American Educational Research Journal 52卷1期

1. Districts’ Responses to Demographic Change: Making Sense of Race, Class, and Immigration in Political and Organizational Context

Author: Erica O. Turner

Source: American Educational Research Journal 52.1 (Feb. 2015): 4-39.

Abstract: Many U.S. public school systems now face three large demographic shifts: rising poverty, the growing number of students from immigrant families, and increasing populations of students of color. Yet, we know little about how district policymakers react to these important changes or indeed the factors that consistently shape their policymaking. Drawing on interpretative policy analysis, the politics of education, and in-depth interviews with 37 school board members, superintendents, and district administrators across two school districts, I argue that racial meaning emerged as central in both districts’ policymaking processes as political and organizational contexts interacted to shape district leaders’ meaning-making and policy responses. Yet, leaders’ meaning-making and policy responses obscured systematic inequalities in students’ lives, including those stemming from race, immigration, and poverty. I conclude with implications of this analysis for understanding school district policymaking and how to improve schooling for students of color, students in poverty, and immigrant students.

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2. “Don’t Leave Us Behind”: The Importance of Mentoring for Underrepresented Minority Facult

Author: Ruth Enid Zambrana, Rashawn Ray, Michelle M. Espino, Corinne Castro, Beth Douthirt Cohen, and Jennifer Eliason

Source: American Educational Research Journal 52.1 (Feb. 2015): 40-72.

Abstract: This article examines the mentoring experiences of 58 underrepresented minority (URM) faculty at 22 research-extensive institutions. Drawing on in-depth interviews and focus group data, participants discussed the importance of mentoring across the life course, the ideal attributes of mentoring relationships, the challenges to effective mentoring, and the role of political guidance. These data elicited three main themes regarding mentoring: (a) Life course practices geared toward accumulating social capital are critical, (b) major barriers are linked to the undervaluing of faculty research areas and community-engaged scholarly commitments, and (c) connections with mentors who understand the struggles specific to URMs at predominantly White institutions (PWIs) can assist with retention and success. This study provides a roadmap for shifting how we engage with URM faculty and strategies and knowledge to assess the effectiveness of mentoring to increase the retention of URM faculty.

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3. The Savage Origins of Child-Centered Pedagogy, 1871–1913

Author: Thomas Fallace

Source: American Educational Research Journal 52.1 (Feb. 2015): 73-103.

Abstract: Child-centered pedagogy is at the ideological core of progressive education. The simple idea that the child rather than the teacher or textbook should be the major focus of the classroom is, perhaps, the single most enduring educational idea of the era. In this historical study, the author argues that child-centered education emerged directly from the theory of recapitulation, the idea that the development of the White child retraced the history of the human race. The theory of recapitulation was pervasive in the fields of anthropology, sociology, and psychology at the turn of the 20th century, and so early progressive educators uncritically adopted the basic tenets of the theory, which served as a major rationale for child-centered instruction. The theory was inherently ethnocentric and racist because it pointed to the West as the developmental endpoint of history, thereby depicting people of color as ontologically less developed than their White counterparts.

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4. Learning to See Teaching in New Ways: A Foundation for Maintaining Cognitive Demand

Author: Miray Tekkumru Kisa and Mary Kay Stein

Source: American Educational Research Journal 52.1 (Feb. 2015): 105-136.

Abstract: Students’ opportunities to learn how to think are embedded in the instructional tasks with which they are invited to engage in the classroom. Prior research has revealed that the selection and use of cognitively demanding tasks does not guarantee high-level student thinking during their enactment. To address this challenge, we designed and implemented a professional development (PD) in which participants analyzed video clips of the enactment of cognitively demanding science tasks. Using transcripts of pre- and post-PD interviews during which participants were asked to respond to specially selected video clips, we analyzed what the participants attended to and how they made sense of what they saw. The findings suggested a change in terms of a growing tendency to attend to teaching as constituted in the interaction of the teacher, students, and task and to adopt an interpretive stance while talking about what was seen in the video clip.

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5. What Works in Gifted Education: Documenting the Effects of an Integrated Curricular/Instructional Model for Gifted Students

Author: Carolyn M. Callahan, Tonya R. Moon, Sarah Oh, Amy P. Azano, and Emily P. Hailey

Source: American Educational Research Journal 52.1 (Feb. 2015): 136-167.

Abstract: The heart of effective programming for gifted students lies in the integration of advanced curricula with effective instructional strategies to develop leaning activities that will enhance student learning outcomes. However, empirical evidence of the effectiveness of units based on such curricular and instructional interventions from large-scale experimental studies in multiple settings are limited. To document the effectiveness of units that integrated the principles from curricular and instructional models in the field of gifted education, two language arts units for gifted third graders were developed and tested in a randomized cluster design. Multilevel analyses of data collected from more than 200 classrooms document statistically significant differences favoring the treatment group over the comparison group on standards-referenced assessments.

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6. The Internal/External Frame of Reference Model of Self-Concept and Achievement Relations: Age-Cohort and Cross-Cultural Differences

Author: Herbert W. Marsh, Adel Salah Abduljabbar, Philip D. Parker, Alexandre J. S. Morin, Faisal Abdelfattah, Benjamin Nagengast, Jens Möller, and Maher M. Abu-Hilal

Source: American Educational Research Journal 52.1 (Feb. 2015): 168-202.

Abstract: The internal/external frame of reference (I/E) model and dimensional comparison theory posit paradoxical relations between achievement (ACH) and self-concept (SC) in mathematics (M) and verbal (V) domains; ACH in each domain positively affects SC in the matching domain (e.g., MACH to MSC) but negatively in the nonmatching domain (e.g., MACH to VSC). This substantive-methodological synergy based on latent variable models of Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) data supports the generalizability of these predictions in relation to: mathematics and science domains, intrinsic motivation as well as self-concept, and age and nationality, based on nationally representative matched samples of fourth- and eighth-grade students from three Middle Eastern Islamic, five Western, and four Asian countries (N=117,321 students) with important theoretical, developmental, cross-cultural, and methodological implications.