Teacher research and school change: paradoxes,problems, and possibilities

This paper explores the link between teacher research and whole school change. As the authors investigated three US schools described as having close ties between teacher research and school culture, they discovered that moving teacher research out of individual classrooms and into entire schools is astonishingly difficult work filled with paradox and seeming-impossibilities. They offer six key paradoxes and conclude that when these paradoxes are managed, teacher research has the potential to affect both the culture of schools and the experience of teaching and learning for students and teachers alike.     

A Culture Framework for Education: Defining Quality Values and Their Impact in U.S. High Schools

In this article, we address the relatively unsubstantiated claim that there is an important relationship between organizational culture and the ability to successfully implement Quality Management (QM) programs in schools. This relationship has not been adequately explored in the literature due to the lack of a comprehensive framework for defining and measuring the values and beliefs at the root of specific types of organizational cultures. After presenting some background on organizational culture used in research to date, we outline the specific values and beliefs underlying QM practice in schools. These QM values and the accompanying propositions provide an important step toward future empirical research aimed at understanding the relationship between organizational culture, the implementation of systemic improvement initiatives like QM, and key organizational and individual outcomes. The context of our research is U.S. high schools, but the general principles could be applied to other educational settings as well. The results of our review suggest that some of the quality management culture dimensions are highly consistent with educational research on school improvement, while others are more controversial.     

Using Charter Schools to Alleviate Racial Exclusion in Rural America: An Innovative Idea or a Trojan Horse?

ABSTRACT

Racial segregation has remained a lasting legacy of rural schools in southern states. Our article explains a case where community leaders created a diverse charter school to change its historical practice of an isolated White private school and isolated African American public schools. We scan documents and literature related to this integration strategy to surface key themes when using rural charter schools to alter patterns of school segregation. First, we explain pressing issues in rural schools. Second, we describe how segregation and inequality have evolved in the South. Third, we explain research showing how charter schools maintain patterns of school segregation, but with exceptions and nuances in certain contexts. Fourth, we consider the benefits and tensions surrounding one rural charter school that offers an integrated educational program. Benefits range from societal to individual as the school fosters an environment where students are exposed to diverse educational experiences. Tensions include shifting power and funding dynamics and the possibility of using a good example to shepherd in less effective charter models elsewhere.     

Where the two shall meet: Exploring the relationship between teacher professional culture and student learning culture

This study focuses on the understudied connection between teachers’ and students’ perceptions of school culture. Utilizing a longitudinal sample of approximately 130,000 students and 9000 teachers in 225 New York City traditional public schools, we investigate how professional culture among teachers intersects with students’ collective emotional engagement—that is, the extent students together view the school environment as trusting and respectful, both between teachers and students and among students (i.e., student learning culture). We find that when the teachers report a strong collaborative culture, believe they have adequate materials, and feel physically safe, students report a stronger and more positive learning culture. Our results thus fill a gap in prior research on school change that has looked at either teacher or student perceptions of school culture but not the two together. Here, because our results demonstrate such a positive relationship between the collective views of teachers and the collective views of students regarding the environment in which these groups work, they suggest new avenues for research to examine how such subcultures within a school may, together, act as critical and interdependent levers for school change.     

How young children view mathematical representations: a study using eye-tracking technology

This paper reports on a study which investigated the support needs of pupils in mainstream school with a chronic illness or physical disability. The research was carried out in three local education authorities covering both rural and urban areas. In-depth, qualitative data were collected from 33 pupils in secondary school; 58 parents of primary and secondary school pupils; and 34 primary and secondary school teachers. Overall, the data from young people suggest variability in the support offered to pupils by teachers, even by teachers within the same school, and highlights the importance of teachers' awareness and understanding of special health needs. A number of areas where young people need support from teachers were identified, including: dealing with school absence; taking part in school activities; peer relationships; explaining the condition to other pupils; and having someone to talk to about health-related worries. Data from teachers and parents indicate that school staff need assistance with obtaining health-related information; ensuring health-related information is passed between and within schools; providing emotional support; the provision of medical care; and coordinating support for this group of pupils. The implications of the findings for teachers, schools and educational policy are discussed.     

