Showing papers in "Harvard Educational Review in 1996"
TL;DR: In this article, Elmore addresses the role of school organizat ion and incentive structures in thwarting large-scale adoption of in novative practices close to the "core" of educational practice.
Abstract: How can good educational practice move be~ond pockets of excellence to reach a much greater proportion of students and educators? While many children and young adults in school districts and communities around the countrt have long benefited from the tremendous accomplishments of successful teachers, schools, and programs, replicating this success on a larger scale has proven to be a diJficult and vexing issue. In this article, Richard Elmore addresses this problem by anal’tzing the role of school organ izat ion and incentive structures in thwarting large-scale adoption of in novative practices close to the “core” of educational practice. Elm ore then reviews evidence Jrom two attempts cit large-scale school reform in the past — the progressive movement and the
1,127 citations
TL;DR: McKee and Wong as mentioned in this paper argue for a revision of code-based and individual learner-based views of second-language learning based on a two-year qualitative study of adolescent Chinese-immigrant students conducted in California in the early 1990s, in which the authors and their research associates followed four Mandarin-speaking students through seventh and eighth grades, periodically interviewing them and assessing their English-language development.
Abstract: In this article, Sandra McKay and Sau-Ling Wong argue for a revision of code-based and individual learner-based views of second-language learning. Their position is based on a two-year qualitative study of adolescent Chinese-immigrant students conducted in California in the early 1990s, in which the authors and their research associates followed four Mandarin-speaking students through seventh and eighth grades, periodically interviewing them and assessing their English-language development. In discussing their findings, McKay and Wong establish a contextualist perspective that foregrounds interrelations of discourse and power in the learner's social environment. The authors identify mutually interacting multiple discourses to which the students were subjected, but of which they were also subjects, and trace the students' negotiations of dynamic, sometimes contradictory, multiple identities. Adopting B. N. Peirce's concept of investment, McKay and Wong relate these discourses and identities to the students...
661 citations
TL;DR: Villenas as discussed by the authors describes her experience of being caught in the midst of oppressive discourses of "othering" during her work as a Chicana ethnographer in a rural North Carolina Latino community.
Abstract: In this article, Sofia Villenas describes her experience of being caught in the midst of oppressive discourses of "othering" during her work as a Chicana ethnographer in a rural North Carolina Latino community. While Villenas was focusing on how to reform her relationship with the Latino community as "privileged" ethnographer, she missed the process by which she was being co-opted by the dominant English-speaking community to legitimate their discourse of Latino family education and child-rearing practices as "problem." By engaging in this discourse, she found herself complicit in the manipulation of her own identities and participating in her own colonization an marginalization. Through her story, Villenas recontextualizes theories about the multiplicity of identities of the researcher. She problematizes the "we" in the literature of qualitative researchers who analyze their race, class and gender privileges. Villenas challenges dominate-culture education ethnographers to move beyond the researcher-as-co...
480 citations
TL;DR: Lipsky and Gartner as discussed by the authors argue that inclusion provides all students with a quality education that is both individual and integrated, citing recent court cases that support their contention that all students can and should be educated in the same classroom.
Abstract: In this article, Dorothy Kerzner Lipsky and Alan Gartner discuss recent developments in special education and measure them against their inclusionary model. This article expands and updates their 1987 HER article, "Beyond Special Education: Toward a Quality System for All Students," a review of the implementation of PL 94-142, which, though the basis for placement in the least restrictive environment, in fact provided legal support for the development of separate educational systems for students with special needs. Here, Lipsky and Gartner continue their argument that the special education model must not separate those with special needs. They argue that inclusion provides all students with a quality education that is both individual and integrated, citing recent court cases that support their contention that all students can and should be educated in the same classroom. Lipsky and Gartner conclude by showing how their inclusionary model adds to the school restructuring debate, which until now has exclude...
288 citations
TL;DR: This paper examined the role of elite parents and how their political and cultural capital enables them to influence and resist efforts to dismantle or lessen tracking in their children's schools, identifying four strategies employed by elite parents to undermine and co-opt reform initiatives designed to alter existing tracking structures.
Abstract: In this article, Amy Stuart Wells and Irene Serna examine the political struggles associated with detracking reform. Drawing on their three-year study of ten racially and socioeconomically mixed schools that are implementing detracking reform, the authors take us beyond the school walls to better understand the broad social forces that influence detracking reform. They focus specifically on the role of elite parents and how their political and cultural capital enables them to influence and resist efforts to dismantle or lessen tracking in their children's schools. Wells and Serna identify four strategies employed by elite parents to undermine and co-opt reform initiatives designed to alter existing tracking structures. By framing elite parents' actions within the literature on elites and cultural capital, the authors provide a deeper understanding of the barriers educators face in their efforts to detrack schools.
