School Context: The Interrelationship of School Practice and Measurement

• In Event: 52.043 - Measuring What Matters: Broadening Measures of Success in Schools

Abstract

Objectives

To review the connections between school institutional practices and student learning experiences in schools

To explore the school as both a means through which measurement happens and as an object of measurement

Perspective

Examining the physical and social environments of schools that provide the basis for
student learning has been a subject of intense research interest over the past several
decades. Much of research and literature on organizational theory can be placed in two large paradigms; school climate (e.g. Voight, Austin, & Hanson, 2013) and school context (e.g. Crick, R., Green, H., Barr, S., Shafi, A., & Peng, W. , 2013) theoretical perspectives. Regardless of theoretical perspective, what may be critical is thinking of schools as both organizations through which applied measurement continually happens as well as objects, themselves which are open for adaptive change through measurement- understanding schools as places where innovative thinking and critical, diverse perspectives can exist, thrive, grow and be challenged.

Modes of Inquiry

The paper works on two different fronts in regards to consideration of the school as an organizational context from the perspective of both characteristics of school communities and sites where measurement happens. The paper first will draw from a comprehensive review of literature on school organizational theory across three decades of work using both the author’s own principal research as well as other researchers and scholars work in discussing the school both from a school context (e.g. Little, 1992; McLaughlin, 1993;
Bascia & Faubert, 2012) perspective and from a school climate (Cohen, McCabe, Michelli, & Pickeral, 2009) perspective.

The paper will then move the inquiry into a conversation of how we might measure quality learning environments within schools. What pitfalls and possibilities exist in building both understanding of rich learning connections between institutional practices in schools and pedagogic practices in classrooms and the potential for these connections to be measured and practiced. Central to the work is the connective links between a school’s institutional practices and the classroom environments that are nested with these practices (Bascia, 1994).


Point of view

The paper takes the position that understanding individual school and diverse within school context(s) is central to adapting and refining these practices in ways that enhance student learning experiences. The author argues avoiding checklist like approaches to measuring school context(s) requires attending to the material of what these general characteristics represent in local, immediate practices. Listing that teachers work together, for example, is not nearly as profound or deep a measurement as articulating what it is that teachers are working on together, their challenges and insights in ongoing collaborative or participatory work.

Significance

The paper offers insight into re-thinking the evaluation and measurement of schools as institutions. Moving away from general lists of practices or characteristics which are frequently used in attempts to measure school practices towards a measurement approach which deepens participant reflection and opens school membership to all within the hierarchical relations in which the school is structured.

Author

• Nina Bascia, University of Toronto - OISE