Tensions in Teacher Development and Community: Variations on a Recurring School Reform Theme

2012 ◽  
Vol 114 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cheryl J. Craig
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Middle School ◽  
School Reform ◽  
Narrative Inquiry ◽  
Teacher Knowledge ◽  
School Context ◽  
The United States ◽  
Coarse Grained ◽  
School Site ◽  
Teacher Community

Background/Context Conducted in the fourth-largest urban center in the United States, this research depicts how different reform initiatives were introduced to one middle school context over the decade from 1999 to 2009. Purposes/Objectives/Research Question/Focus of Study The study focuses on teachers’ experiences of three reform endeavors and how tensions in teacher knowledge and community developed as a consequence of each. The study's overall purpose is to contribute the often-overlooked teacher perspective to the curriculum, teaching, and school reform literatures. Setting The setting for the research is a middle school located in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the United States. The campus's social narrative history parallels the city's development. The school currently serves some of America's richest and poorest youth. Population/Participants/Subjects Nineteen educators, including several main teacher participants as well as some supporting teacher and administrator participants, contributed anonymously to the narrative account. Research Design Narrative inquiry is the research method used to excavate a story serial that emerged during the longitudinal research study. Four interpretive devices—broadening, burrowing, storying and restorying, and fictionalization—aided in the comparison and contrast of three eruptions in teacher community that occurred as a result of the different reform emphases. Presented in story serial form, these eruptions suggest a rhythm to school reform. The article ends with a discussion of the value of narrative inquiry in studying phenomena at the interstices of teacher knowledge, teacher community, school milieu, and organized school reform. Connections between fine- and coarse-grained inquiries are made, and the notion of stories traveling from one school site to another is also probed. Finally, the idea of a perennial educational problem being made public and visible through an innovative research approach is taken up, along with some suggestions concerning how school reform could more productively be lived.

Thinking Birth Differently

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 23-46
Author(s):  
Alison Happel-Parkins ◽  
Katharina A. Azim
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Narrative Inquiry ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
The United States ◽  
Metropolitan City ◽  
First Child ◽  
Susan Bordo ◽  
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

This feminist narrative inquiry discusses the experiences of two women in a metropolitan city in the Midsouth of the United States who each intended to have a drug- and intervention-free childbirth for the birth of their first child. This data came from a larger study that included narratives from six participants. Using Alecia Y. Jackson and Lisa A. Mazzei's concept of “plugging in,” we read and analyzed the data through three feminist theorists: Sara Ahmed, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, and Susan Bordo. This allowed us to push the limits of intelligibility of women and their narratives, challenging the dominant, medicalized discourses prevalent in the current cultural context of the United States.

Educating Students with Chronic Illness

2020 ◽  
pp. 578-597
Author(s):  
Margaret Tseng ◽  
Rebecca Magee Pluta
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Middle School ◽  
Chronic Illness ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
The United States ◽  
Middle School Student ◽  
Physical Location ◽  
Available Technology ◽  
The Impact

Students with chronic illness have historically received an education via home and hospital instruction during their absences. This instruction is significantly inferior in both quality and quantity when compared with the educational experience of students able to attend school. This case study details the experiences of a middle school student in the mid-Atlantic Region of the United States whose chronic illness presented unique and multifaceted challenges that could not be met by her district's inflexible policies and disconnected resources. This case illuminates the need for schools to break away from the traditional administrative special education mold when responding to the challenges of educating frequently absent students with chronic illness. The educational Civil Rights of these students can be preserved, however, by utilizing affordable, available technology to minimize the impact of frequently missed classes, provide continuity of instruction and allow educational access regardless of a student's physical location during their absences from school.

School Reform: Equal Expectations on an Uneven Playing Field

2002 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 317-336 ◽  
Author(s):  
Genniver C. Bell ◽  
Enid B. Jones ◽  
Joseph F. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
School Reform ◽  
Educational Reform ◽  
Educational System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Educational Process ◽  
Playing Field ◽  
Comprehensive View ◽  
Real Change

Educational reform efforts in the United States have produced little sustainable results. Reformers are quick to impose standards and to label schools and the students they serve. Yet, they rarely acknowledge the serious inequities and inequalities found throughout the educational process. This article seeks to present a more comprehensive view of the collective disparities found in the American educational system, with the idea that “leaving no child behind” requires a serious attempt at leveling the playing field. Inherent in this presentation is the notion that reform efforts that produce real change must begin with public policy that acknowledges and removes the faults and errors of the system.

