Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Challenging Instruction for "All Students": Policy, Practitioners, and Practice

Contents:

Author Info

  • James P. Spillane
Registered author(s):

    Abstract

    "All students" has become a prominent theme in recent instructional reforms."All students" has become a prominent theme in recent instructional reforms. Professional associations as well as federal agencies and state governments propose a fundamental refocusing of what counts as worthwhile knowledge in classrooms, arguing that all students' encounters with school subjects should not be confined to memorizing basic facts, skills, and procedures. They argue that school work should also involve understanding the central concepts, ideas, and ways of knowing literature, mathematics, science, and other subjects. These proposals would require substantial change in the content and pedagogy of the K - 12 curriculum if every American child, especially those who have been marginalized historically, has an opportunity to master more rigorous academic content. The quotations that open this paper suggest that local educators may not see things in quite the same way as school reformers. In the study reported here, I investigated the local implementation of state policy initiatives that propose more intellectually rigorous academic content for all students. After situating my work in the state instructional policy environment in South Carolina, I describe my theoretical perspective and research methodology. I then explore local educators' responses to state policy proposals in relation to their teaching of students who have traditionally not succeeded in school. I analyze local educators? beliefs about, and knowledge of, ?disadvantaged? students, learning, teaching, and classroom management and consider ways in which this web of beliefs and knowledge was influential in the decisions these local educators made about implementing state policy. In light of this analysis, I consider the challenges involved in implementing policies that propose "all" students should do more intellectually challenging work. The intent of this work is to contribute to a modest, but growing, literature that explores the policy implementation process from local enactors? practices and perspectives (McLaughlin, 1987, 1990; Schwille, et al. 1983; EEPA, 1990). My purpose is to contribute to this literature by analyzing the implementation process in schools that enroll predominantly poor students and students of color. My central argument is this: To understand local educators? implementation of policies that challenge conventional wisdom about educating poor students, it is necessary to consider enactors? knowledge and convictions about students in relation to their beliefs about teaching, learning, and classroom management.

    Download Info

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below under "Related research" whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Bibliographic Info

    Paper provided by Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research in its series JCPR Working Papers with number 253.

    as in new window
    Length:
    Date of creation: 08 Jan 2002
    Date of revision:
    Handle: RePEc:wop:jopovw:253

    Contact details of provider:
    Postal: Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies, 1155 E. 60th Street Chicago, IL 60637
    Phone: 773-702-0472
    Email:
    Web page: http://www.jcpr.org/wp/ByDate.html
    More information through EDIRC

    Related research

    Keywords:

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    References

    No references listed on IDEAS
    You can help add them by filling out this form.

    Citations

    Lists

    This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wop:jopovw:253

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Thomas Krichel).

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

    If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.