Inter-organizational Collaboration: A Strategy to Improve Diversity and College Access for Underrepresented Minority Students

This efforts of the Center for Research on Educational Equity, Access, and Teaching Excellence (CREATE) at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) to improve the opportunity that low income students of color to attend colleges and universities by assisting public schools in the San Diego California adapt the principles developed at the highly successful Preuss School on the UCSD campus to their local circumstances are treated as an example of organizational learning. CREATE, operating as an “educational field station,” serves as a mediator between the Preuss School and local schools that have expressed an interest in building a college-going culture of learning in order to improve the education of underrepresented minority students

Extending Educational Reform

In an effort to improve student achievement, thousands of US schools have adopted school reform models devised externally by universities and other organizations. Such models have been successful in improving individual schools or groups of schools, but what happens when educational reform attempts to extend from one school to many? Through qualitative data from several studies, this book explores what happens when school reform 'goes to scale'. Topics covered include: *why and how schools are adopting reforms *the influence of the local context and wider constraints on the implementation of reform *teachers and principals as change agents in schools *the evolution of reform design teams *the implementation, sustainability and expiration of reform, and its impact on educational change Each chapter concludes with guidelines for policy and practice. This book will be of interest to educational leaders and staff developers, educational researchers and policy makers, in the US and internationally

Deweyan tools for inquiry and the epistemological context of critical pedagogy

This article develops the notion of resistance as articulated in the literature of critical pedagogy as being both culturally sponsored and cognitively manifested. To do so, the authors draw upon John Dewey\u27s conception of tools for inquiry. Dewey provides a way to conceptualize student resistance not as a form of willful disputation, but instead as a function of socialization into cultural models of thought that actively truncate inquiry. In other words, resistance can be construed as the cognitive and emotive dimensions of the ongoing failure of institutions to provide ideas that help individuals both recognize social problems and imagine possible solutions. Focusing on Dewey\u27s epistemological framework, specifically tools for inquiry, provides a way to grasp this problem. It also affords some innovative solutions; for instance, it helps conceive of possible links between the regular curriculum and the study of specific social justice issues, a relationship that is often under-examined. The aims of critical pedagogy depend upon students developing dexterity with the conceptual tools they use to make meaning of the evidence they confront; these are background skills that the regular curriculum can be made to serve even outside social justice-focused curricula. Furthermore, the article concludes that because such inquiry involves the exploration and potential revision of students\u27 world-ordering beliefs, developing flexibility in how one thinks may be better achieved within academic subjects and topics that are not so intimately connected to students\u27 current social lives, especially where students may be directly implicated

Mehan, Hugh, Structuring School Structure, Harvard Educational Review , 48 (February, 1978), 32-64.

Describes a process of constitutive ethnography for studying the processes and outcomes of structuring classroom lessons, testing, and counseling sessions; presented with examples

Le contructivisme social en psychologie et en sociologie

"Le constructivisme social" est un thème commun aux études cognitives en sociologie et en psychologie. Le constructivisme social postule que les structures sociales et les structures cognitives se composent et se situent dans l'interaction entre les gens. En sociologie cette perspective constructiviste remonte à la phénoménologie constitutive; actuellement, elle se développe avec t'ethnométhodologie. De récentes études qui analysent les structures sociales du monde quotidien en interaction sont commentées. On fait état d'un développement parallèle en psychologie, à partir du "structuralisme constructiviste" de Piaget, jusqu'à l'école soviétique socio-historique. On commente aussi de récentes études qui situent dans l'interaction les structures cognitives et leurs processus. Enfin, on note la convergence entre la sociologie et la psychologie, entre les sciences sociales occidentale et soviétique."Social constructivism" is identified as a theme that is common to cognitive studies in sociology and psychology. Social constructivism is the principle that social structures and cognitive structures are composed and reside in the interaction between people. The origins and development of this constructivist theme in sociology are traced through constitutive phenomenology into early ethnomethodology. Recent studies that analyze the social structures of the everyday world in the interaction are reviewed. A parallel development is traced in psychology from Piaget's "constructivist structuralism" through Vygotsky's Soviet Socio-Historical School. Recent studies that locate cognitive structures and processes in the interaction are reviewed. The convergence between sociology and psychology, Western and Soviet social science on the issue of interaction is noted.El "constructivismo social" se identifica como un tema comiín a los estudios cognoscitivos en sociología y psicología. El constructivismo social es un principio según el cual las estructuras sociales y las estructuras cognoscitivas se componen y residen en la interacción entre la gente. Los orígenes y el desarrollo de esta temática constructivista en sociología, remontan a los comienzos de la etnometodología a través la fenomenología constitutiva. Se hace una recensio'n de los estudios recientes que analizan las estructuras sociales cotidianas y su interacción. Se encuentra un desarrollo paralelo entre la psicología "estructuralista constructivista" de Piaget y la escuela socio-histórica soviética de Vygotsky. Se hace una reeenstón de los estudios recientes que localizan las estructuras cognoscitivas y los procesos en interacción. Se recalca la convergencia, por un lado entre la sociología y la psicología y por otro lado, entre las ciencias sociales occidentales y soviéticas, en lo que respecta al tema de la interacción

