Cynthia E. Coburn

Collective Sensemaking about Reading: How Teachers Mediate Reading Policy in Their Professional Communities

Recent research on the relationship between instructional policy and classroom practice suggests that teachers interpret, adapt, and even transform policies as they put them into place. This paper extends this line of research, using an in-depth case study of one California elementary school to examine the processes by which teachers construct and reconstruct multiple policy messages about reading instruction in the context of their professional communities. Drawing primarily on institutional and sensemaking theory, this paper puts forth a model of collective sensemaking that focuses on the ways teachers co-construct understandings of policy messages, make decisions about which messages to pursue in their classrooms, and negotiate the technical and practical details of implementation in conversations with their colleagues. It also argues that the nature and structure of formal networks and informal alliances among teachers shape the process, with implications for ways in which messages from the policy environment influence classroom practice. Finally, the paper explores the role school leaders play in shaping the sensemaking process.

Rethinking Scale: Moving Beyond Numbers to Deep and Lasting Change

The issue of “scale” is a key challenge for school reform, yet it remains undertheorized in the literature. Definitions of scale have traditionally restricted its scope, focusing on the expanding number of schools reached by a reform. Such definitions mask the complex challenges of reaching out broadly while simultaneously cultivating the depth of change necessary to support and sustain consequential change. This article draws on a review of theoretical and empirical literature on scale, relevant research on reform implementation, and original research to synthesize and articulate a more multidimensional conceptualization. I develop a conception of scale that has four interrelated dimensions: depth, sustainability, spread, and shift in reform ownership. I then suggest implications of this conceptualization for reform strategy and research design.

District policy and teachers' social networks.

Policy makers increasingly include provisions aimed at fostering professional community as part of reform initiatives. Yet little is known about the impact of policy on teachers’ professional relations in schools. Drawing theoretically from social capital theory and methodologically from qualitative social network analysis, this article explores how district policies influence teachers’ social networks in eight elementary schools in two districts involved in the scale-up of mathematics curriculum. It is argued that policy affects whom teachers seek out for discussion of mathematics instruction but that differences in policy provisions lead to variations in the nature and quality of interactions. Furthermore, school leaders mediate district policy, thereby influencing these patterns of interaction. By uncovering the dynamics by which policy influences teachers’ social networks, this article contributes to understandings of the factors that foster the development of social capital. It also uncovers opportunities for intervention for those designing policy initiatives to support implementation of instructional innovations.

Shaping Teacher Sensemaking: School Leaders and the Enactment of Reading Policy:

A growing body of research has emphasized the social processes by which teachers adapt and transform policy as they enact it in their classrooms. Yet little attention has been paid to the role of school leaders in this process. Drawing on sociological theories of sensemaking, this article investigates how principals in two California elementary schools influenced teacher learning about and enactment of changing reading policy. It argues that principals influence teachers’ enactment by shaping access to policy ideas, participating in the social process of interpretation and adaptation, and creating substantively different conditions for teacher learning in schools. These actions, in turn, are influenced by principals’ understandings about reading instruction and teacher learning.

Framing the Problem of Reading Instruction: Using Frame Analysis to Uncover the Microprocesses of Policy Implementation

Policy problems do not exist as social fact awaiting discovery. Rather, they are constructed as policymakers and constituents interpret a particular aspect of the social world as problematic. How a policy problem is framed is important because it assigns responsibility and creates rationales that authorize some policy solutions and not others. This article brings together sense-making theory and frame analysis to understand the dynamics of problem framing during policy implementation. Data were derived from a yearlong ethnographic study of one school’s response to the California Reading Initiative. Results showed that the school’s response depended on how school staff constructed their understanding of the relevant problem to be solved. The problem framing process was iterative and contested, shaped by authority relations and mediated by teachers’ social networks. Ultimately, it proved important for motivating and coordinating action, reshaping authority relations, and influencing teachers’ beliefs and practices.

