. Findings The study findings complicate the limited conception of cultural match currently dominating policy and research rhetoric about teachers of color. The authors highlight a surprising new form of “practice shock” that the novices of color experienced when students of color questioned the teachers’ cultural identifications, finding them culturally suspect. The study also challenges the prevailing description of novices’ response to practice shock as moving toward more control-focused teaching. Instead, most novices at times took up the challenges as teachable moments and opportunities to broaden student conceptions. Teachers drew on “emergent multicultural capital” to negotiate challenges in ways that shaped teaching practice. Conclusions The literature on novices, drawn from a White-dominant sample, has not included a discussion of sociocultural conflicts or the supports needed in induction years for teachers of color. The study revealed the lack of support that many of the teachers felt in relation to negotiating sociocultural issues. The study raises issues about targeted induction support for teachers of color that educators and researchers should consider as they seek to diversify the workforce.
Winning the Epistemological Struggle: Constructing a Cultural Model of Shared Authority in an Elementary Classroom
Authors: Crawford Teresa 
Published: February 2022

Background Constructivist epistemology offers an explanation of the nature of knowledge and how people learn that has emerged as a prominent approach endorsed by schools of teacher education. This perspective stands in direct contrast to the understanding of knowledge and learning based on behaviorist epistemology. These opposing epistemological views represent two paradigms of educational practice within which the role of authority is positioned very differently, each with its own effect on the way learning is understood. When teachers are asked to redefine the role they take in classrooms, they are essentially being asked to successfully manage a shift between paradigms. This task requires the abandonment of established ways of practice and the development of new strategies of action. Focus of Study This article addresses the following questions: (1) How does a teacher go about reorganizing participation patterns in ways that redefine the habits and modes of experience that are largely taken for granted in schools? (2) What are the results in terms of the distribution of authority and whose knowledge counts? (3) What are the effects on opportunities for learning when such paradigmatic shifts are accomplished? Specifically, the intent of this study is to identify the ways in which authority was a shared construct among members of a fourth/fifth-grade classroom, how members took up the role of authority, and the effect that it had on opportunities for learning. Research Design Three classroom episodes were theoretically sampled as key events from an ethnographic data set collected over one academic year. Using an ethnographic and critical discourse approach designed to study interaction in educational settings, each episode was analyzed to illustrate how authority and the situated processes and practices associated with it were socially constituted through the language of the classroom. Evidence was provided within each set of analyses to show that these episodes were not isolated instances, but reflected established patterns of practice among participants. Conclusions Overall, the findings serve as an example of how shared authority contributes to alternative ways of viewing knowledge and whose knowledge counts, and what it means to be a learner. Most important, this study demonstrates that when shared authority is a consistent classroom practice, what emerges over time is a cultural model within which students can begin to restructure their developing epistemological frames as they revise their notions of knowledge and ways of knowing.
Negotiating Mandates and Memory: Inside a Small Schools Network for Immigrant Youth
Authors: Jaffe-Walter Reva 
Published: February 2022

Context Networks are seen as important vehicles for educators’ professional development because they provide opportunities for educators to develop their teaching and leadership capacities and establish forums for educator resistance. Networks that also function as intermediary organizations provide spaces in which educators and network leaders can bridge and buffer the external demands of accountability policies. Focus of Study This article considers how the Internationals Network for Public Schools (Internationals Network) contends with the often incompatible external demands of current accountability policies, and the internal professional and pedagogical practices of their schools. First, this article explores the challenges that the International schools encounter as they negotiate commitments to inquiry-based learning and local decision making in the context of top-down mandates. Second, it discusses the history, practices, and internal challenges of the network. Finally, it provides examples of how the network acts as a bridge and buffer for the schools as it negotiates current external accountability pressures. Setting The International High Schools serve a population of recently arrived immigrant youth from over 90 countries, who speak over 50 languages and come from socioeconomic backgrounds that qualify most for free lunch. The International High Schools constitute a network of nine public high schools throughout New York City and one newly opened school in Oakland, California. The term network is used here to refer to both the nonprofit intermediary organization, Internationals Network, and the community of Internationals educators across schools. Research Design This case study engages Shore and Wright's (1997) approach to the anthropology of policy that involves exploring policies through various sites to understand how the discourses, provisions, and technologies of education policies are encountered, experienced, and negotiated by different members of a community. This article is based on participant observation of network meetings and retreats, and interviews with educators and leaders within the Internationals Network that took place over a period of 2 years. Findings This study finds that the role of the network is critical in the Internationals context because it creates spaces for fostering professional community and contending with the multiple external demands of accountability policies. This study also concludes that the institutional knowledge and historical memory that has grown over time within and between International schools is a significant resource for educators as they negotiate external challenges. Finally, this study calls for an accountability of policy itself in which policy makers consider how education policies are experienced by youth, educators, and schools.
Small Schools, Large Districts: Small-School Reform and New York City's Students
Authors: Iatarola Patrice , Schwartz Amy Ellen , Stiefel Leanna , Chellman Colin C. 
Published: February 2022

