Joseph J. Ferrare

Mapping the terrain: Teach For America, charter school reform, and corporate sponsorship

In this paper we illustrate the relationships between Teach For America (TFA) and federal charter school reform to interrogate how policy decisions are shaped by networks of individuals, organizations, and private corporations. We use policy network analysis to create a visual representation of TFA’s key role in developing and connecting personnel, political support, and financial backing for charter reform. Next we examine how the networks unfold at a local level by zooming in on a case study of New Orleans. By mapping out these connections, we hope to provide a foundation for further investigation of how this network affects policies.

Instructional Systems of Practice: A Multidimensional Analysis of Math and Science Undergraduate Course Planning and Classroom Teaching.

Descriptions of faculty practice that illuminate nuances of how course planning and classroom instruction occur in specific contexts are important to inform pedagogical interventions. The study reported in this article draws on systems-of-practice theory to focus on the dynamic interplay among actors, artifacts, and tasks that constrains activities such as course planning and constitutes other activities, such as classroom instruction. This qualitative case study of faculty teaching in math and science disciplines at 3 research universities is based on interview and classroom observation data (n = 57 instructors) that are analyzed using causal network and social network analysis techniques. Results indicate that course syllabi are important organizational artifacts that are created by curriculum committees, inherited from previous instructors, and shaped by consideration of the sequential acquisition of knowledge. Faculty perceived that although course syllabi delimit the type and temporal sequencing of material for faculty, they are generally free to teach how they like. Observation data reveal discipline-specific configurations in frequently used teaching methods, cognitive engagements, and the use of instructional technology. These results also demonstrate that conceptualizing teaching solely as the use of particular methods (e.g., lecture) obscures subtle features of practice. Using the approach outlined in this article, instructional designers can obtain insights into meanings and practices that can be used to design and implement locally attuned reform initiatives.

Spatializing critical education: progress and cautions

Recently critical scholars have shown a renewed interest in spatial relations in educational contexts. In this essay we use selections from Gulson and Symess edited volume Spatial theories of education as a point of departure to examine what spatial analysis can contribute to the critical education traditions. We argue that, when done thoughtfully, spatial theory can shed new light on existing and taken-for-granted social relations in education, though we raise cautions regarding particular forms of its application. In the process we connect the more recent attempts to ‘spatialize’ critical education to the ways in which space has been dealt with in past moments of critical work. Finally, we conclude by advocating for the expansion of the types of methodological tools used by critical theorists of spatial relations and of critical projects more broadly.

Field theory and educational practice: Bourdieu and the pedagogic qualities of local field positions in educational contexts

Bourdieu’s version of field theory has had an impressive impact on the ways that sociologists of education conceptualize educational practices. These accounts tend to focus on the varying levels of ontological complicity established between students’ cultural dispositions and educational institutions. In this paper, the wisdom of these accounts is acknowledged but it is also suggested that Bourdieu’s field theory does not go far enough to detail the ways that positions in local educational fields embody pedagogic qualities and action trajectories. Drawing on insights from social psychology and relational sociology, a field theory for local educational action is outlined that more adequately accounts for the ways that students and educators directly experience and act upon curricular and pedagogic qualities in educational settings. An empirical example is then offered of the authors’ claims within the context of curricular tracking/streaming, and the article concludes by considering the practical and political consequences of this theoretical shift.

The Duality of Courses and Students: A Field-theoretic Analysis of Secondary School Course-taking

Significant attention has been given to how students become grouped or “tracked” through the courses they share in common. However, this work has yet to be connected to a targeted analysis of the way in which courses are grouped with other courses through the students they co-enroll. Drawing on insights from field theory, the author examines this duality with special attention to the social organization of courses and the curricular discourses they contain. Multidimensional scaling and multiple correspondence analysis are used to analyze course-taking data for a cohort of students (2005-2009, n = 494) at a comprehensive high school in the midwestern United States. The results illustrate a “field” of courses that are distributed vertically according to a principle of status that opposes different forms of curricular discourse and horizontally according to oppositions between symbolic and material forms, artistic and technical skills, and the “inner” work of the household to the “outer” work of certain occupations. While the vertical dimension of courses is associated with a racial and social class hierarchy of students, the horizontal dimension passes through a division of the sexes.