279 citations
TL;DR: Mosteller et al. as discussed by the authors explored the nature of the empirical evidence that can inform school leaders' key decisions about how to organize students within schools: Should students be placed in heterogeneous classes or tracked classes? What is the impact of class size on student learning? How does it vary?
Abstract: In this article, Frederick Mosteller, Richard J. Light and Jason A. Sachs explore the nature of the empirical evidence that can inform school leaders' key decisions about how to organize students within schools: Should students be placed in heterogeneous classes or tracked classes? What is the impact of class size on student learning? How does it vary? Since tracking (or skill grouping, as the authors prefer to call it) is widely used in U.S. schools, the authors expected to find a wealth of evidence to support the efficacy of the practice. Surprisingly, they found only a handful of well-designed studies exploring the academic benefits of tracking, and of these, the results were equivocal. With regard to class size, the authors describe the Tennessee class size study, using it to illustrate that large, long-term, randomized controlled field trials can be carried out successfully in education. The Tennessee study demonstrates convincingly that student achievement continues when the students move to regular...
199 citations
TL;DR: Patti Lather as discussed by the authors argues the non-innocence of transparent theories of language, and explores the relationship between academic theoretic authority and feminist practices of writing, a relationship that contributes to social change.
Abstract: In this article, Patti Lather addresses the call for accessibility and plain speaking within academic writing. She argues the non-innocence of transparent theories of language, and explores the relationship between academic theoretic authority and feminist practices of writing, a relationship that contributes to social change. In the first section, Lather focuses on the politics of language. She grounds her arguments in feminist and postmodern theory, including the ideas of Derrida, Spivak, Benjamin, and Nietzsche, particularly Nietzche's concept of a text that constructs an audience "with ears to hear." In the second part of the article, Lather reflects on her own experimental approach to writing up research. She discusses the process of creating her book, Troubling Angels, a multiply coded text on women, AIDS, and angels. Lather opens up possibilities for displaying complexities through her experiments with multivoiced text that moves through different registers and that speaks to multiple audiences.
167 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that this view of language as providing a vehicle for thought only provides part of the story, and propose an integrated approach to research on teacher knowledge that uses both views to develop a fuller understanding of teachers in relation to social context.
Abstract: In this article, Donald Freeman traces how the field of research on what teachers know and how they act in classrooms, including studies of teacher thinking, teacher learning, and teacher socialization, has assumed that words can represent thought, and have thus focused on language as a way "into" understanding the inner worlds of teachers. Freeman argues that this view of language as providing a vehicle for thought — what he terms a representational view of language data — only provides part of the story. Drawing on concepts from linguistic theory, he argues that a presentational view of language data is necessary as well if we are to more fully understand the concealed relationships and social context that language embodies. He proposes an integrated approach to research on teacher knowledge that uses both views to develop a fuller understanding of teachers in relation to social context, the ways in which their thinking changes and evolves, and the role that the research process plays in shaping the dat...
117 citations
TL;DR: Wilson as discussed by the authors examines identity development from an Indigenous American perspective, grounded in the understanding that all aspects of identity (including sexuality, race and gender) are interconnected, and offers personal story as a step toward reconstructing and strengthening our understanding of identity.
Abstract: Psychological theorists have typically treated sexual and racial identity as discrete and independent developmental pathways. While this simplifying division may make it easier to generate theory, it may also make it less likely that the resulting theory will describe people's real-life developmental experiences. In this article, Alex Wilson examines identity development from an Indigenous American perspective, grounded in the understanding that all aspects of identity (including sexuality, race and gender) are interconnected. Many lesbian, gay and bisexual Indigenous Americans use the term "two-spirit" to describe themselves. This term is drawn from a traditional worldview that affirms the inseparability of the experience of their sexuality from the experience of their culture and community. How can this self-awareness and revisioning of identity inform developmental theory? The author offers personal story as a step toward reconstructing and strengthening our understanding of identity.
110 citations
TL;DR: Welner and Oakes as mentioned in this paper argue that top-down mandates can play an indispensable role in initiating detracking in schools and districts where such reforms are otherwise highly unlikely.