Change from Within: an account of school‐based collaborative action research in an English secondary school

Abstract

The paper argues that for change in schools to occur, the active collaboration of significant actors within each institution is essential. Attempts to introduce change are more likely to succeed if they: recognise the interdependence of individual actors and their institutional settings; are conducted in language accessible to the participants; start with the work‐a‐day experiences and perceptions of individual actors, both staff and pupils; address the ‘social’ as well as the ‘material’ realities and barriers within the institution's unique culture. In an English secondary school with a tradition of school‐based in‐service activities, a two‐term collaboration between a Norwegian ethnographic researcher, the school's professional tutor, and a voluntary teacher action research group of staff, used a variety of approaches, to attempt to change classroom practice and perceptions about school ‘realities’. The article describes how the collaboration evolved and the highly personal nature of change from within based on self‐help. It presents an alternative to other attempts to bring about change, which are based on the withdrawal of actors from the setting which they are seeking to change.     

Fremde Blicke, eigene Wahrnehmungen

Schools share comparable curricula and follow regional and national institutional guidelines. In their materiality, however, the living spaces of schools bring forth a constant interaction on the part of its members with a given, distinctive space. In the process, school members shape and traditionalize a unique and distinctive culture in every school. Within their ongoing project, the authors seek to grasp the interpersonal and spatial complex constituted within a school culture. To document and understand the cultural specificity of individual schools, they have further developed qualitative research methods from the methodological repertoire of educational and cultural anthropological research. Building on the component of strangeness as a key component of ethnographic experience and insight, two methods were designed to complement the overall toolkit deployed within the project: guided walks and short term visits by individuals socialized in another culture. These methodological approaches promise new insights for research in schools as well as for other organizational and institutional cultures.     

Developing an interpretive learning framework for understanding action research projects

In contemporary educational settings, school leaders and teachers face increased accountability and pressure to raise student performance. Utilising professional learning to develop individual and collective capability is a common feature of these settings. In Australia, there is evidence that many schools have implemented action research to support the improvement agenda. A significant part of this agenda is providing evidence of outcomes arising from the action cycles. Indicators of progress and outcomes provide evidence of improvement to external audiences and afford insights and feedback for participants, which assist in developing further plans to address improvement. This paper outlines the development and use of an interpretive learning framework, incorporating a two-part reflection tool, developed to assess the quality of action research projects conducted by teacher researchers in schools. To do this, individual school case accounts were initially developed from analysis of action project data. A thematic analysis was then undertaken and the emergent themes, together with pertinent action research literature, informed the basis of the tool and its two integrated elements: an innovation matrix and rubric. Both elements permit understanding of project strengths and areas for further development within individual projects.     

Identity learning: the core process of educational change

The aim of this paper is to offer an additional perspective to the understanding of educational change processes by clarifying the significance of identity learning. Today’s innovations require changes in teachers’ professional identity. Identity learning involves a relation between social‐cognitive construction of new meanings and individual, emotional sense‐making of new experiences. This relationship between cognition and emotion asks for a strong learning environment: the question is whether schools provide these strong learning environments. To answer this question, the paper provides an overview of the existing knowledge about schools as contexts for teacher learning and change. It will become clear that the emotional side of the change process has been overlooked. A model for identity learning is presented, involving both meaning‐giving and sense‐making. Building on this model, it is discussed how school leaders can build strategies for the identity learning of teachers.     

Action research and the micropolitics in schools

This paper is based on the assumption that action research always affects the micropolitical balance characteristic of a certain school setting. The authors claim that micropolitics, that is the patterns of formal power and informal influence, has largely been neglected in the literature on action research in schools. This means that action researchers appear to be ‘micropolitically illiterate’. Firstly in the paper the authors present the concept of micropolitics and a model consisting of three arenas for understanding micropolitics in schools. Thereafter they exemplify the different aspects and expressions of micropolitics by referring to their own action research projects. The focus is particularly on initiative to and engagement with action research. Finally they reflect on some micropolitical dilemmas characteristic of action research and the contradictory role of the action researcher.     