Background/Context High school reform is currently at the top of the education policy making agenda after years of stagnant achievement and persistent racial and income test score gaps. Although a number of reforms offer some promise of improving U.S. high schools, small schools have emerged as the favored reform model, especially in urban areas, garnering substantial financial investments from both the private and public sectors. In the decade following 1993, the number of high schools in New York City nearly doubled, as new “small” schools opened and large high schools were reorganized into smaller learning communities. The promise of small schools to improve academic engagement, school culture, and, ultimately, student performance has drawn many supporters. However, educators, policy makers, and researchers have raised concerns about the unintended consequences of these new small schools and the possibility that students “left behind” in large, established high schools are incurring negative impacts. Research Design Using 10 years (1993–2003) of data on New York City high schools, we examine the potential systemic effects of small schools that have been identified by critics and researchers. We describe whether small schools, as compared with larger schools, serve an easier-to-educate student body, receive more resources, use those resources differently, and have better outcomes. Further, we examine whether there have been changes in segregation and resource equity across the decade contemporaneous with small-school reform efforts. Findings/Results We find that, although small schools do have higher per-pupil expenditures, lower pupil-teacher ratios, and a smaller share of special education students than larger schools, their students are disproportionately limited English proficient and poor, and their incoming students have lower test scores. Thus, the evidence is mixed with respect to claims that small schools serve an easier-to-educate student body. Systemwide, we find that segregation is relatively stable, and although there have been some changes in the distribution of resources, they are relatively modest. Conclusions/Recommendations If small schools do eventually promote higher achievement (considering their student mix and other factors that differentiate them from larger schools), many more will be needed to house the 91.5% of the students still attending large schools. Otherwise, strategies that work for the vast majority of students who do not attend small schools will need to be identified and implemented.
Small-School Reform through the Lens of Complexity Theory: It's “Good to Think With”
Authors: Mcquillan Patrick J. 
Published: February 2022

Background/Context In light of the consistent underperformance of the comprehensive high school, districts across the country, mostly urban, have begun creating small schools, believing that they may offer a more personalized, supportive, and demanding learning environment. To explore this assumption, this article examines small-school reform through the lens of complexity theory, considering both the promise and problems associated with this approach to educational change. Purpose/Objective With complexity theory as an analytic lens, this article looks at extant research in the area of small-school reform. Specifically, the article draws on fundamental features of complexity theory (e.g., initial conditions, distributed authority, control parameters, fractals, and synergy) as a way to assess both the problems and promise of small-school reform. Intervention/Program/Practice This article focuses on the effects of small-school reform— specifically, the impact of small schools, defined in general as those that enroll between 300 and 450 students, have an explicit thematic focus, promote broad democratic participation for all community members, and attempt to personalize students’ education as a means to enhance educational achievement. Research Design Drawing on the lens of complexity theory, this article offers a secondary analysis of research that I and others have conducted. Employing specific features of complexity theory, this article offers an analysis of these studies from a new analytic perspective. Conclusions/Recommendations Overall, complexity theory is “good to think with.” It offers a systematic way to conceptualize and direct reform in a dynamic, nonlinear system. It is not precise, and certainly not predictive, but complexity theory—with its attention to changed interactions, initial conditions, distributed authority, control parameters, and fractals—offers a holistic framework for understanding the systemic nature of educational reform. Too often, efforts at educational change have been atheoretical, ignoring the multiple, interrelated, and interacting elements of our schools and school systems. Viewing the educational system as composed of isolated and discrete structures, such efforts assumed that complicated phenomena could be understood by analyzing their constituent parts, when in fact the sum of the whole was greater, and more complex, than the sum of the individual parts. Consequently, reforms modified one or two elements in a system apart from related elements, assuming that these actions would produce the intended outcome through a linear, cause-and-effect relationship. But often, the status quo endured. Rather than assuming such predictable and linear interactions among discrete elements in an educational system, complexity theory draws attention to the evolving interrelationships among system elements at various levels of the system. It offers a means to analyze emerging patterns and trends to illuminate how the disparate system parts are, or are not, working together.
Care of the Self in a Context of Accountability
Authors: Gunzenhauser Michael G. 
Published: February 2022

Background/Context This article is a part of a larger philosophical and empirical project by the author and collaborators to understand the ways in which high-stakes accountability policy fosters normalizing educational practices and concomitant resistance by educators and students. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study In this article, the author explores how Michel Foucault's notion of the “care of the self” might provide a conceptual basis for resistance to the normalizing practices and disciplinary power associated with high-stakes accountability and resulting educational practices. Research Design The author employs a philosophical analysis of key concepts associated with normalization, the care of the self, the educated self, and high-stakes accountability. The article is presented as a philosophical argument. Conclusions/Recommendations The author suggests that to shift attention from limited notions of the self toward expansive and creative possibilities for constituting the self requires clarity on what we mean by the educated self in a context of accountability. It also necessitates a new professional ethics characterized by critical reflection and intersubjective engagement.