Christy Wessel-Powell, Beth Anne Buchholz and Cassie J. Brownell
The purpose of this paper is to theorize teacher agency as enacted through a P/policymaking lens in three elementary classrooms. Big-P Policies are formal, top-down school reform…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to theorize teacher agency as enacted through a P/policymaking lens in three elementary classrooms. Big-P Policies are formal, top-down school reform policies legislated, created, implemented and regulated by national, state and local governments. Yet, Big-P policies are not the only policies enacted in literacies classrooms. Rather, little-p policies or teachers’ local, personal and creative enactments of their values and expertise are also in play in daily classroom decisions. Little p-policies are teachers doing their best in response to their students and school contexts.
Design/methodology/approach
Adapting elements of discursive analysis, this interpretive inquiry is designed to examine textual artifacts, situated alongside classroom events and particular local practices, to explicate what teachers’ policymaking enactments regarding time and curriculum look like across three distinct contexts. Using three elementary classrooms as examples, this paper provides analytic snapshots illustrating teachers’ policymaking to solve problems of practice posed by state and school policies for curriculum, and for use of time at school.
Findings
The findings suggest that teachers ration (aliz)ed use of time in ways that enacted personal politics, to prioritize children’s personal growth and well-being alongside teachers’ values, even when use of time became “inefficient.” An artifact from three focal classrooms illustrates particular practices – scheduling, connecting and modeling – teachers leveraged to enact little p-policy. Teachers’ little p-policy enactment is teacher agency, used to disrupt temporal and curricular policies.
Originality/value
This framing is valuable because little-p policymaking works to disrupt and negotiate temporal and curricular mandates imposed on classrooms from the outside.
Details
Keywords
This qualitative study aims to use the conceptual lens of figured worlds to explore how a 10-year-old child positions her identity and participates in systems of power through her…
Abstract
Purpose
This qualitative study aims to use the conceptual lens of figured worlds to explore how a 10-year-old child positions her identity and participates in systems of power through her engagement in writing.
Design/methodology/approach
Data was generated across an 18-week ethnographic case study in one fourth-grade classroom located in the Midwestern USA.
Findings
Findings highlight how children’s writing reflected both an adherence to and a rejection of the mandated curriculum as well as other aspects of the figured world of schooling. In turn, this study offers suggestions about how, by reading children’s writing with a figured world lens, their identities and positionings may become more apparent.
Originality/value
This study challenges teachers and researchers to read beyond “the basics” emphasized in the mandated curriculum to better attend to the ways children navigate standardized curricula, negotiate identities and positioning and use writing to (re)inscribe identities and positionings.
Details
Keywords
Michel P. Basister and Maria Luisa S. Valenzuela
Different strategies for expanding access to education of children with special needs (CSNs) are being implemented in the Philippines. With the existing definitions, policies, and…
Abstract
Different strategies for expanding access to education of children with special needs (CSNs) are being implemented in the Philippines. With the existing definitions, policies, and programs for the country's inclusive education, collaboration between stakeholders will serve as a vital component in achieving a more inclusive environment. Specifically, the journey of CSNs toward full inclusion will depend on the available professional services, easy access to these services, and the mechanisms to address conflicts that may arise in accessing these services. This chapter provides a critical reflection on the impact of existing policies, culture, and practices on the collaborations of professionals and other stakeholders of inclusive education. Additionally, a model of collaboration is proposed in this chapter based on the stakeholders' experiences, accomplishments, issues, and challenges in providing inclusive education to CSNs including the future perspectives on ensuring a more inclusive environment.