Architectural design and the learning environment: A framework for school design research

This article develops a theoretical framework for studying how instructional space, teaching and learning are related in practice. It is argued that a school’s physical design can contribute to the quality of the learning environment, but several non-architectural factors also determine how well a given facility serves as a setting for teaching and learning. Supporting evidence for this argument is drawn from research on school climate and organisation, as well as from the author’s study of three open-plan high schools. Facilities design, educational practice, school culture, and student learning are found to be interrelated aspects of a school’s total learning environment.     

“It’s what we’ve always been doing.” Exploring tensions between school culture and change

In this article, we compare two North Carolina public schools that were simultaneously implementing reforms with seemingly different orientations, the A+ School Program and the ABCs of Public Education. We use the literature on caring and critiques of bureaucracy as a framework to look at the concurrent implementation of two educational reforms in North Carolina. We discuss data from a 5 year longitudinal study and critique our own assumptions as we develop portraits of schools that are both situated and complex. We do this to explore the question: In what ways does educational reform actually change educational practice? We develop a framework that articulates a critique of bureaucracy from the standpoint of caring, locate the culture of each school within the theoretical framework, and analyze how the culture of schools affects the implementation of educational reform. We conclude that reform is deeply cultural and that ethnographic methods are essential to understanding educational reform efforts.     

Integrating positive psychology into schools: Implications for practice

Traditional approaches for working with children and families in the schools focus on problems and disturbance. The concept of positive psychology as a way to change this focus is offered through exploration of its integration within school psychology. Specifically, the application of positive psychology can form the basis of preventive practices within the school setting. Examples of this application are provided within common roles of the school psychologist (consultation, direct work, educational assessment and planning). © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 41: 163–172, 2004.     

Policy enactments in the UK secondary school: examining policy,practice and school positioning

This paper presents a first attempt in an ongoing research study of the policy environments in four UK secondary schools to examine policy enactment, where ‘enactment’ refers to an understanding that policies are interpreted and ‘translated’ by diverse policy actors in the school environment, rather than simply implemented. The paper is divided into two parts. The first part presents an audit of the policies encountered in four case study schools in the south‐east of England. The second part looks at one current English government policy, namely personal learning and thinking skills, and how this is taken up in two of the case study schools. In this way, the paper not just explores why a policy is adopted but also illustrates the capacity for school‐based policy elaboration, where schools produce their own ‘take’ on policy, drawing on aspects of their culture or ethos, as well as on the situated necessities.     

The lay sister in educational history and memory

A tiered and hierarchical system of membership has in the past characterized many Catholic religious teaching orders.¹ In women's orders, those who undertook domestic duties were usually referred to as lay sisters. Those who undertook teaching and administrative duties were called choir nuns. Histories of Catholic education have tended to include scant references to the system and virtually no systematic exploration of its meaning in the culture of Catholic schools. The aim of this paper is to provide an exploration of the construction of lay sisters in a particular religious order and school setting. The exploration is informed by poststructuralist theory; in particular, notions of ‘discourse as practice’, the symbiotic and hierarchical relationship between the binary oppositions, individual consciousness as the site of the discursive struggle, and investment in discourse. These notions are drawn upon to explore the construction of the category of lay sister within educational histories, texts that pertain to the order in question and interviews undertaken with choir nuns, one lay sister, ex-students and ancillary staff. The narrative of one lay sister is explored in order to locate her understanding of the construction.     