Sociological Foundations Supporting the Study of Cultural diversity

In order to understand thee barriers to educational equality faced by lw-income cultural and linguistic minority youth, we need to undertand the ways in which social class an dethnicity interact with language and culture. This paper examines various aspects of te relationship between students' cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic backgound and thier unequal access to educational opportunities.Cultural capitial. Familiets that occupy differen places in society deploy different resources in school. The school rewards the language and socialization practices of upper- and middle-income families while systematically devaluing those of low-income families.Classroom discourse. Students who enter school from linguistic and ethnic minority families often have had no experience at home with the special features of classroom discourse. This presents them with a special challenge; thier academic success depends on thier acquiring this special code.School sorting practices. Students from low-income and linguistic minority backgrounds are often placed in low-ability groups and slow (general or vocational education) academic tracks, where they do not receive the same quantity or quality of instruction as students in high-ability groups or college bound tracks.Educatiors and researchers are calling for change. Any attempts at cuuricular innovation, however, mut take into account the "culture of the school." The history of educational reform shows that attempts to change schools from the top down have met with resistance form educaitonal practitioners. To be successful, innovations must take the everyday working life of teachers into consideration. This means relationship between old practices and new ideas

Restructuring and Reculturing Schools to Provide Students with Multiple Pathways to College and Career

The prevailing way of conceptualizing multiple pathways to college and career segregates or “tracks” students into college prep or voc-ed curriculum. Recent research and public commentary have shown that tracking neither provides students with equal educational opportunities nor serves the needs of employers for a well-educated workforce. Recognizing that tracked schools are both inequitable and ineffective, educators have been exploring alternatives to tracking practices since the 1980s.This paper focuses on one attempt to redefine and restructure the academic curriculum, pedagogy, and course structures of California schools into “multiple pathways” to college and career. The Preuss School at UCSD “detracks” its curriculum, i.e., establishes high instructional standards and presents rigorous curriculum to all students while varying the supports available to enable all students to meet high the school’s academic standards.Detracking high schools can provide students with access to multiple pathways when they complete high school. By gaining access to a rigorous academic curriculum, they are well prepared for both college and career. This approach requires a school district to assemble a portfolio of schools, each with a different theme or focus (such as performing arts, science academies, interactive technology, etc.). When a district assembles a portfolio of theme-based schools, each of them rigorous, then students (and their parents) are enabled to choose from an array of possibilities. This form of curriculum differentiation aligns well with the democratic project of providing equal opportunities for all students to learn and to have significant life choices when they complete high school

Sociological Foundations Supporting the Study of Cultural diversity

In order to understand thee barriers to educational equality faced by lw-income cultural and linguistic minority youth, we need to undertand the ways in which social class an dethnicity interact with language and culture. This paper examines various aspects of te relationship between students' cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic backgound and thier unequal access to educational opportunities.Cultural capitial. Familiets that occupy differen places in society deploy different resources in school. The school rewards the language and socialization practices of upper- and middle-income families while systematically devaluing those of low-income families.Classroom discourse. Students who enter school from linguistic and ethnic minority families often have had no experience at home with the special features of classroom discourse. This presents them with a special challenge; thier academic success depends on thier acquiring this special code.School sorting practices. Students from low-income and linguistic minority backgrounds are often placed in low-ability groups and slow (general or vocational education) academic tracks, where they do not receive the same quantity or quality of instruction as students in high-ability groups or college bound tracks.Educatiors and researchers are calling for change. Any attempts at cuuricular innovation, however, mut take into account the "culture of the school." The history of educational reform shows that attempts to change schools from the top down have met with resistance form educaitonal practitioners. To be successful, innovations must take the everyday working life of teachers into consideration. This means relationship between old practices and new ideas