Abstract: In this article, Kevin Welner and Jeannie Oakes assert that educators and education advocates have developed a greater awareness of the harmful effects and pedagogical indefensibility of tracking. They also note that detracking advocates are increasingly giving litigation serious consideration in their search for policy tools to promote reform. The authors argue that courts can play an important role in advancing detracking, and that educational researchers are vital to these efforts. They survey four recent cases and discuss the presentations made by the researchers who served as experts on the cases. Then, based on their review of case law, including these recent cases, as well as their review of desegregation literature, Welner and Oakes conclude that these top-down mandates, while unlikely to achieve all of their intended goals, can play an indispensable role in initiating detracking in schools and districts where such reforms are otherwise highly unlikely.
97 citations
TL;DR: Honeychurch as discussed by the authors argues that lesbian and gay male researchers need to challenge the ways in which the exclusionary epistemologies, methodologies and texts of a heterosexually constructed social order have denied the possibilities of non-heterosexual knowledges, practice, and texts.
Abstract: Can gay male and lesbian academies conduct queer research within the heterosexual epistemological frameworks prevalent in the academy? In this article, Kenn Gardner Honeychurch argues that lesbian and gay male researchers need to challenge the ways in which the exclusionary epistemologies, methodologies, and texts of a heterosexually constructed social order have denied the possibilities of non-heterosexual knowledges, practice, and texts. He points the way toward the construction of a new epistemology, and in the process shifts the territories of research by advocating that research be designed, conducted, and analyzed from a "queer position." By taking a "queered position" in social research, the researcher challenges the dominant worldview in what may be known, who may be the knower, and how knowledge has come to be generated and circulated. In this way, lesbian and gay male researchers who declare their sexualities and study a subject of homosexualities contribute to more expansive cultural discourses.
TL;DR: Blount as discussed by the authors argues that explanations for shifts in employment patterns of women educators for most of the twentieth century have overlooked the impact of homophobia and gender role stereotypes, and analyzes school policies and practices, events, and publications from the turn of the century to the 1970s to uncover the practice of sexually stigmatizing women who defied narrowly defined gender roles.
Abstract: Drawing on historical data, Jackie Blount argues in this article that explanations for shifts in employment patterns of women educators for most of the twentieth century have overlooked the impact of homophobia and gender role stereotypes. As Blount notes, although women teachers, more than half of whom were single, outnumbered men by more than two to one in the early 1900's, this trend shifted radically in the fifteen years following World War II, when the percentage of single women in the teaching profession fell to half its pre-war levels. Similarly, the number of women superintendents also declined rapidly. Blount analyzes school policies and practices, events, and publications from the turn of the century to the 1970s to uncover the practice of sexually stigmatizing women who defied narrowly defined gender roles. She describes events and theories that led to increasing gender role polarization after World War II that pressured women into assuming gender-specific roles, attitudes, and appearances, and...
TL;DR: In this paper, coauthors Polly Ulichny, a researcher, and Wendy Schoener, a teacher, respond to the question of how qualitative research in education incorporate the voices of both the researched and the researcher.
Abstract: How can qualitative research in education incorporate the voices of both the researched and the researcher? In this article, coauthors Polly Ulichny, a researcher, and Wendy Schoener, a teacher, respond to this question. In alternating sections throughout the article, they present two distinct interpretations of the teaching and learning that occurred in adult English as a Second Language classroom and of their developing relationship as collaborators. Together, Ulichny and Schoener come to realize that interdependence extends beyond agreeing on a research focus to include mutual collaboration in all phases of a research project.
TL;DR: In this paper, Anne Haas Dyson examines the social and ideological processes undergirding children's use of media symbols, especially the superhero, as material for story construction and social affiliation.
Abstract: In this article, Anne Haas Dyson examines the social and ideological processes undergirding children's use of media symbols, especially the superhero, as material for story construction and social affiliation. Dyson draws upon an ethnographic project in an urban school serving children from different racial and socioeconomic groups. The project focused on children's participation in composing and in dramatic play activities within the official (teacher-governed) and unofficial (peer-governed) school worlds. Dyson uses project data to illustrate children's use of cultural symbols as material for story construction and social affiliation. She then shows, using children's diverse responses to an unofficial performance of a superhero story, how children negotiate with text and each other. Finally, she argues for a literacy curriculum in which cultural symbols are open to playful appropriation and critical examination.
TL;DR: This article explored how children's experiences of race, even in the "best" schools, often go unnoticed by faculty, and how students' questions about race go unaddressed, concluding that unless educators consciously create the safe spaces for both children and adults to explore honestly the implications of race and culture, discussions of race that might be opened by children's seemingly inconsequential questions are not pursued.