Grassroots educational organizing in an era of venture capital

As this special issue of Critical Studies in Education goes to press, more than 25,000 teachers and education professionals in Chicago suspended a 9-day strike mounted by the Chicago Teachers Union – the union’s first strike in 25 years. The strike began on 10 September 2012, and it shut down every public school in the city. Many of the concerns that prompted the strike are at the heart of this special issue on ‘grassroots educational organizing in an era of venture capital’. In an editorial published several days after the strike ended, activist education scholar Pauline Lipman (2012) explained:

Cultural Models of Teaching and Learning in Math and Science: Exploring the Intersections of Culture, Cognition, and Pedagogical Situations

While researchers have examined how disciplinary and departmental cultures influence instructional practices in higher education, there has yet to be an examination of this relationship at the embodied level of culture. In this article we utilize cultural models theory to examine the theories of student learning and teaching practice espoused and enacted by undergraduate math and science faculty. To examine these cultural models of teaching and learning we use thematic analysis, clustering, scaling, and graphing techniques to analyze interview transcripts and classroom observation data among 41 undergraduate math and science instructors across three universities in the United States. We then focus on three individual cases of instructors to examine how their cultural models interact with other cultural models, existing forms of teaching practice, and features of instructional environments to shape their teaching practices. The article concludes by setting forth an agenda for future research and arguing that the “cultures of teaching” in these disciplines should not only be perceived as barriers but also opportunities for meaningful pedagogical innovation.

The Power of the Network: Teach for America's Impact on the Deregulation of Teacher Education.

In this article, we illustrate the relationships between Teach For America (TFA) and the deregulation of university-based teacher education programs. We use policy network analysis to create a visual representation of TFA’s connections to individuals, organizations, and private corporations who are working to shift the way teachers are prepared. In doing this, we identify human capital dependents, jurisdictional challengers, and legislative supporters who are working independently and collectively to shift our national focus from teacher education to teacher training for those teachers serving students in marginalized communities.

Converging on Choice: The Interstate Flow of Foundation Dollars to Charter School Organizations

A growing body of research has been documenting the pivotal role that philanthropic funding plays in advancing state and local charter school reform. However, there is little understanding of the geographic flow of these funding patterns and the market, policy, and organizational conditions that have concentrated funding in some clusters of states more than others. To address this limitation, we use descriptive cartography and quadratic assignment procedure (QAP) regression to analyze longitudinal funding data from 15 philanthropic foundations along with data related to the contexts of the states where grant recipients reside. We find that between 2009 and 2014, foundations were increasingly converging their funding flows to charter school organizations in select clusters of states as they shifted the concentration of funds away from individual charter schools to charter management organizations (CMOs) and advocacy organizations. A substantial portion of the variation in this interstate convergent grant funding was associated with previously established funding flows. However, the local market and policy contexts of states and certain forms of evidence of charter school effectiveness were also associated with interstate convergent funding. These findings point to the potential ways public policy and research can shape the flow of private money into public education and yet illuminate substantial geographic inequality in the ways these funds are distributed.

Rescaling Education: Reconstructions of Scale in President Reagan's 1983 State of the Union Address.

This article presents a discourse analysis of President Ronald Reagan’s 1983 State of the Union Address. Focusing on questions of scale, the article considers how and with what effects Reagan reconstructs education as a local, state, national and global endeavour. It is argued that by situating education in a competitive global economy, Reagan justifies his project of rolling back social/educational programmes and placing the USA’s institutions more squarely in service to capitalist growth. Furthermore, it is argued that Reagan’s efforts to rescale education and society contribute to a New Right project of re-establishing a white-dominated racial order in the USA and around the world. Although Reagan did not prioritise education in his domestic agenda, his statements on education advanced the New Right’s project of rescaling society and set the terms of debate in education for subsequent presidents.