Evidence-Based Decision Making in School District Central Offices: Toward a Policy and Research Agenda

District central office administrators increasingly face policy demands to use “evidence” in their decision making. These demands up the ante on education policy researchers and policy makers to better understand what evidence use in district central offices entails and the conditions that may support it. To that end, the authors conducted a comprehensive review of research literature on evidence use in district central offices, finding that the process of evidence use is complex, spanning multiple subactivities and requiring administrators to make sense of evidence and its implications for central office operations. These activities have significant political dimensions and involve the use of “local knowledge” as a key evidence source. Evidence use is shaped by features of the evidence itself and various organizational and institutional factors. Policy shapes evidence use, but other factors mediate its impact. The authors conclude with implications for future policy and research on central office evidence-based decision making.

Conceptions of evidence use in school districts: Mapping the terrain

Current policies place unprecedented demands on districts to use evidence to guide their educational improvement efforts. How districts respond is likely to be influenced by how individuals in the district conceptualize what it means to use evidence in their ongoing work. This study draws on sensemaking and institutional theory to investigate how individuals in one urban school district conceive of evidence‐based practice. The study develops grounded typologies that describe the ways that individuals conceptualize high‐quality evidence, appropriate evidence use, and high‐quality research. It then explains variation in conceptions, pointing to the ways organizational responsibilities and reform history shape how individuals come to understand evidence‐based practice. The article closes by suggesting implications for district response to federal policy demands for evidence‐based practice.

Research on Data Use: A Framework and Analysis

One of the central lessons from research on data use in schools and school districts is that assessments, student tests, and other forms of data are only as good as how they are used. But what influences how they are used? This relatively straightforward question turns out to be fairly complex to answer. Data use implicates a number of processes, conditions, and contexts. It involves interpretive processes, as using data requires that the user interpret the data and construct implications for next steps. It implicates social and organizational conditions, since the data use unfolds in the context of a multileveled organizational system. And, because data can be a source of power, particularly in the current accountability environment, data use also involves power relations. In this article, we put forward a framework for understanding the phenomenon of data use in the context of data use interventions. We draw on existing research and theory to identify key dimensions of data use that we should attend to and offer a way to understand how these dimensions might interact. In so doing, we provide guidance for studying the pathways between data use interventions and various outcomes of value.

The Role of Nonsystem Actors in the Relationship Between Policy and Practice: The Case of Reading Instruction in California

Studies of the relationship between policy and practice typically focus on the formal policy system alone. Yet, the public policy system does not exist in isolation. A host of nonsystem actors promote, translate, and transform policy ideas as they carry them to teachers. This study draws on neoinstitutional theories of organization to investigate the role of nonsystem actors in the relationship between policy and teachers’ classroom practice. A cross-case, historical design was used to investigate how teachers in two California elementary schools responded to changes in state reading policy from 1983 to 1999. The way in which teachers responded depended in part on the nature of their connections to policy messages, which varied substantially across teachers and across policy initiatives. Policy messages from nonsystem actors were more consequential for teachers’ classroom practices. Teachers’ connections to nonsystem actors were influenced by the interrelationship between system and nonsystem actors as policy ideas emerged, diffused, and were implemented over time.

The Practice of Data Use: An Introduction

Data use, or drawing on and interacting with information in the course of decision making, has emerged as a key strategy intended to foster improvement in public schools and universities alike. A range of federal and state policies promotes it, most notably No Child Left Behind (Honig and Coburn 2008) and, more recently, the America Reinvestment and Recovery Act (US Department of Education 2009) and the Statewide Longitudinal Data System Grant Program (see http://nces.ed.gov/program/slds/index.asp). There are many foundation-funded initiatives to encourage it, including the national work of the Stupski Foundation and the Gates Foundation, which recently pledged over 12 million dollars to support investment in data systems and their implementation. In higher education, data use is increasingly required as part of accreditation processes (Council for Higher Education Accreditation 2006; Ewell 2008; Western Association for Schools and Colleges 2009). School districts across the country are investing in data systems to create enhanced access to data. They are also embarking on training to encourage teachers, principals, and district leaders to integrate attention to data in their ongoing practice (Datnow et al. 2007; Kerr et al. 2006; Marsh et al. 2006). There is a great deal of optimism on the part of those who promote data use, as well as on the part of many practitioners. Yet, in spite of all of the policy and reform activity focused on data use in education, empirical research on data use continues to be weak. In particular, we still have shockingly little research on what happens when individuals interact with data in their workplace settings. In this special issue, we present a series of articles that focus on uncovering and investigating the practice of data use: what actually happens when people in schools, school districts, and higher education interact with data in the