Irish teachers,starting on a journey of data use for school self-evaluation

With much of the literature on school self-evaluation (SSE) stressing the importance of data use, this article explores how teachers in Irish post-primary schools are coming to terms with this new challenge. Since 2012, all schools in Ireland are required to engage in SSE for the purpose of improving student outcomes. For the first time, teachers and school leaders are being asked to systematically gather and analyse various types of data, devise improvement plans and implement improvements. Despite such demands, the compulsory education system in Ireland operates within a low-stakes accountability environment, with an absence of published school league tables and no consequences for poor school performance. It is also interesting to explore the introduction of a school improvement process that requires data as evidence for self-evaluation, but where very little data currently exists compared to other jurisdictions and where the discourse of data use in schools is relatively new.This article outlines the experience of 13 post-primary schools that were supported by the DCU Centre for Evaluation, Quality and Inspection to complete an SSE process, during which, each school gathered and analysed a range of data. This study is part of a larger action research project which explores various aspects of the implementation of SSE in schools, including models of support and continuing professional development for schools. This article looks specifically at the use of data by the schools involved. The key research questions ask: what data was gathered by the schools and what was the attitude to and experience of data-use among teachers? In doing so, this article explores some of the current research questions in relation to data use in schools. Overall, the findings indicate that schools gathered a range of data, which was mainly quantitative due to a focus on quantitative target setting. Despite a generally positive attitude to the usefulness of data and the skills learned, participants did not appear convinced that they would be involved in data use on an ongoing basis.     

Four slogans for cultural change: an evolving place-based,imaginative and ecological learning experience

This article focuses primarily on our research group’s year of preparation before the opening of a new K-7 publicly funded ecological ‘school’ for students aged 5–12. The article begins with a discussion of the reasons for seeking ways to change the values of a culture which fails to confront the consequences of its destructive practices, and for looking for a new approach to ecological education which sees the more-than-human world as an integral part of the learning situation. Five principles are introduced and explained—principles that have grown out of the evolving experience of the research group, and then four ‘slogans’, which have served to guide the ongoing work of development, are described and illustrated. As part of the purpose of this project to change social and cultural values, the change of values within the research group during its ongoing work is also explored.     

Research News

In secondary schools, subjects dominate teaching and also the organizational structures. Typically, subject department heads perform a middle-management role in secondary schools and often this role is taken-for-granted and unquestioned. In this article, we examine the impact on secondary school culture and the resulting changes to practice when the department middle-management structure and roles are open to revision. We investigate the experiences of two schools that are part of a longitudinal study on reculturing and restructuring in all secondary schools in one school district in Ontario, Canada. Our research indicates that structural change initiated by school level participants is a prerequisite to real change and that structural changes preceded cultural changes. However, it is the process of creating the new structures that is the key consideration as mandating an alternative might not be facilitative of cultural change. The primary research question guiding this article is: what impact does involvement in restructuring a middle-management organizational model have on the culture of a school and the change process experienced by staff members?     

NAECTE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE FEBRUARY 1999

Children whose native language is one other than English face formidable challenges when they enter English-dominant schools. The task of learning English, progressing in one's native language, and acculturating to the school environment is a complicated one that requires the child to develop many new skills. In the past, children who were English Language Learners (ELLs) encountered a school system that offered little support. New teachers who enter the workforce must now know how to help these children move successfully into the school setting and learn English at the same time. The purpose of this article is to describe the process of change that occurred during the first year of a professional development grant aimed at infusing English Language Learner (ELL) competencies within an early childhood higher education teacher preparation program. A process is described that helped the faculty move from an awareness level to one that embraced a system to integrate ELL skill development within their coursework.     

Incorporating physical activity‐based interventions in school psychology research and practice: A systematic review

Physical activity provides a myriad of well‐documented social‐emotional, behavioral, and academic benefits for youth. While research suggests that physical activity should be integrated within the school day to support the well‐being of students, an understanding of related empirical work within school psychology research and practice is unclear. School psychologists are well positioned to systematically incorporate physical activity within their intervention practices, particularly given their role and expertise in implementing and evaluating interventions. Authors engaged in a systematic review of 20 years (1998–2018) of physical activity intervention research within 10 peer‐reviewed school psychology journals and six school psychology‐related journals. Authors analyzed 22 studies to glean a comprehensive understanding of the literature base and highlight the ways in which physical activity can be incorporated to support school and student outcomes. Suggestions for research and practice in school psychology are discussed in light of the examined literature.