Abstract: In this article, Kathe Jervis explores how children's experiences of race, even in the "best" schools, often go unnoticed by faculty, and how students' questions about race go unaddressed. As she documented the initial year of a New York City public middle school, Jervis did not intend to focus her observations on issues of race. However, in retrospect, she found children's questions about race and ethnicity were prominent in her field notes, and educator's responses significantly absent. Jervis suggests that even in schools that seek to create diverse and integrated school communities, silence about race prevails. She argues that unless educators consciously create the safe spaces for both children and adults to explore honestly the implications of race, culture, and ethnicity, discussions of race that might be opened by children's seemingly inconsequential questions are not pursued. Jervis concludes that, although discussions about race are difficult, educators — especially White educators — need to foc...
TL;DR: Powell and Steelman as discussed by the authors found that more than 80 percent of the variation in average state SAT scores could be attributed to the percentage of students in a state taking the test.
Abstract: Twelve years ago, Brian Powell and Lala Carr Steelman analyzed state SAT scores in a landmark article in the Harvard Educational Review. At the time, politicians and the media, among others, had been using raw state SAT scores to make inferences about the relative quality of education among the U.S. states. Powell and Steelman, however, found that more than 80 percent of the variation in average state SAT scores could be attributed to the percentage of students in a state taking the test — in other words, in states where the percentage of students taking the SAT was low, state SAT averages tended to be high because that test-taking population included a high proportion of high-achieving students, and vice-versa. Since the percentage of students taking the SAT was not necessarily linked to the quality of education in a given state, Powell and Steelman cautioned against using unadjusted state SAT averages to evaluate educational quality.In this article, Powell and Steelman revisit the subject of state SAT s...
TL;DR: Athanases as discussed by the authors describes the responses of a multiethnic class of tenth graders to a lesson dealing with gay and lesbian experiences, analyzing the essay that introduced the issue and the students' responses to it.
Abstract: In this article, Steven Athanases describes the responses of a multiethnic class of tenth graders to a lesson dealing with gay and lesbian experiences. The teacher of a course entitled "The Ethnic Experience in Literature" chose to introduce her class to Brian McNaught's essay "Dear Anita: Late Night Thoughts of an Irish Catholic Homosexual." Athanases describes the teacher's goals for the course, her curriculum, and student activities to support her goals. He then describes how the lesson itself unfolded, analyzing the essay that introduced the issue and the students' responses to it. Athanases shows how a careful selection of text, a classroom climate that welcomes thoughtful discussion of diversity, and sensitive treatment of gay and lesbian concerns can deepen students' understanding about identities and oppression, which, in the context of an ethnic literature curriculum, can help students develop a deeper understanding of the common ground that oppressed groups divided by difference share.
TL;DR: This paper explored elementary school teachers' thoughts and attitudes about sexual orientation in relation to children's sexuality and parents' sexual orientation and examined the connections between teachers' reflections of their own childhood experience and their current attitudes towards sexual orientation.
Abstract: Written collaboratively by five educators from the Bank Street College of Education, this article focuses on sexual orientation and early childhood education, an issue that is often overlooked. The authors describe research projects they have undertaken to explore elementary school teachers' thoughts and attitudes about sexual orientation in relation to children's sexuality and parents' sexual orientation. Building form there, they examine the connections between teachers' reflections of their own childhood experience and their current attitudes towards sexual orientation. They then move from exploring adult conceptions of family to examining those of children. Finally, the authors describe the process of transformation at Bank Street College as the institution struggles to include gay and lesbian lives in the early childhood and graduate school curriculum. Throughout the article, the authors continually connect their proactive stance for inclusion around sexual orientation with their larger vision of a m...
TL;DR: Rensenbrink as discussed by the authors explored the question of what difference it makes to be a lesbian teacher and for her students, and made connections between Rosemary's identity as a lesbian and the fact that her classroom represented a safe place where students feel comfortable questioning the culture and taking an active stand.
Abstract: In this article, Carla Rensenbrink explores the question of what difference it makes to be a lesbian teacher herself and for her students. Rensenbrink focuses her exploration by telling the story of Rosemary Trowbridge, a fifth-grade teacher who comes out as a lesbian to her students and colleagues. Drawing on interviews and visits to Rosemary's classroom, the author notes ways in which Rosemary's lesbianism does make a positive difference in the classroom. She makes connections between Rosemary's identity as a lesbian and the fact that her classroom represents a safe place where students feel comfortable questioning the culture and taking an active stand.