The Intersection of Perceptions and Experiences of Bullying by Race and Ethnicity among Middle School Students in the United States

2015 ◽  
Vol 36 (10) ◽  
pp. 807-822 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadine M. Connell ◽  
Sarah El Sayed ◽  
Jennifer M. Reingle Gonzalez ◽  
Natalie M. Schell-Busey
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Middle School ◽  
Middle School Students ◽  
Race And Ethnicity ◽  
The United States ◽  
School Students

scholarly journals Gangs in School: Exploring the Experiences of Gang-Involved Youth

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dena C. Carson ◽  
Finn-Aage Esbensen
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Qualitative Analysis ◽  
Visual Cues ◽  
School Context ◽  
The United States ◽  
Personal Knowledge ◽  
School Life ◽  
Gang Involvement ◽  
Semistructured Interviews ◽  
The Impact

This study explores three questions: (1) What are the criteria that current or formerly gang-involved youth use to identify the presence of gangs in school? (2) Do gang activities produce incivilities and victimizations within the school context? and (3) What is the impact of a gang presence on youth in the school, specifically with respect to the presence or absence of fear? We examine the influence of gangs in schools through qualitative analysis of 180 in-depth semistructured interviews. The sample includes youth with varying levels of gang involvement who attended schools across the United States. Youth relied on personal knowledge and visual cues to identify gangs in their school. Despite the occurrence of vicarious victimizations and incivilities at the hands of gang youth, respondents indicated that gangs did not impact their school life. These youth frequently used normalization and delimitation processes to deal with gangs in their school.

scholarly journals University and Professor Practices to Support DACA and Undocumented Students: DACA Student Experiences, Teacher Knowledge, and University Actions

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 346
Author(s):  
Jenny Banh ◽  
Jelena Radovic-Fanta
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
United States ◽  
Teacher Knowledge ◽  
Undocumented Students ◽  
The United States ◽  
Student Experiences ◽  
Promising Practices ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
College Life ◽  
States Immigration

The United States immigration policy Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) which protects some individuals from deportation was enacted in 2012, phased out in 2017 and is now under court challenges. There are still thousands of DACA students currently in higher education. The article highlights promising practices that professors and universities can put in place to support DACA students in the United States. Several semi-structured interviews were conducted with DACA students and Dream Center Directors in California universities to gauge students’ barriers and bridges to their higher education success. DACA students articulated public policy suggestions that universities and professors can immediately enact and have tangible results. Three themes were revealed in the interview data: the need for teacher knowledge, diversity of DACA student experiences, and for actions. These were explained as (1) knowledge of student’s lives, and, conversely, students’ access to information necessary for navigating college life; (2) the diversity of students’ life stories and experiences of trauma suffered during and after DACA rescinding decision; and (3) actions that should be taken by the faculty, staff, and the university community that would help students succeed academically.

Schools as Reform Incubators

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
William T. Pink
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
School Reform ◽  
Standardized Testing ◽  
School Change ◽  
Public Policies ◽  
Active Role ◽  
The United States ◽  
Preparation Programs ◽  
Reform Strategies ◽  
Alternative Vision

From a comprehensive analysis of the extant educational literature on school change, it is evident that two activities are essential for the successful reform of schools in the United States. While the focus in this article will be on the programmatic shifts implemented in U.S. schools, the danger of exporting these same failed programs to other countries also will be noted. The first requirement is a systematic critique of the major school reform strategies that have been employed since the 1960s (e.g., the Effective Schools model, standardized testing and school accountability, the standards movement, privatization of schools, charter schools, and virtual/cyber schools). The major conclusion of this critique is that each of these reform strategies has done little to alter the connection between schooling and their production of labor for the maintenance of Western capitalism: beginning in the early 1970s an increasingly strong case has been made that the design and goal of U.S. schooling has been driven by the need to produce an endless supply of differentiated workers to sustain the U.S. economy. Moreover, while both equality and equity have entered the conversations about school reform during this period, it becomes evident that the relative position of both poor students and students of color, with respect to their more affluent White peers, has remained at best unchanged. The second essential requirement is the exploration of an alternative vision for school reform that is grounded in a perspective of equity, both in schools and in the society. Beginning with the question “What would schools look like, and what would be the role of the teacher in a school that was committed to maximizing equity?” such an alternative vision is built on the concept of developing broadly informed students able to play both a thoughtful and active role in shaping the society in which they live, rather than be trained to fit into a society shaped by the interests of capital. From this exploration of the literature emerges a new role for both schools and teachers that repositions schooling as an incubator for social change, with equity as a primary goal. Also addressed is the importance of inequitable economic and public policies that work to systematically inhibit student learning. A key element in forging a successful transition to schools functioning as incubators for reform is the ability of preservice teacher preparation programs to graduate new teachers capable of doing this intellectual work, and for current classroom teachers to engage in professional development to achieve the same end What is clear from a reading of this literature is that without this re-visioning and subsequent reform of schooling, together with a reform of key public policies, we must face the high probability of the rapid implosion of the public school system and the inevitable escalation of class warfare in the United States.

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