Opportunities Lost: Local Translations of Advocacy Policy Conversations

Autor/inn/en	Ares, Nancy; Buendia, Edward
Titel	Opportunities Lost: Local Translations of Advocacy Policy Conversations
Quelle	In: Teachers College Record, 109 (2007) 3, S.561-589 (29 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1467-9620
Schlagwörter	Race; Social Class; Federal Legislation; Academic Achievement; Ideology; Educational Policy; At Risk Students; Advocacy; Educational Environment; Hidden Curriculum; Equal Education; Cultural Differences; Educational Strategies; Role of Education; Educational Philosophy + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Rasse; Abstammung; Social classes; Soziale Klasse; Bundesrecht; Schulleistung; Ideologie; Politics of education; Bildungspolitik; Sozialanwaltschaft; Lernumgebung; Pädagogische Umwelt; Schulumwelt; Heimlicher Lehrplan; Kultureller Unterschied; Lehrstrategie; Bildungsauftrag; Bildungsphilosophie; Erziehungsphilosophie
Abstract	Background/Context: Policy documents such as Title I of the No Child Left Behind Act [NCLB] (2001) direct schools and school systems to funnel resources to students based on their socioeconomic and linguistic status, as well as according to performance on standardized measures of achievement. Such conversations in the US about serving "at risk" students are powerful influences in schools' efforts to advocate for the academic and social success of their increasingly diverse student populations. In this sense, advocacy involves organizing curricula, programs, and resources to support the learning and development of students whose academic performance is perceived as threatened. Focus of Study: An important question that must be addressed is, "To what degree are school reform initiatives able to articulate a vision of advocacy without lapsing into historical narratives of racial division and individualism, the results of which are continued differential achievement and unequal treatment of students based on socioeconomic, cultural, and linguistic markers?" It is equally important to understand how advocacy policies are translated at the school level. The advocacy policy of the reform we examine serves as an example of a vision grounded in an individually focused, colorblind policy, and the translation process as an example of how colorblindness precludes true reform focused on equity. Thus, this work adds to literature in both educational policy and in implementation of reform. Research Design: Analyses of policy and enactment of policy in a whole-district school reform effort examined educators' translation of national and local policy discourses. We pinpoint why the crafting and translation of advocacy policy came out the way it did, and how it could have been different. We connect policy and practice by identifying points of translation where true reform focused on equity might have been undertaken. Conclusions/Recommendations: District staff, principals, and teachers first translated the district office's advocacy policy by hybridizing institutional, historical discourses of the individual with discourses of racial difference, and then these same teachers and principals translated their interpretation at the level of their own school setting by hybridizing race-based advocacy with assimilationist ideologies of the purpose of school. We argue for expansion of such individually focused notions of advocacy to capture the fact that students experience schooling differentially based on their membership in social class, ethnic/racial, cultural, and/or linguistic groups. Implications of individually focused, colorblind advocacy policies for the success of this reform in particular and school reform in general are explored. (As Provided).
Anmerkungen	Teachers College, Columbia University. P.O. Box 103, 525 West 120th Street, New York, NY 10027. Tel: 212-678-3774; Fax: 212-678-6619; e-mail: tcr@tc.edu; Web site: http://www.tcrecord.org
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10