Institutional Complexity and the Multiple Reform Logics of Teacher Communities in U.S. Public Schools

• In Event: Understanding Educational Improvement Through the Lens of Institutional and Organizational Theory: From Teacher Communities to Teacher Evaluation

Abstract

Institutional theories have been criticized for not placing enough emphasis on human agency. The current work examines agency in institutional processes by examining how teachers translate and embed multiple institutional logics in school organizations. Using qualitative data on institutional logics and social network data on teacher interactions for 246 teachers from four schools in six periods, the current work finds that teachers translate logics through sensemaking in communities. As a result, multiple logics become embed in schools. Differences in community adherence to logics are driven by differences in community composition. Understanding these patterned differences may help policy makers and school leaders provide stronger rationales for reform and better respond to resistance based on different underlying logics.

Authors

• David Gilbert Sherer, Harvard University

• Ebony N. Bridwell-Mitchell, Harvard University

• David Quinn, Harvard University