TL;DR: In this paper, the Toronto Board of Education's Triangle Program, a program designed for lesbian and gay youth who are at risk of dropping out of high school, is criticised for not acknowledging how issues of sexual orientation interact with issues of racial identity.
Abstract: In this article, Kathryn Snider critiques the Toronto Board of Education's Triangle Program, a program designed for lesbian and gay youth who are at risk of dropping out of high school. She questions whether this program, which provides support for students coping with issues of sexual identity, can really work for lesbian and gay youth of color unless it also includes strategies that acknowledge how issues of sexual orientation interact with issues of racial identity. She locates this critique within the larger context of the Board's approach to multiculturalism and diversity in the schools. Rather than implementing a program that further marginalizes and isolates lesbian and gay students by removing them from mainstream education, Snider suggests, schools must make fundamental changes that work to eliminate racism and homophobia within the dominant educational structure.
TL;DR: In the fall of 1995, the Harvard Educational Review Editorial Board members had the opportunity to hear philosopher and scholar Dr. Cornel West speak at the Harvard Graduate School of Education as mentioned in this paper and they enthusiastically reported back to us that in his talk, West, who is Professor of Afro-American Studies and of the Philosophy of Religion at Harvard, drew explicit and repeated connections between White supremacy, patriarchy, and heterosexism.
Abstract: In the fall of 1995, deep in the midst of shaping and developing this Special Issue, several Harvard Educational Review Editorial Board members had the opportunity to hear philosopher and scholar Dr. Cornel West speak at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. They enthusiastically reported back to us that in his talk, West, who is Professor of Afro-American Studies and of the Philosophy of Religion at Harvard, drew explicit and repeated connections between White supremacy, patriarchy, and heterosexism. At the time, we were searching for an article that would illuminate the deep ties between different forms of oppression in the United States. We envisioned an article that would serve as a bridge from the diverse topics represented within this Special Issue to broad systems of power, privilege, and domination. Inspired by Dr. West's articulation of the above issues, as well as by his focus on democratic struggles for liberation, we asked him if he would be willing to be interviewed for our Special Issue.
TL;DR: The Moral Part of Pluralism as the Plural Part of Moral Education as mentioned in this paper was the first work to address the question of what moral perspective could effectively ground commitments to deep cultural pluralism.
Abstract: After the publication of “The Moral Part of Pluralism as the Plural Part of Moral Education” (Chapter 5), I became increasingly interested in why the question that motivated that paper was not getting more attention in the literature and in public discussions. That question concerned what moral perspective could effectively ground commitments to deep cultural pluralism.
TL;DR: Wendy Ormiston and her senior classmates at a small liberal arts college asked the school's president to invite transgender author Leslie Feinberg to deliver their commencement address, and they were shocked and angry when that request was denied because the administration considered Feinberg's message in appropriate for a commencement speech as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Wendy Ormiston and her senior classmates at a small liberal arts college asked the school's president to invite transgender author Leslie Feinberg to deliver their commencement address. They were shocked and angry when that request was denied because the administration considered Feinberg's message in appropriate for a commencement speech. In this article, Ormiston relates how she joined with other classmates to protest the president's decision and take action to bring Feinberg to campus to speak at their commencement. Ormiston weaves her story of activism and coalition-building around the particular issues of gender theory and transgender activism that she learned from Feinberg's book Stone Butch Blues, which had been assigned in one of her courses. In this way she connects her own struggle with the larger themes of gender bias and equity.
TL;DR: Townsand Price-Spratlen as mentioned in this paper discusses the role that Audre Lorde, W. E. B. DuBois, and Marlon Riggs have played in forming his orientation towards "praxis" as a queer scholar of African descent.
Abstract: In this article, Townsand Price-Spratlen discusses the role that Audre Lorde, W. E. B. DuBois, and Marlon Riggs have played in forming his orientation towards "praxis" as a queer scholar of African descent. He describes his praxis formation as "negotiating legacies," "an introspective process in which we attempt to learn the lessons of history by seeking to understand the contexts and contributions of our ancestors." Using Lorde's The Cancer Journals, DuBois's The Souls of Black Folk, and Riggs's Tongues Untied, the author illustrates how each of these figures contributed to various phases of his personal and professional development. Through this article, Price-Spratlen provides an example to others of how they may negotiate their own individual legacies.